Not all of the action that takes place in an NBA game happens on the court; some of it happens on the sidelines and it’s worth it’s own highlight reel. So, the league put together their own video of the best celebrations from the 2014-15 season, and it’s worth every bit of the 1 minute and 47 seconds.
Finally! The Los Angeles Lakers are making SOME moves in free agency, and to the surprise of some, they’re good moves!
The Purple and Gold are ready to welcome Indiana Pacers big man Roy Hibbert and Six Man of the Year Lou Williams to their roster. Per Yahoo! Sports:
The Los Angeles Lakers have reached agreement to sign free-agent guard Lou Williams to a three-year, $21 million contract, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
Williams, 28, was the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year last season after averaging a career-high 15.5 points with 2.1 assists and 1.1 steals in 80 games for the Toronto Raptors. In 10 NBA seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers,Atlanta Hawks and Raptors, Williams has averaged 11.9 points while making 34.1 percent of his 3-point attempts.
Williams’ agent Wallace Prather completed the deal with Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak on Sunday.
As constituted, Williams would join Kobe Bryant, D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson and Nick Young in the Lakers’ guard rotation.
Williams’ agreement comes one day after the Lakers negotiated a trade to acquire center Roy Hibbert from the Indiana Pacers.
And with regard to Hibbert, Adrian Wojnarowski reports:
The Indiana Pacers are finalizing terms on a trade to send center Roy Hibbert to the Los Angeles Lakers, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
Hibbert was informed on Saturday that he can expect to be moved to the Lakers once an agreement in principle is reached, league sources told Yahoo Sports. The Pacers have informed some rival teams – including those with an interest in Hibbert – that they had found a deal for him, league sources said.
The final hurdle in the deal centers on the 15 percent trade kicker that activates with Hibbert and his $15.5 million salary for the 2015-16 moving to the Lakers. Los Angeles has the salary-cap space to take on that salary and the $2.3 million trade kicker – essentially a bonus the Pacers must pay Hibbert – but Los Angeles wants to find a creative way to preserve more cap room in the deal, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
After the Lakers absorb the $2.3 million trade kicker, it will leave them with less than $5 million available under the cap to spend elsewhere in free agency. There are several possible solutions to the snag, but both sides believe they will find a resolution and the deal will be formalized when the NBA’s moratorium on player business ends on Thursday, sources said.
The Pacers will receive a future second-round pick as part of the proposed deal, sources said. Indiana has been determined to unload Hibbert’s contract and move forward with a sleeker, faster offensive style without him. Indiana reached an agreement to sign guard Monta Ellis to a four-year, $44 million contract this week. Veteran forward David West also opted out of the final year of his contract to pursue a deal with a championship contender.
The Lakers need frontcourt help after missing out on their top two free-agent targets: LaMarcus Aldridge, who agreed Saturday to sign with the San Antonio Spurs; and Greg Monroe, who accepted a maximum contract offer from the Milwaukee Bucks.
For Hibbert, the former two-time All-Star gets a chance to restart his career with the Lakers after his production dropped over the past two seasons with Indiana.
Hibbert, 28, averaged 10.6 points, 7.1 rebounds and 1.6 blocks in 76 games with the Pacers last season. Hibbert had spent all seven of his NBA seasons with the Pacers after they took him with the 17th overall pick in the 2008 draft.
Psych! That was an intentionally misleading headline because I realized it’s super easy to rag on the Los Angeles Lakers these days instead of praising them. Well, what exactly do they deserve praise for, with regard to free agency? NOTHING!
According to analysts on Twitter, from every major outlet imaginable, when the Lakers put all of their eggs in one basket for LaMarcus Aldridge, they completely screwed up. The meeting took place as soon as it possibly could and they barely focused on basketball issues, which should be terrifying to fans because it shows where the front office’s minds are right now, in terms of what they think is important and what they have to offer. If the Lakers had a good product on the court to offer LaMarcus, they would have spent more time talking about that. Instead, they played to their other strength: Hollywood and brand-building. Neither of which were of interest to LaMarcus. Further, Kobe Bryant was in the meeting, which should just stop happening in general. Kobe is only going to be around one more year, so he won’t affect a new player’s contract that much. And even moreso, players have made it very clear that they either don’t want to play with Kobe or don’t care either way; all of this to say that Kobe isn’t the draw the Lakers seem to think he is. Did I mention he casually showed up to the meeting in flip flops? Classy, Kobe.
Now, the meeting aside, the Lakers screwed up the rest of their Free Agent options by promoting the hashtag #LAtoLA, thereby alienating anyone else who may even want to come to play for the Lakers. Let’s say DeAndre Jordan was even considering them (he wasn’t), and sure, he’s technically already in LA because of the Clippers, but why would he want to play for a team that didn’t try as hard to recruit him?
In the end, LaMarcus signed with San Antonio, and the Lakers are left with rumors of an unsigned Robert Sacre as their big man as of now.
So, you tell me, am I being harsh, or did they do anything right so far this free agency?
This story terrifies me.
The Los Angeles Lakers drafted Larry Nance Jr. 27th in the 2015 NBA draft last week, and the internet trolls did what they do best: waste so many hours of their lives digging into people’s pasts.
So, when it came to light that Larry once called Kobe Bryant a rapist (in regard to his legal issues in Colorado years ago), people went nuts. How could the two possibly play together after a 19-year-old Larry criticized the man he’s now supposed to learn from?
