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The 2012 NBA All-Star Weekend has arrived and we’ll be keeping you updated!
Make sure to check the site throughout the weekend and keep up with our Laker Nation team on Twitter for around the weekend thoughts and updates.
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According to CSN New England, Rasheed Wallace plans to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers:
CSNNE.com has learned that the former Boston Celtic forward plans to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Wallace hasn’t played in an NBA game since Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals, alerting the C’s shortly before the game that he planned to retire.
His addition will likely fuel rumors that the Lakers will become even more aggressive in their decision to trade away Pau Gasol.
Wallace, 37, has career averages of 14.6 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks per game.
Back on January 31st, Marc Spears from Yahoo! Sports reported that if the Lakers did not land Kenyon Martin they could be interested in Rasheed Wallace.
A league source also told Yahoo! that Wallace reached out to the Lakers earlier this season.
Getty Images | Dillip Vishwanat
In their last two visits to Oklahoma City, the veteran Lakers defeated the young Thunder and the player formerly known as Ron Artest was Kevin Durant’s worst nightmare. Funny thing about the young, though – they grow up. And these Thunder, they’ve grown up. Like GROWN UP – individually, as a team – they’re the real deal, and after having to listen to the entire league sing their praises, the Lakers finally saw it for themselves. If it was anything but a wake-up call for the purple and gold, I’d be surprised.
The Lakers used to be this Thunder team – the group of talented players who played like they had something to prove; a team who played TOGETHER because they had a common purpose. Teams used to hate playing the Lakers too, but this is a new season and neither team is the same group who met in the opening round of the 2010 playoffs; the round where the Lakers eliminated OKC, the year the Lakers won the second of back-to-back NBA Championships. Based on this game alone, the team prepared to make a run for that title wasn’t the one on the visitors’ bench.
No excuses, but the Lakers’ fourth game in five days against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the day after playing the Dallas Mavericks? What did we expect? As spectacularly good as this Thunder team is this season, if the Lakers played with the energy, passion and efficiency (minus the missed free throws of course) with which they played in Dallas, this game would have been a lot harder to call. But after holding OKC to just 19 points on 37% shooting in the first quarter, the Lakers skidded the rest of the way.
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Voice of the Nation hosts, David Brickley, and Kevin Figgers discuss the Lakers top story-lines of the 2011-12 NBA Season.
Rundown
Question of the Show: What are your thoughts on Jim Buss?
Video: Bobbi Salcido
(Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)
It’s February 23, 2012 and the (20-13) Los Angeles Lakers are in Oklahoma City, the state capital of Oklahoma and its largest city, to do battle with the (26-7) Thunder. The Lakers got a huge road win in Dallas, arguably their best road win of the season. The Lakers put on a solid team effort, but had to hold on at the end and came close to giving the game away at the end by missing free throws.
It is imperative that the Lakers put on a much better performance tonight in the last game prior to the All-Star break against the Western conference leading Oklahoma Thunder. The Thunder are arguably the most balanced and athletic team in the conference.
(Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Everything is bigger in Texas…especially when Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol are in town. On the first night of a back to back, the Lakers arrived in Dallas fresh off a week’s worth of, “he said, they said, no one said.” Tonight they let their playing do the talking, and in the end, the men in purple got the last word.
The Lakers were all business when they walked onto the court. There was a seriousness about them before the tip, like something was locked in – pure focus. With his first jumper over Dirk Nowitzki in the opening seconds, Pau Gasol set the tone for the rest of the 47 minutes and 39 seconds. Whatever he lacked the last time the Lakers were in Dallas, getting swept out of last season’s playoffs, it popped up in bunches tonight as he rattled off 12 points in the first quarter to his counterpart, Nowitzki’s zero.
There would be no 36-point blow-outs by the home team this time. No Andrew Bynum clotheslining smaller players, and definitely no Jason Terry running all over the court with his arms outstretched in victory. Despite losing a 14-point lead in the second quarter, and then going into the final minute of the game with a 7-point lead but then missing six straight free throws, the Lakers remained undeterred, as did the Mavericks, which made for an exciting, hard-fought game between two Western Conference teams who have been written off but are still battling to maintain their good name.
(Photo by: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
It’s February 22, 2012 and the (19-13) Los Angeles Lakers are in the heart of Texas to put the off-the-court turmoil behind them and face the (21-12) defending champion Dallas Mavericks. The Lakers embark on a short, but very important two-game road trip that pits L.A. against the Dallas Mavericks and the Oklahoma City Thunder on back-to-back nights.
The Lakers return to the American Airlines Arena, where their 2010-2011 season came to an abrupt end under an avalanche of three’s, an NBA-record tying 20-three point shots leading to a 36-point defeat nine-months and 14-days ago that completed a four game sweep. The loss was an embarrassing exit for Head Coach Phil Jackson arguably the best coach in NBA history.
The Lakers will have revenge on their minds; Hopefully L.A. bought their ‘A’ game on this road trip. The Lakers, 5-11 away from the Staples Center and have not looked like the same team on the road. The Lakers have won six of their last 10 games.
Getty Images
Yesterday I wrote an article intimating that Lakers star, Kobe Bryant, was taking a players perspective when expressing his frustrations with the Pau Gasol trade rumors. While I felt it was a great show of leadership for Kobe Bryant to stick up for his teammate, I didn’t think placing public pressure on the organization to make a trade or not make a trade did the team or the organization any good. So on the surface, Kobe’s rant really served no positive purpose outside of showing his support for Gasol, which has been doing all along anyway.
However according to Ken Berger of CBS Sports, Kobe’s rant had less to do with his frustration with the Pau trade rumors, and more to do with the structure of the organization as a whole:
The Lakers’ front office is an uncommunicative, rudderless fiasco, and the unrest and paranoia that have been festering for years threaten to derail the team’s plans to ride Bryant to his sixth NBA title while they still can. And much of it can be traced to the growing influence of executive vice president Jim Buss, the owner’s bon vivant son, who has helped transform a great franchise into a steaming pool of nepotism and nincompoops.
Joey Buss, another son of the owner who runs the team’s D-League franchise, has moved into Jackson’s old office. Jesse Buss, 23, who was arrested for alcohol intoxication in Lexington, Ky., on a “scouting” trip in December, has moved into (Ronnie) Lester’s former office.
