Dwight Howard a game time decision against the Kings

The Lakers have ruled Dwight Howard’s availability for tonight’s game against the Sacramento Kings a “game-time decision”.

Mike Brown said that Lakers head trainer, Gary Vitti, will have the final decision of whether the big man will play tonight. It could be Dwight’s first take taking the court in real live action against another team since having back surgery almost six months ago. Since preseason began everything out of the Lakers camp has been that Dwight looks great and has seemingly recovered from back surgery and is once again making great defensive plays and “dunking everything” in practice.

So we will see in the next few hours whether the Lakers new franchise center will take the court at Staples Center as a Laker for the first time.

Lakers-Kings Recap

The Lakers went to 0-5 in the preseason on Friday. The Lakers as a whole played decently, but ultimately poor transition defense and turnovers did them in, in the second half.

Positives

-The offense looked rather fluid tonight. They ran a ton of Princeton sets, most likely on purpose, instead of pick and roll with Nash, probably to get a look an extended look at how well they could run it in-game. And it turned in good results–as the Lakers finally shot over 40% for the first time this preseason, posting a 46.6% from the field.

-Kobe looked really good tonight. Of all the Lakers, Kobe seems to be benefiting the most from the combination of the Princeton offense and Steve Nash. He shot 7-12 tonight and made 8-11 free throws on route to 22 points. The good thing about that though, was that most of those shots came off of cuts to the basket and in transition. And when there was a Kobe isolation, it was on a smaller defender, either Isaiah Thomas (5’9″) or Marcus Thornton (6’4″) and it led to him getting to the free throw line.

-Devin Ebanks. OR SHOULD I SAY THREEBANKS??? Devin Ebanks was extremely impressive tonight, scoring 20 points on 7-10 from the floor, including 4-5 from three and two very impressive layups off the dribble, that we’ve never really seen Devin be able to do before. He looked much more under control and chose his spots. If he can do half of what he did tonight on a consistent basis, it would be a major help to the Lakers bench

Negatives

-Pau looks really slow. Mike Brown gave Pau the night off on Tuesday against the Jazz….and now we know why. Pau not only looked very slow, but also very in-explosive, not being able to dunk or even put in a lot of easy ones at the rim. I’m not sure if this is a result of him not being in shape, or just old age. If you look at the box score, you’ll see Pau had 20 points on 8-15 shooting and 6 rebounds. But believe me, it was quite the poor game from Pau Gasol.

-The Lakers got killed in transition. The Lakers gave up 28 fast break points. Ultimately that was the deciding factor in the game, as the Kings were continuously grabbing long rebounds and pushing the ball down court. The Lakers were only out rebounded by 2, but it seemed like a lot more than that. The 18 turnovers the Lakers committed certainly didn’t help the cause either. Simply put, the Lakers just didn’t make it down court fast enough. 

Sunday

-Dwight Howard makes his return. Sunday the Lakers take on the Kings once again, this time at Staples Center–and most likely with Dwight Howard. I don’t expect Dwight to come back and play like the dominating force he was before the injury right away. It’ll probably take him a couple of games to shake off the rust. Which is exactly why getting some preseason action will be so important for him. I expect him to play somewhere between 15-20 minutes Sunday. Mike Brown also said that the starters will end the game on Sunday if it is close. Don’t be surprised if Mike Brown ends the game with Sacre, not wanting to over-do it with Dwight.

Sunday night at 6:30 P.M. PST at Staples Center, the Dwight Howard era begins for the Lakers.

Dwight Howard to debut for Lakers Sunday

According to a Yahoo! Sports report, Dwight Howard is to make his debut in the purple and gold this Sunday and Staples center against the Sacramento Kings.

This is amazing news for Lakers fans, and even people who just love basketball.

Dwight has apparently looked great in training camp and seems to be back to what he was before his back injury earlier in the year. Dwight has repeatedly said he will only play when he is back to 100%. Well apparently that will be this Sunday. Howard has also stated that he’d love to get back on the floor for some preseason action just to build rapport with teammates during actual games and not just practices. Also just to shake off the rust before the regular season, and the games that actually count for something.

Here’s the link to Yahoo! Sports’ story

The Nash-Howard pick and rolls are almost here. So close. So close.

ALMOST THERE

It’s almost training camp, folks. ALMOST THERE.

64 days

Woohooo! 64 days left. YEAH BOI

The Outrage Over LeBron’s Shoe Is Unwarranted

So this fall, LeBron’s new shoe, the “Lebron X Shoe” is set to hit the market. Not a big deal, right? Well people seem to be making it a big deal.

A report came out a few days ago, that the shoe would be sold for approximately 315$. Yep, 315$. Quite a lot of money for a shoe, right?

Well, here is an idea. DON’T BUY THE SHOE.

If you don’t feel the need to go out and buy this new 315$ shoe — Don’t do it. And let the people who do feel the need to, go ahead and buy it. Because we all know there will be people who buy the shoe, regardless of how much it costs, because they have the disposable income to do so.

People are just going with the false narrative that LeBron is a “bad guy” or “villain”. Or maybe that sense was beginning to fade after completed one of the greatest years in basketball history and people just needed a new reason to hate him. If this was somebody who people have a history of liking and supporting like Kevin Durant, would there be such an outrage over this? It isn’t like LeBron set the price at $315. That was Nike. LeBron isn’t trying to keep his shoe from people.

Then you have people complaining that kids who have low-income families won’t be able to buy the shoe. Is there a new law that states every kid has to buy this shoe? Besides, it’s not like anyone mad about the shoe was worried about these kids or doing anything to help these kids.

I mean, come on. It’s just a shoe.

65 Days

65 days until opening night. HURRY UP.