Re: Lakers Set To Win Championship With Rice Acquisition

[damekmo@teleport.com]

>What the hell happened to one that
>was known as "Trader Rick"?  The guy that use to throw
>caution to the wind.  The Lakers are going to win the
>chapionship, because they acquired Rodman and Rice
>and fired their coach.

Now MG, let's not get ahead of ourselves. The Lakers should've been in the
finals the last two years, but they choked. Obviously West has done a great
job ...however...there's no guarantee that Rodman won't explode and that
they'll be better with a no defense/rebounding starter at small forward.
Rice is going to have to get his minutes and his shots. Kobe goes back to
shooting guard? To be honest I think West should ride this out and not make
any moves...but, I've picked them to come out of the west for two years
now...so

>They're not hesitant to shake
>the tree and see what falls down.

So what's fallen out of that tree that Pitino keeps shaking: Travis
Knight...Tony Battie...Chris Mills...Popeye Jones...Tony Massenburg, Kenny
Anderson...Dwayne Schintzius (I know, nobody traded for this stiff but
Pitino actually thought he was going to help!)? I say Pitino stays away
from trees for a while.

>We can all look
>forward to seeing Antoine Walker bulk up... Ahhh,
>what a load of crap.

I have to admit...I'm pretty tired of hearing about the magic of weight
rooms and bulking up. Pitino and his magic powers of transformation...see
Schintzius. Kenny isn't going to suddenly concentrate on defense just
because his coach does. Unless he's moving Barros, Popeye, Battie,
Minor..you get the picture...I'm all for Pitino putting down the phone and
concentrating on winning as many games as possible for a while.
However...MG...it's early days yet. 9pm on Thursday? There's still plenty
of time and, to be honest, I'd be shocked/pleasantly surprised if Ricky
doesn't make a move. All this talk of his suddenly being careful?!? If they
lose tonight the phone's going to start ringing and he's going to start
shaking and sweating.

Paul M.