What’s Lakers’ Next Step?

“Do something and do it now”. That is what Kobe Bryant had said to the Lakers’ general manager, Mitch Kupchak, in front of the media a few weeks ago.

Think of this, Lakers had lost in their first round of the playoff series two years in a row and had lost both years to the Suns. No wonder that Kobe would say something like that. As a matter of fact, we all know that the Lakers need to do some adjustments to the team, but what kind of adjustments?

Trade is definitely one of the adjustments that Lakers have to work on this summer. The thing is what type of the player do the Lakers want on their roster?

During the post season, New Jersey Nets was thinking to trade their all star point guard – Jason Kidd to Lakers for their young talent – Andrew Bynum. Nevertheless, Lakers refused to put Bynum in the trade for this 8 time NBA all star. Recently people are talking about another possibility for trading their star forward – Lamor Odom. Some think he has too many injuries that he won’t be able to play his best. Others think even though Odom is a talented player, he doesn’t fit in the spot in Phil Jackson’s play.

I have no idea who is going to be on Lakers trading list; however, I think Lakers should pick someone who can be another playmaker except Kobe Bryant. Lakers need to find a person to step up and help Kobe when he is in trouble. They need someone that can make a play or score when number 24 got “triple” team.

Lakers need to redeem themselves. They have to decide what is the direction they want to take and make changes to approach it immediately. It’s a good thing to have someone like Kobe Bryant on your team.  He is a talented player who can assist a team to win their championship; however, he now desperately needs some help from his teammates and the organization.

Lakers ends the season in game 5

It was a hard week for the Lakers fans. Unfortunately the Los Angeles Lakers lost in the western conference playoff first-round series to Phoenix Suns in game five last Wednesday (Suns won the series 4-1). After the terrible lost at their home court in game four, Lakers fought hard and tried to catch back in game five. It was a pity that the Lakers couldn’t come back from the inferior position and fight the Phoenix Suns till game seven; however, I could definitely feel their vitality on the court.

But here comes the question, did Lakers give their best in the series?

My answer would be; yes, Lakers did everything they could in the series. The truth is they are just simply not good enough! Even though Kobe Bryant averaged the highest score in the entire season and Lamar Odom scored a playoff career high 33 points and had 10 rebounds in the last game, they still couldn’t help the team to get the victory.

I didn’t feel surprise that Lakers lost to the Suns. In fact, I didn’t expect them to win the series and go up to the next round since Suns played much better than most of the teams this season (Suns holds the second best records before playoff).

Besides that, Lakers also bothered by the injuries since the beginning of the season. Kobe Bryant missed several games due to the knee surgery. Lamar Odom was also dealing with the injured left shoulder and right knee the entire post season. Two other starting players, Kwame Brown and Luke Walton also suffered from their injuries during the season.

However, as a Lakers fan; I just hoped to see the best effort they made to improve their games. Laker is a young team that has a lot of potential, but there is still a long way for them to approach the championship. They certainly going to make some big adjustments to the team this summer; let us just set back and wish the best to the Lakers.

Prologue

Before I start to talk about the topic of this web log, I want to begin with a little information about myself. I am Kevin. Most of my friends call me Kev. I grew up in Taiwan and went to Los Angeles, CA at age 18. I am currently a student enrolled in a school called BCIT, which located in Burnaby BC, Canada and this is my 3rd week in the school. The reason I created this web log is for one of my New Media courses. The purpose of this project is to provide us an opportunity to experience and to communicate properly in the real web world. I was really confused when the instructor first asked us to think of a topic for the web log. I had no idea what to write on my web log. After a little research on others’ web logs, I decided to write about something that I am always interested in and have a huge passion for. A sport many considered to be one of the best sports in the human history, the basketball.

I played basketball since age 10. Just like others, I am also a big fan of Michael Jordan, who is known as the player that has the most impact in the NBA history. During the Chicago Bull dynasty, I watched NBA games almost everyday and I was proud of my ability to remember each player’s name, height, and their jersey numbers. It was a great time for most basketball fans, except for those whose team had lost to Chicago Bulls in the championship series. However, everything changed after MJ’s second retirement. NBA’s audience ratings went down. Many people stop watching NBA games and I was one of them believe it or not. A lot of people were saying that the NBA is not going to bring their audience back due to the lost of Michael. Nevertheless, the new generation players in the league proved us otherwise. It started with the Los Angeles Lakers. Two of the most talented players in the league, Shaquille O’neil and Kobe Bryant had led their team to three consecutive NBA championships during year 2000 to 2002. Then in year 2003, Leborn James, who has been named the Savior of the league, joined the world’s most competitive basketball league to the Cleveland Cavaliers. More and more young and talented players, such as Carmelo and D-Wade, joined the league with a lot of passion and energy that eventually changed the atmosphere and brought back the audience.

Since I’m a big fan of basketball, my blog is going to be focused on one of the teams in the NBA. The team that I will be talking about is the Los Angeles Lakers. I choose the LA Lakers because I was there to witness their fall from grace. This was a team that had won three consecutive championships, but now struggles to squeeze into the playoff after they trade the big fellow, Shaq. I will give my point of view on the players and the team’s development in the coming weeks. In addition, I will also provide some personal experience from what I have learned and experienced through the teams I used to play in LA. From time to time, I will also post some updates regarding to the team that I used to play. The last thing I want to mention here is that I hope this blog can be a nice place for everyone to share and exchange their comments on the topics. Please be respectful to others’ opinions. No matter which team you support, we all love this game, don’t we?

Well, the Lakers are currently in a really bad position against the Suns in the western playoff bracket. Let’s wish them the best and I’ll start to write more about them this coming week