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Showtime’s Over
The Los Angeles Lakers are one of two most premier franchises in the National Basketball Association, the other being the Boston Celtics. For years, The NBA was dominated by the two organizations.
In 1979, one of the greatest business men to have lived purchased the Lakers’ organization and seemingly took them to arguably the greatest time period of basketball, the “Showtime” era with stars such as Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar and highlight offense. On February 18th, 2013, Jerry Buss died of kidney failure and with his death. With his death, any chance the Lakers had of reclaiming those glory days has passed.
Jerry’s son, Jim Buss, now has control of the Lakers and essentially will ruin the franchise. With his stubbornness to higher the greatest coach in basketball, Phil Jackson, earlier this year, the first act was in place. Now with complete control of the organization, Jim’s refusal to trade Dwight Howard will put full control of the business to Howard, a player who has no idea what he wants as of right now. The current situation is no different than what Dwight did previously last offseason to the Orlando Magic organization.
The Orlando Magic essentially followed every whim this summer to try and convince Howard to stay, even firing their long standing coach Stan Van Gundy who Howard was not fond of from his system. Still without receiving a full commitment from Howard and needing to reestablish the team, the group finally was forced to trade him knowing he would leave in the offseason for bigger, brighter lights and money while the team would be left with nothing to rebuild with.
Jim Buss’ refusal to trade Howard puts the ball in Howard’s court essentially. Now, Howard will choose where he goes at the end of the season but, with his list of demands a higher priority of the Lakers if they choose to extend and offer and “woo” him. Howard passionately hates current head coach Mike DanToni, so to resign Howard to a contract, the Lakers will most likely have to fire him for a better system involving Howard. Howard also wants to be paid the Max Contract, which will drastically put the Lakers over the league cap room baring a huge penalty fee, all in order to keep an overrated star. Howard may be worth the money for the contract but, the 30 Million fee is hopefully not in the Lakers best plans.
Trading Dwight, even if you couldn’t get fair value, would have eliminated the money situation holding the team hostage as well as the requirement of a new coach. Finally, the Lakers could easily rebuild attracting new free agent players in the offseason to a historic franchise in Los Angeles!
If Jerry Buss were here, would he have traded Dwight? We will never know, however we do know this, by keeping Dwight, showtime is over in the city LA.
R.I.P Jerry Buss
“Oh Dwight”
Dwight Howard, possibly the most primma donna in the NBA. I mean let’s all be honest here. Everyone remembers what happened in Orlando with Stan Van Gundy. He single handily destroyed that franchise and left them with just about nothing. Thinking his problems would leave him in Los Angeles, he teamed up with Kobe Bryant for a dream team run at a title. How has that worked? Well now he might possibly obliterated the Lakers. Howard has become injury prone, and has spread that problem to Pau Gasol, who is no longer starting because of bad chemistry when Howard is on the court at the same time. The only thing Howard hasn’t killed is most likely your fantasy basketball team. Though your lineup might be next on his list.
Howard now is suffering from a nagging shoulder injury, which is not going to go away. Howard must deal with this injury and play through it. Even Kobe agrees being quoted as saying “there is no time to wait for Howard’s shoulder to heal. We need some urgency” (Jackie MacMullen). With Pau Gasol now out 6-8 weeks with a torn Plantar Fascia and Jordan Hill out the remainder of the season with a hip injury, the lakers only have two options left for big men. Yes two. Dwight Howard and then the one man that can save the Lakers and possibly your fantasy team if you own either. Two Words. EARL CLARK.
Earl Clark. Small Forward/Power Forward. Los Angeles Lakers. Owned in 68% of leagues
Earl Clark is the next big craze to hit the NBA. First gaining popularity by taking Gasol’s starting job, and now becoming the only reliable Forward on this desperate team. Clark could turn out to be the next big thing averaging 13 points and 10 rebounds in 36 minutes of play time. Not only though is he playing offense, he has helped this team step up on defense averaging 1.3 steals and 1.3 blocks over the last 3 games. Clark seems to be a favorite too of Dantoni. Expect his minutes to rise while Gasol is out and as this rises, so will his contribution to your fantasy team as well as the Los Angeles Lakers. He is only owned shockingly in only 68% of standard ESPN leagues making him easy to pick up. Also Clark can play the three and four position or fantasy terms Small Forward and Power Forward. This makes Clark even more accessible for your lineup.
At this point, Dwight Howard is no longer part of the solution to the Los Angeles Lakers or to your fantasy team either. Though it is not Pau Gasol’s fault, he no longer is the solution either. As the old saying goes, “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” As of now, neither can help you too much. Add Earl Clark and do yourself a favor.
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All Stats are Credit to ESPN.
If you would like to see the Kobe Conversation With Jackie MacMullen, here you go http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/story/_/id/8924249/kobe-bryant-challenges-dwight-howard-return-shoulder-injury-play-pain
THE Fantasy Funderbolt! 