Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant announced today that he is not getting surgery on his right pinkie. Bryant originally injured his finger on February 5 while trying to steal the ball from Jason Kidd.
Bryant said he visited many hand specialists, and decided not to have surgery after hearing that he could be out for 12 weeks to recover. He had originally planned to have surgery after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but has decided against it.
Los Angeles Lakers center Andrew Bynum is ready to play after his breakout season was shortened by a knee injury which caused the need for arthroscopic surgery after averaging a double double with 13.1 points and 10.1 rebounds. The Lakers training camp begins September 30, and Bynum says he'll be better than ever.
"The knee's good. Everything's ready to go, 100 percent. I've been training, getting stronger. I can't wait, man," Bynum said. "I think I'm the only guy who wants the season to start, like, tomorrow, you know what I mean? But I just can't wait to play with the fellows."
Bynum, as well as all Lakers fans, are anxiously waiting his teaming with Pau Gasol. Gasol will shift to power forward, making a scary combo up front for other teams to deal with.
You know it's the dead of summer when there's absolutely no new Laker news. Haha. Anyway, there's a debate on Hoopsworld about who's better between Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, and I'd like to put my input on it out there.
The writer arguing LeBron's side, of course mentions the thing that you always hear when saying he's better: he's stronger and bigger. Oooh wow, size and strength automatically makes you better? If anything, that's another point for Kobe being better since he's working with less size and strength than LeBron.
Another mention is that LeBron has a higher scoring average, and more specifically, more points scored in the beginning of his career than Kobe does. Well, let's see, Kobe had high scoring teammates already like Shaq, Nick Van Exel, and Eddie Jones, so he obviously didn't get the playing time or have as much of a scoring responsibility as LeBron did at the beginning of his career. Let's take the top 4 scorers from each team (other than Kobe or LeBron) from their rookie seasons. For the Lakers in Kobe's rookie season (1996-97), we have Shaq with 26.2 points, Jones with 17.2, Van Exel with 15.3, and Elden Campbell with 14.9 for a total of 73.6 points. For the Cavaliers in LeBron's rookie season (2003-04), we have Carlos Boozer with 15.5 points, Zydrunas Ilgauskas with 15.3, Jeff McInnis with 11.7, and Eric Williams with 9.4 for a total of 51.9 points. Their sophomore seasons tell the same story, with the Lakers' top 4 (other than Kobe) scoring 71, and the Cavs' top 4 (other than LeBron) scoring 50.
Basically, what I'm trying to get across in the above paragraph is that of course LeBron is going to score more in his early seasons, LeBron didn't have as much talent on his team than Kobe did, so he had to score more and got more opportunities to score more than Kobe. Put Kobe on a team with less talent when he was in his early seasons, and he would have done the same. Which brings me to a related point. The LeBron supporters in the debate point to the fact that he started more games early in his career than Kobe did. LeBron started 79 games his rookie season and 80 his sophomore season. Kobe started 6 games his rookie season and 1 his sophomore season. Again, the reason Kobe's numbers are so low is because of all the talent that he had on his team, not the talent of Kobe himself.
There's no doubt in my mind that LeBron is talented (can you believe LeBron is only 23 years old?!), but it seems like the majority of the reasons given why he's better than Kobe have an asterisk by that given reason. LeBron will be better than Kobe someday in the future, but until LeBron wins the NBA Championship, improves his defense, and becomes more of a clutch shooter with a killer instinct, Kobe Bryant is a better player than LeBron James.
The Los Angeles Lakers have signed Joe Crawford. Crawford is the Lakers 2008 second round draft pick who went 58th overall. The official press release is below, from Lakers.com:
"The Los Angeles Lakers have signed guard Joe Crawford, it was announced today. Per team policy, terms of the agreement were not released.
Selected by the Lakers with the 58th pick in the 2008 NBA Draft, Crawford, a 22 year-old native of Detroit, Michigan, played four seasons at the University of Kentucky, averaging 11.3 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 127 games (76 starts).
As a senior, Crawford ranked fourth in the SEC in scoring with a team-high 17.9 points per game, scoring 20-plus points 13 times while topping 30 points on three occasions.
Earning Second Team All-SEC honors from league coaches as a senior, Crawford finished his collegiate career as Kentucky’s 19th all-time leading scorer with 1,438 points while ranking seventh all-time in three-point field goals made (186).
Additionally, the 6’5” Crawford started all six games for the Lakers Summer League entry in Las Vegas this past July, averaging 11.3 points including .455 (5-of-11) shooting from behind the arc, 2.7 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 32.7 minutes."
With Olympic basketball done (Team USA won the gold today!), we can get back to focusing on the NBA's offseason, and of course, the ongoing events with our Los Angeles Lakers. We're slightly over 2 months away from the start of the NBA season, and with the schedule released, here are the Laker games to look forward to in the 2008-09 season:
This season will be an interesting one with the ultra-competitive Western Conference teams all fighting for the 8 playoff spots. The return of Andrew Bynum will make the Lakers an even better team than last season. We've been waiting to see the extremely tall frontcourt of Bynum, Pau Gasol, and Lamar Odom, and we will get our first look at them October 28 when the regular season starts.
I've listed games that I look forward to above, but do you have any others that you look forward to seeing this season? Sound off in the comments if there's a game that you are excited to see.
