I am a Laker fan, and I almost always preface any of my posts with this affermation.
As with any other fandom in the League, the Laker fandom has a cross section of very knowledgeable (mostly the older fans) members, and running the gamma to the total douchebags that like to come on to other teams fan sites for the only purpose of gloating.
I joined this site because I like to talk basketball. Without frills, without partisan crap, and in a coherent and sane manner with fans of one of the teams that I find most interesting presently on the NBA landscape.
I will add my voice to those on this site that find the Laker douchebags annoying. I find them annoying also on my usual fan site Laker top buzz.
As far as the topic of the day, there are a lot of Laker fans that still don't know what to make of these changes. We are pretty divided on if we should be happy or not. Personally, I liked Ariza. I feel, however, that he was very ill-served by the vocal press histrionics of his personal tapeworm, an agent by the name of David Lee. In essence, Lee set the tone for a sort of who can piss farthest contest between the Laker FO and his client, Ariza. It is rather obvious that Lee was mostly interested in serving his own personal interests, vis-a-vis possible augmented commissions, had he roiled the waters enough to have some unexpected contract leap out from under a rock somewhere. The tone created a a situation of a highly emotionally charged point of no return between Ariza and the Laker FO. It is a sad situation for both Ariza and the Lakers I feel. Ariza has a tremendous upside. He is a total stakhanovist in improving his game. However, there are many that feel that the playing system that the Lakers had last year is perhaps that which is most suitable to his playing style. We will now see if he is adaptable enough to fit into a very different systems such as that which Houston, now tremendously weakened, will be constrained by circumstances to implement.
Artest. I have never been a fan of Ron Artest mostly for his characterial problems. If, and I repeat, if he can be controlled and spliced into the existing offensive sets normally played by the Lakers, he could be a definite upgrade over Ariza. However, the proof is in the pudding, and I still have to see him fit in.
In my opinion, of those players left for the Cavaliers to possibly get, I think McDyess might be the right answer. He plays more under the basket, and he is a tough defender, and the Cavs need somebody to flank O'Neal in the interior. I consider Wallace, other than for his 3-point ability, somewhat just a sort of Ilgauskas, he was once a great high-post player, now he plays mostly in the same distance range as Ilgauskas, and he is no longer the defensive player of his younger days, nor does he still have much enthusiasm.
