Posts - Silver Screen and Roll - For Los Angeles Lakers Fans

The Triangle is here to stay for a while, even if our coach isn't

by C.A. Clark on Sep 2, 2010 9:08 AM PDT in Editorial Comment 83 comments

The Triangle offense has enjoyed a nice little run of success over the past 20 years. Since the 1990-91 season, there have been more champions who believe in the principles of the ol' "Triple Post" offense than use some other antiquated stategy for putting a ball in an iron hoop. Really, when you think about it, it's a minor miracle that so few teams have tried to give the Triangle a shot. If this were a copy cat league like the NFL, a full 60-70% of the league's teams would be trying to duplicate success by running the Triangle, and screen-roll dominant guards like Chris Paul and Rajon Rondo might be reduced to coming off the bench for a few minutes at a time, as Kevin Harlan proclaims "It looks like the Hornets are turning to their Wildcat offense, looking for a spark"

But the NBA is not a copy cat league. In the NBA, each coach has their system, and they tend to stick to that system as stubbornly as my local brewery sticks to its silly notion that pants should be required for service. Not so coincidentally, the Triangle's reign of success has resided within the same space/time continuum as one Phil Jackson, who's resume contains all eleven of those Triangle-running championship squads. Of course, it's not just pride that keeps other coaches from attempting to adopt what has proven to be a winning strategy. There are a number of reasons why, depsite its high level of success, the Triangle doesn't look like an appealing option for a coach on the outside looking in.

For one, the offense is a bit tricky to grasp. Just ask Ron Artest, who's positioning and comfort within the Triangle last year was his one gloriously hideous blemish on an otherwise stellar season. If understanding it is that hard, one can reasonably assume that teaching it is even more difficult. In addition, not all coaches are lucky enough to have had Tex Winter on speed dial to help out with the Triangle's finer points. Health has reduced Tex's role in Phil Jackson's life lately, but for most of the past 20 years, PJ has had one hell of a Triangle tutor on call if things start to break down.

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83 comments | 4 recs |

The Credits: "Variety"

by wondahbap on Sep 2, 2010 9:03 AM PDT in Credits Comment 51 comments

More photos » David Zalubowski - AP

I know, he's not a Laker, but the Celtics re-signed him and I think it was a good pick up. So long as he stays away from Ray Allen's mom.

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Much more after the Jump...

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51 comments |

Predicted Lakers Stats for Next Season

by ActuarialSound on Sep 2, 2010 8:17 AM PDT Comment 24 comments

I saw the attempt by another poster to predict the Lakers stats for the upcoming season. Some of his assumptions looked like they were a bit unrealistic so here is my attempt.

The method I used was to look at each players per minute stats for the last 3 years. I then made selections for the upcoming season's per minute stats. I then made a selection for the number of games a player would play next season and how many minutes they would play. I then multiplied the per minutes stats by number of minutes they will play to get the per game stats. Here are the results:

Player	G	MPG	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Kobe Bryant	75	34	9.1	19.4	47.1%	1.3	3.8	35.0%	5.2	6.1	85.0%	0.9	3.8	4.7	4.3	1.2	0.3	2.6	2.3	24.8
Pau Gasol	74	33	6.7	11.9	56.0%	0.0	0.0	0.0%	3.9	5.0	79.0%	3.1	6.4	9.5	3.0	0.6	1.4	1.8	2.0	17.3
Andrew Bynum	70	30	6.3	10.8	58.0%	0.0	0.0	0.0%	3.0	4.2	73.0%	2.8	5.5	8.2	1.3	0.4	1.6	1.8	2.9	15.6
Lamar Odom	80	28	4.1	8.6	48.4%	0.5	1.6	32.0%	1.9	2.7	68.0%	2.0	6.2	8.2	2.8	0.9	0.8	1.6	2.6	10.6
Ron Artest	74	30	3.7	8.8	42.0%	1.4	3.8	38.0%	1.4	2.0	71.0%	1.1	2.6	3.7	2.8	1.3	0.3	1.3	1.9	10.2
Matt Barnes	78	23	3.3	7.2	45.7%	1.0	3.1	33.0%	1.2	1.6	74.5%	1.1	3.7	4.8	1.9	0.6	0.3	1.3	2.0	8.8
Steve Blake	78	23	2.8	6.5	42.5%	1.4	3.3	41.0%	0.5	0.6	78.0%	0.3	1.7	2.0	3.8	0.6	0.1	1.3	1.3	7.4
Derek Fisher	78	24	2.2	5.9	37.6%	0.9	2.4	37.0%	1.1	1.3	85.0%	0.3	1.5	1.7	2.1	0.9	0.1	0.9	2.3	6.4
Shannon Brown	76	16	2.4	5.6	43.2%	0.6	1.8	33.0%	0.9	1.1	82.0%	0.3	1.6	1.9	1.1	0.5	0.3	0.8	1.1	6.3
Sasha Vujacic	70	9	1.1	2.8	39.5%	0.5	1.5	35.0%	0.4	0.5	85.0%	0.3	0.8	1.1	0.6	0.4	0.1	0.3	1.1	3.1
Luke Walton	10	7	0.8	2.0	40.1%	0.1	0.4	32.0%	0.2	0.3	70.0%	0.3	0.6	0.9	1.0	0.2	0.0	0.3	0.6	2.0
Devin Ebanks	30	7	0.6	1.4	43.7%	0.1	0.2	30.0%	0.4	0.5	77.0%	0.3	0.9	1.2	0.5	0.2	0.1	0.4	0.9	1.6
Derrick Character	30	7	0.6	1.2	51.8%	0.0	0.1	27.0%	0.3	0.5	68.0%	0.4	1.2	1.7	0.3	0.2	0.2	0.4	0.9	1.6
Theo Ratliff	45	9	0.6	1.3	46.0%	0.0	0.0	0.0%	0.4	0.6	68.0%	0.7	1.1	1.7	0.3	0.2	0.7	0.3	1.0	1.5
Total			39.0	82.0	47.5%	7.1	19.8	36.0%	18.4	23.7	77.7%	11.7	32.4	44.1	22.4	7.1	5.0	13.0	19.2	103.4

