Kobe Bryant Vs. LeBron James

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.

Lakers Sign Joe Crawford

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."

2008-09 Laker Games To Look Forward To

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:

• Oct. 28, Lakers vs. Portland - This of course is opening night in the NBA, and with it, we get a great matchup of Andrew Bynum against Greg Oden. Both players are coming off of injuries, but will be ready for the matchup of the 2 young centers.
• Nov. 9, Lakers vs. Houston - The Lakers get their first look at the trio of Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming, and the newly acquired Ron Artest. Artest was rumored to be heading to the Lakers, and he even thought that the team he was heading to when he heard about the trade was the Lakers. Expect a great game on this night.
• Nov. 30, Lakers. vs. Toronto - This offseason, the Raptors made a nice (and underrated, in my opinion) trade to acquire Jermaine O'Neal. O'Neal will pair up with Chris Bosh to make one of the best front lines in the NBA. Expect many blocked or altered shots when players try to drive into the paint.
• Dec. 3, Lakers @ Philadelphia - We'll see a lot of entertaining matchups for this game, as we'll see Kobe Bryant against Andre Iguodala, Pau Gasol against newly acquired Elton Brand, and Andrew Bynum against Samuel Dalembert.
• Dec. 25, Lakers vs. Boston - As we all expected, Lakers vs. Celtics is scheduled for Christmas. This is a rematch from the 2008 NBA finals, but with one big difference: Andrew Bynum will be playing. Bynum will need to show us what was missing from the finals matchup against the Celtics.
• Jan. 14, Lakers @ San Antonio - The Lakers meet the Spurs, who they knocked out of the playoffs in a surprisingly easy fashion in 5 games in the Western Conference finals. Though the Spurs are an old team, they are still one of the top teams in the NBA, and you can't underestimate them. The Lakers will need to play hard to win this game.
• Jan. 19, Lakers vs. Cleveland - As usual, this game will be heavily hyped. "Kobe Bryant vs. LeBron James" is something that you will hear the announcers say plenty of times during this game, and you know that all eyes will be on them.
• Apr. 14, Lakers vs. Utah - This is a rematch of the Western Conference semifinals, which went to 6 games. Utah is a tough team to beat with the combination of Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer, but the Lakers have shown they can beat them. This is the last game of the season for the Lakers, which if this season is anything like last season, it could decide a higher (or lower) seeding in the playoffs.

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.

Lakers Sign Josh Powell

The Los Angeles Lakers have signed forward Josh Powell today. He won't even have to get used to a new arena or buy a new house since last season he played for the Los Angeles Clippers. Powell averaged 5.5 points and 5.2 rebounds last season with the Clippers. In three seasons, he has a career average of 4.2 points and 3.6 rebounds.

More on the signing here.

The Lakers 2008-09 Schedule Breakdown

As I had posted on this post, the full 2008-09 schedule for the Los Angeles Lakers is available, and I wanted to take a look in detail about it, so here's a breakdown of the schedule:

• Oct./Nov. : 10 home, 5 away. A home-heavy schedule for the beginning of the season, including one away game against the Clippers. Only 3 back-to-backs. A moderate difficulty level in terms of the competition played.
• Dec. : 7 home, 8 away. Just about even between home and away games. 4 back-to-backs. An easy month against the competition.
• Jan. : 10 home, 6 away. Another home-heavy month, including an away game against the Clippers. 4 back-to-backs. Fairly tough month against the competition.
• Feb. : 4 home, 9 away. Here's the first road-heavy month for the Lakers. 4 back-to-backs. Another fairly tough month in difficulty.
• Mar. : 5 home, 10 away. The second straight road-heavy month for Los Angeles. Only 2 back-to-backs (plus first half of one leading into April). Very tough competition this month.
• Apr. : 5 home, 3 away. Slightly more home games at the end of the regular season. Only 1 back-to-back (plus the second half of the back-to-back starting at the end of March). Fairly easy month against the competition.

The Lakers have a total of 19 back-to-back games this season. We don't have that many big breaks, which is good since teams are usually cold after not playing for a while. We have 3 times where we have 3 straight games off, all in November, 4 straight games off between December and January, and 5 straight games off for the All Star break in February.

As Laker fans know, Tuesdays are always a common day for Laker games, and this season is no exception. Tuesday leads the Laker season with 20 games. Sunday and Friday each have 16 games. Wednesday is next with 13 games this season. 9 Thursdays have Laker games. Mondays and Saturdays have the least amount of Laker games with only 4 each.