Well, the simple answer is that both of them are grown men, and they are totally fine with moving forward.
When Fancy Nance-y (yes, I’ve been waiting a long time to use that name) showed up at the Lakers practice facility in El Segundo on Monday, he said (according to the LA Times):
“I heard my named called with the 27th pick. It was about two minutes until I found out about that,” Nance said on Monday. “About 24 hours went past, I felt like I was going to throw up, sick to my stomach. I was just embarrassed in myself. I felt so bad about what I had said. I just wanted to apologize right away.”
Bryant was arrested in July 2003 on allegations of sexual assault in Colorado, although the criminal charges were eventually dropped and a civil lawsuit was settled out of court.
“Terrified,” Nance said.
“Once I got the ‘Hey, you’re a kid. We’ve all said and done things we’ve regretted. It’s water under the bridge. Welcome to the family [from Bryant],’ I immediately felt my stomach release. There was a big knot.”
Don’t worry, kid. It’s probably not the first time that Kobe’s heard that before.
But Nance was right to feel terrified. Do you remember EVERYTHING you’ve tweeted or put on Facebook?
According to TimeHop, on this day 5 years ago, I tweeted, “I’m guna name one of my kids after David Villa, even if its a girl.” While that may still be true, I don’t want to be held to that claim. I was swept up in soccermania!
This raises the question, in a world where people are hired and fired based on how squeaky clean their social media accounts are, should Nance Jr.’s tweet have even been A THING?
I say no. He was 19 years old. EVERYONE says stupid things when they’re 19 years old; that’s why growing up is growing up.
As long as he’s matured, and clearly he has, then this should all be water under the bridge. After all, if anyone understands doing dumb things at 19, it’s Kobe Bryant.
Today’s revelation: Shaquille O’Neal trolled the entire Lakers fan base.
For months, it’s been tough to get through an entire weekly news cycle without hearing about Tom Brady and his deflated balls. You know, Tom Brady, that guy who plays for the New England Patriots; the guy who Bostonians worship. So of course, the popular opinion around Los Angeles was that Mr. Brady should be suspended for his deflated bunch for much longer than the four games he got. Because everything Boston is the WORST.
Well, Shaq revealed that he’s no better than the sworn enemy of Angelenos because he admittedly deflated the basketballs he used to win championships.
At first, I thought this was way less of an offense than deflating a football. The football provides an advantage to only the one team that uses it, however, with a basketball, Shaq took away what could have been a possible advantage to the other team. He put them on an even playing field and no one even knew.
Whether or not other teams and players were doing this too (they probably were since Shaq seemed so casual about it) doesn’t matter. What matters is that all of the fans who were so adamant about Brady being heavily suspended, and their Super Bowl wins being tainted, now has to say the same of those Lakers championships that were won with Shaq.
When Steve Nash arrived in Los Angeles, he did so amongst much pomp and circumstance. Sure, there were some people who weren’t excited about it, for reasons that all proved to be valid, but c’mon! The Lakers had just been cheated out of signing Chris Paul because the NBA owners hate teams more successful than themselves, and teams who have better climates. This was a huge blow to Lakers fans who are used to not only getting stars, but to getting what they want. So, when Steve Nash came along, jumping ship from the rival Phoenix Suns, people got excited that SOMEONE still wanted to come to Los Angeles. But let’s be honest, this move was doomed from the start.
Nash had already been experiencing injury issues, and he was only getting older, logically. Then, intrinsically tied with Nash was coach Mike D’Antoni who was just THE WORST. There are a million stats to prove it, but we don’t need to keep re-living those. He was the WORST. So, he waited around all season for Steve-o to get better and save his system’s reputation.
That never happened, and Nash never panned out. In all, it’s a disaster that many people would like to pretend never happened, and now it’s over. The Nash era of underachievement is finally over. Sure, he tried really hard to come back, no one’s questioning that (in fact he made an entire web-docuseries about himself documenting his fight to return), but he didn’t, which makes this a completely underwhelming chapter.
This week, a couple of important things happened that will finally allow us to pretend nothing I’ve referenced ever happened: Steve Nash retired, and the Lakers waived Steve Nash. Frankly, I didn’t realize that Steve Nash hadn’t retired yet. He’d been ruled out early-on in the season, and the Lakers received medical exemption cash for him, but yet he was still hanging onto… wait, what was he hanging on to? Hope? Also, wouldn’t retirement mean that he’s not playing anymore? Anyways, rules like this are dumb, but the point is this: the Lakers are moving on.
The team reportedly, and specifically, waived Nash so they can get a better look at Jabari Brown. According to the team’s press release:
Brown, previously signed to 10-day contracts on March 10 and March 20, has appeared in 10 games for the Lakers, averaging 9.4 points on 50.0% (32-64) shooting, including 45.8% (11-24) from three-point range, in addition to 1.7 assists, 1.5 rebounds, and 1.0 steals in 24.5 minutes per game.
Monday, Brown had the best performance of his NBA career, scoring a career-high 22 points on 7-10 shooting (3-4 from beyond-the-arc), playing 34 minutes in an overtime victory at Philadelphia.
Both Brown and Jordan Clarkson have shown that they could have significant roles on the team’s roster going forward, and signing young talent is the perfect thing to wipe away any memory of Steve Nash (though, who can forget two of the worst seasons ever?).
KOBE MONTANA 