24 comments | 1 recs |

USA-Tunisia Open Thread

by DexterFishmore on Sep 2, 2010 6:15 AM PDT in Game Threads Comment 17 comments

These games are getting earlier and earlier. For instance, today's USA-Tunisia game is actually taking place two days ago. If that seems impossible, it's only because you're not a worldly, educated blogger like me, Dexter Fishmore.

Did you know that YouTube is banned in Tunisia? It's true! Sucks for them, because it means they don't get to read the awesome comments for this video.

17 comments |

The Credits: "Deep Impact"

by theshmoes on Sep 1, 2010 8:47 AM PDT Comment 138 comments

More photos » Ronald Martinez - Getty Images

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Starring: Andrew Bynum and whether or not he can live up to his talent next year

Much more after the jump...

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138 comments |

USA-Iran Open Thread

by DexterFishmore on Sep 1, 2010 8:45 AM PDT in Game Threads Comment 66 comments

That's Hamed Haddadi up there, blocking Andrew Bynum's shot. H2 plays for the Iranian national team, which is scheduled to get crushed by Team USA this morning. The game's on ESPN at 9:00 California time.

No one's too jazzed about how the Americans looked against Brazil the other day, but whatevs. Team USA is 3-0 in round play so far and need only take care of Iran and Tunisia to get to the knockout round undefeated. Those two are a combined 1-5, so I'm liking the odds of that happening.

In slightly more exciting news, only 33 days until the Lakers' first preseason game!

66 comments |

Hey, You. Create Humor. Now! 8/31

by LakersFoEva on Aug 31, 2010 7:22 AM PDT Comment 281 comments

I've been wanting to do this for a while now, and really haven't been inspired to create a FanPost, until I found a picture that I recently posted in the credits. See it here: The Credits: "Anchorman". I'll save that picture for another time as I'm sure it would create some ~~lude~~ funny comments that need to be kept tucked away until this contest has gotten off on the right foot, lol.

Similar to how the rough cuts have taken over the start of this long offseason (even though i haven't seen one in a while........... who's turn is it anyways..........) I'd like to start a weekly ritual. With all the humor and inside jokes that fly around this blog, I think we could come up with some pretty hilarious comments in a create-a-caption contest. I'm going to try to post a picture every Tuesday for us to experiment on. I'll try to keep them Laker or NBA related, but sometimes I may not be able to resist. Create as many captions as you want, just make 'em funny. The comment that receives the most rec's will win. In the next weeks post, I'll tell you who the winners are (the top 3-5 answers) and attach the new create-a-caption picture. I'll also keep a running tab of who has the most wins. At the end of the season, the winner will be declared and crowned Create-A-Caption Contest Champion 2011 (CCCC 2011 or 4C '11). You will win bragging rights for the year and possibly and year supply of cookies (did someone say CUHKIES!!!!!!!!)

and maybe Dex will even throw in his secret combination to his cat pic vault (which I heard is guarded by a cat who he equipped with some high-tech weaponry..........)

Continue for the actual Create-A-Caption Contest picture. Remember to have fun. The best remedy for anything in life is laughter.