-Tywon Lawson is honestly out to break my heart. Maybe the biggest point in his favor was his otherworldly scoring efficiency at NC; he’s gone ahead and started his NBA career 1-15 from the field. That’s 7% shooting. That will improve, but yeesh.
-Meanwhile, Andray Blatche continues to make his case for the inaugural class of the Summer League Hall of Fame with Nate Robinson, Anthony Randolph, and Sergio Rodriguez. There is nothing he can’t do on a basketball court at 6’11, and no mistake he won’t make.
-Demar is starting to come around and settle into his role as a scoring option.
-Brandon Jennings is making the case that he’s every bit as talented as people thought when he was killin’ it for Oak Hill.
-It looks increasingly likely that Lamar Odom will not be a Laker next season; if Bynum is finally healthy and ready to go this season, that crunch-time five could feature 3 different players from the championship crunch-time 5.
-Two things on this: Kobe and Pau are so good that they’ll almost definitely be contenders anyways.
-Also, if other elite teams can shake up their lineups that much, then we shouldn’t shudder at the idea of bringing in a Kleiza and inserting him directly in the starting lineup along with Shaq, assuming we still have a move for a “stretch” 4 like Kleiza in our holster. Preserving the status quo is comfortable, but you can never rest on your laurels in this league. It’d be true even if the Cavs won the championship, and it’s certainly true now.
(And yes, I realize I still haven’t written my post that outlines why Shaq would, in a perfect world, come off the bench for this team. Argue about this while I’m in court listening to the professionals argue.)
“It looks increasingly unlikely that Lamar Odom will not be a Laker next season” unlikely that will not be … so … he will be?
I think he meant to write either: (a) looks increasingly likely that LO will not be a Laker… or (b) looks increasingly unlikely that LO will be a Laker…
By context, seems like he will not be there (3 different starters).
Shaq would be great off the bench. Although Jeff Van Gundy, who is a fan of the Cavs, stated that if Mike Brown wants to get fired he can do just that… it makes sense for matchup and lineup purposes. It was already outlined how the substitution patterns would work. Shaq has already stated he wouldn’t mind riding the pine to start the game…
-It looks increasingly unlikely that Lamar Odom will not be a Laker next season; if Bynum is finally healthy and ready to go this season, that crunch-time five could feature 3 different players from the championship crunch-time 5.
Funny, i was thinking it was looking pretty likely that LO would still be there. But based on this sentence I am guessing John means he will likely not be, since the crunch time five for LAL would replace Odom, Fisher, and Ariza with Artest, Farmar, and Bynum.
this is why i’m happy we traded for shaq.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPpYDuU0Gps&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fneswsports.com%2F2009%2F07%2F16%2Fshaq-michael-jackson-tribute-beat-it-music-video%2F&feature=player_embedded
Yea, Shaq is most likely to start games on the bench because I don’t see Varajeo being happy with not being a starter. I have doubts about those two playing extended minutes together.
I think it could work in 4th quarters when the game slows down, with Shaq in the post & Varajeo roaming to set picks & make cuts to the hoop. That should leave Lebron enough space to operate
Anyway, the important thing is the crunchtime lineup, not the starting lineup. That is just about egos; you’d think Ginobli & the Spurs would have shown that by now. Leaving aside his on-going injuries, I don’t think there are many people who think “bench player” when they think of Manu.
Super excited to see how this team plays, I will definitely get my NBA league pass to watch the Cavs after passing on it during the 08-09 season.
Tarence Kinsey: 111 minutes played 0 Assists
Kicking John while he’s down with respect to TK… ouch. I’m not sure he’ll be making the trip back to Cleveland.