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Prior to L.A.’s final preseason game at the San Diego Sports Arena, I was having a chat with longtime Lakers PA announcer Lawrence Tanter (he of the golden voice).
LT quickly brought up a memory of Magic Johnson’s first game right here in this arena back in 1979, and we turned on the audio recorder as Tanter reflected.
You can listen by clicking below:
Prior to L.A.’s final game of the Las Vegas Summer League, we sat down with assistant coach/advance scout Rasheed Hazzard, who was charged with implementing the triangle offense and coaching up L.A.’s roster along with SL head coach Chucky Brown.
Hazzard detailed Adam Morrison’s week as the primary offensive option and looked ahead to his possible impact on the 2009-10 regular season, evaluated second round draft pick Chinemelu Elonu and went through the rest of L.A.’s Vegas crew.
You can listen by clicking below:
We sat down with Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak on Thursday afternoon primarily to discuss the signing of Shannon Brown, and also to touch on the Ron Artest deal … plus the team’s continued hope to retain the services of Lamar Odom.
Clearly, Kupchak is still pretty busy.
He detailed what the Lakers like about Brown’s game, explained why the 23-year-old was acquired in the first place, and opined on why signing Artest put the team in a better position to ink Brown and Odom. Kupchak also said that while L.A. would like to expedite the Lamar talks, the organization has “way too much” respect for the versatile swingman to rush the process: “We’re hopeful that a day goes by, two days or maybe the weekend and we’ll have more clarity,” he concluded.
You can listen to the audio (9:53) by clicking below:
When you watch “Forrest Gump,” it takes just a few seconds to realize that Tom Hanks can do a bit of acting.
Observe President Obama give a speech, tune in to see Albert Pujos hit a baseball or listen to Jay-Z perform one of his songs, and your conclusion makes itself in a flash.
That’s about how long it takes to notice that Shannon Brown is some kind of a freakish athlete, and upon further consideration, literally one of the world’s best.
Surely if you observe the raw, explosive nature of Brown’s body movements going up and down the basketball floor, it’s easy to imagine an extensive weight lifting and training program that’s been followed for years and maximized in the NBA. After all, this is the guy you saw raise up to destroy a Mario West layup attempt in February and climb over the outstretched arms of Chris Andersen for a hammer dunk in the Western Conference Finals.
His 44.5-inch vertical - measured prior to his rookie season at the Lakers’ predraft camp - was in part of gift of genetics, but it would be assumed that Brown’s well-muscled arms didn’t just appear from nowhere. We assume he lifts some serious weights. Right?
Not really.
In fact, late in the season, Brown explained to us that while he did do some lifting in high school and at Michigan State, he has basically stayed away from weight training since entering the NBA.
Huh?
“Whatever Shannon accomplishes or doesn’t accomplish in the NBA is not going to be for lack of athleticism, and the risks involved with trying to be too clever with him would be ridiculous,” explained Lakers Director of Athletic Performance, Chip Schaefer. “We’re very open ended and we like to listen to the athletes, so when Shannon came … I had no problem with him sticking to (his program).”
Schaefer, who’s in charge of the team’s strength and conditioning, instead worked to supplement Brown’s routine with some fine tuning. Accordingly, to get a better understanding of why Brown sticks mostly to push ups and does little to nothing with his legs, we sat down with Schaefer for a podcast:
For a perspective that only a father could have, we dialed up Shannon Brown’s dad Chris to talk about his son’s journey from Maywood, Illinois to the NBA Championship, including a nugget about Shannon breaking the glass after a freshman-year-of-high-school dunk.
We sat down with Mitch Kupchak - in the middle of his ongoing draft meetings with assembled scouts at L.A.’s practice facility - to touch base on the June 25 draft, the Lakers’ free agency situation and the luxury tax.
While summing up L.A.’s roster situation, Kupchak explained why this year’s draft is unique:
“It’s a little dicey because we have three free agents (Lamar Odom, Trevor Ariza and Shannon Brown), and I don’t anticipate carrying more than 13 players next year. So if we’re lucky enough to resign (those players), we’d have 13 assuming we exercise options for D.J. Mbenga and Josh Powell. Right now we’re assuming (Mbenga and Powell) are on our team next year. It would be something unusual where we wouldn’t exercise their options, we think they’re both valued players. If that’s the case, we’re at 13, and I don’t anticipate we’d go above 13.
Essentially, unless one of those free agents isn’t resigned, it’s not likely L.A. will look to fill out its 2009-10 roster through the draft.
“The best solution may be to look for a player that would stay in Europe or in Asia, or maybe exchange picks when you may have more roster space,” said Kupchak.
To listen to the podcast, click below.
Great Lakers Mind Matt Money Smith may host a National radio show, but many Lakers fans know him best for his work on AM570’s pre and postgame shows that sandwich each Lakers radio broadcast.
We appreciate Money for his rational, clear-headed Lakers take, which he showcased in an extended discussion from Orlando about the Finals, the impact of Lamar Odom, Kobe Bryant’s offensive genius, Pau Gasol’s defense and more.
As always, listen below or check out Playoff Central for everything else you need to know about this series.
Beat reporter and columnist Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register joined us at Friday’s media session to take a look at L.A.’s situation after a dominant Game 1 victory.
As always, listen below or check out Playoff Central for everything else you need to know about this series.
Before Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals, Sports Illustrated’s Chris Ballard had this to say about Kobe Bryant: “If the Lakers go on to win this series it will be because Bryant becomes less involved, not more so.” That certainly proved to be the case, so we called Ballard to talk about the player who’s put his team in position to win the NBA title.
As always, listen below or check out Playoff Central for everything else you need to know about this series.
Our friend Chris Lewis served as the Orlando Magic sideline reporter for four seasons before moving on to cover sports in Colorado, and he joined us to take a closer look at Dwight Howard, Rashard Lewis and the Magic.
As always, listen below or check out Playoff Central for everything else you need to know about this series.
FROM LAKERS.com
