I saw Rashard Lewis was mail g like 20 mil a year too. ****ing thief.

i'm amazed at that dudes last contract he was just bought out from. That the Supersonics (or maybe it was the Magic? I'm pretty sure that was a long contract) gave him such a massive max deal. Hornets waived him for like a 13 or 14 million buyout

he gets 13 or 14 million just because. He's not even worth a fraction of that.

i am pretty sure he was the highest paid player in the NBA last season with like a 22 or 24 million salary lol

Joe Johnson will be the new Shard in a couple years, pretty sure the final year of Johnson's max deal he gets like 24 million, he will be 36 years old or something crazy. Who wants to pay that kind of crazy money

Wow...what an awful trade for Phoenix. They get draft picks, but given where the Lakers consistently draft, what chance do they have of getting anything close to the value of a league MVP?

Good move. We desperately needed a shooter that could effeciantly distribute the ball.

Even considering his age, this is a perfect fit.

Move Bynum for Howard and next years finals of Lakers/Heat would be the best finals matchup since the Magic/Kareem Lakers versus the Jordan/Pippen Bulls.

They had nothing else. This was thier best bet. It was new York or mos angeles. LA had the better deal

THE ****ING LAKERS
Jebus anything else
it would be alright, good luck Stevie
But hot the ****ing lakers

Nash hasn't been a league MVP for 6 years.

Damn. He'll be 39 by next year's playoffs. I didn't realize he was THAT old.

It was a sign and trade between Seattle and Orlando. Grossly overpaid. The only time he even came close to earning that money was the 2008-2009 season. He was clutch as hell in that ECF against Cleveland. Still...hugely overpaid.

Did not see this coming at all.

The Lakers are my one guilty pleasure of a team to root for. I always cringe a little one I admit it, but I don't feel too bad because they weren't that good when I started rooting for them.

That said, with the Chiefs and the Blues as rooting interests, its fun having a team that is perpetually in a 'win-now' mode somewhere on your hierarchy. It sucks that my win-now team is in the back-asswards, corrupt !@#$ing NBA, but that's just the way it is, I guess.

Some folks are saying this means that they won't try for Howard; I'm on the other side. Now they almost have to pursue him. Their perimeter man defense will be abysmal, but Nash is actually a pretty smart positional team defender. Brown tries to run a defense that funnels play towards the middle and allows the big guys to clean up the slop. Well, with Howard's length and explosiveness as a defensive presence in the center, he would mitigate a great deal of Nash's defensive shortcomings. Moroever, Bynum is a 'skilled' big that wants the ball on the blocks and wants to be able to make moves to the hoop. His game doesn't need Nash's vision and frankly it's wasted on him.

Put Howard in there, however, to patrol defensively and pick up garbage buckets and put-backs alongside Gasol who is a perfect fit for Nash's game and suddenly the Lakers have a very dynamic inside-outside game.

It would be a clear contrast in styles against the Thunder and Heat, who will just put as many athletes as they can on the floor and try to outrun them. That said, I still think bigs and PG play are how you win in basketball and the Lakers would be without peer in that regard.

Led the league in assists last season and was in the top 5 in offensive efficiency.

Steve Nash is still an exceptional point-guard.

The new CBA completely ****ed the Lakers but I'm proud of Mitch that he's still out there making moves.

Nobody; you funnel him towards the middle and dare him to try 25 tear-drop floaters/gm after Howard picks him up at 13 feet.

The teams that will be able to beat the Lakers are teams that are set up to defeat zone-defenses. The Spurs, for example, would scare the hell out of me.

The Thunder could, but Westbrook would have to become a smarter offensive player. He could use his speed to break down the Laker's perimeter and force the bigs to crash on him, then look for a kick to Harden or Durant. The problem then becomes the length of Gasol and Artest; they could still contest most shots simply by taking a couple of strides.

If the Lakers get Howard, they'll be a very solid defensive team, just not a great group of man-defenders. Even without Howard, Bynum is no slouch defensively when properly motivated. He put on an absolute shot-blocking clinic in one of those playoff games last year. He can do it if he wants, he just doesn't want to that often.

They still can't keep up with OKC.

Oh and they also have that big vagina from Spain on their team.