Lakers Trade Vladimir Radmanovic, Get Bobcats' Adam Morrison

The Los Angeles Lakers have shipped resident shooter Vladimir Radmanovic to the the Charlotte Bobcats for forward Adam Morrison and Shannon Brown.

I think it's a lateral move for the Lakers as they swapped shooting forwards with the Bobcats. The Lakers do get a younger prospect in Morrison and an athletic guard in Brown, but lose Vlad's streaky shooting.

Is this a good move for the Lakers? For the financial books, it makes sense. On the court, I'm not so sure.


Technorati: Los Angeles Lakers

December 25: Boston Celtics vs. Los Angeles Lakers

December 25 is no doubt a very special day all over the world-- it's the day we celebrate Christmas.

But for the Los Angeles Lakers and Lakers fans all over the world, it's a day that gets circled on everyone's calendar. It's the day the Lakers' long-time nemesis and recent tormentor, the Boston Celtics, will be paying a visit to the Staples Center.

At this point, the Lakers still need to face the Miami Heat, the Orlando Magic, the Memphis Grizzlies and the New Orleans Hornets before they actually play the Celtics. Fine, that's still four games with two major opponents (the Magic and the Hornets), but can't we just skip that and go straight to December 25?

The match-up is much anticipated because the changes both the teams had after the 2008 NBA Finals.The Celtics lost James Posey while the Lakers got Andrew Bynum and Trevor Ariza back into their lineup. The Celtics starters of Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo (called the Fantastic Four as of late) have been stellar, whereas the Lakers have been beating teams on their depth. (If you can afford to put Vladimir Radmanovic as your third-stringer forward, then you gotta be deep, right?)

Finally, it may well be a game of defense versus offense: the Lakers have been defeating teams by outscoring them, the Celtics the opposite. But we all know which way wins championships.

One final note: the game will be played on LA's home turf, and I think will be the X-factor.


Tags: Los Angeles Lakers

The Lakers Are Rolling

After a dozen games into the NBA season, the Los Angeles Lakers are rolling over the competition with winning all but one game.

In their last three games where they faced the Phoenix Suns, the new-look Denver Nuggets and Sacramento Kings (the Suns and the Nuggets have winning records), the Lakers beat them by at least 10 points and with different ways. They downed the Suns with outside shooting, led by Vladimir Radmanovic's 100% shooting from beyond the arc. The Lakers finished with 10 treys for that game.

In the game against the Nuggets, the Lakers used suffocating defense to shackle the Nuggets. The Nuggets' Carmelo Anthony was held to only 10 points (he was averaging 20 prior to that game) and 5 for 19 shooting. The Lakers had 12 steals and 9 blocks as a team. The game was so lopsided that no Laker starter spent more than 30 minutes on the floor.

When the defense wasn't working, the Lakers turned to team offense to beat the Kings. The Lakers were utterly sloppy on the defensive end at the home game, where they let the Kings' transition game keep the game closer than it should have been. But thanks to good shooting and offensive execution, EIGHT Lakers scored in double figures. I would have preferred a lockdown game against a lower rung team like the Kings, maybe the Lakers are a bit tired after playing three games in four nights.

The Lakers are looking strong early on, and may finish the month with only one loss, with upcoming games against the New Jersey Nets, the resurgent Dallas Mavericks, and the suddenly struggling Toronto Raptors.

--

After shooting 80% from the three-point area in the Sacramento game, I'm theorizing that the red-colored visors that Vladimir Radmanovic wore had some hi-tech targeting system... something the ships in Star Wars had.


Tags: Los Angeles Lakers