Open Season

The Lakers open the season against the Blazers on Tuesday.  I've been waiting for B-ball season to start since we lost in the Finals.  I can't stand baseball and football is good enough to follow till B-ball season starts.  The Olympics was a great teaser but having Kobe, D Wade, LeBron, and Howard on the same team is fun to watch till the slaughter starts.

Anyway, on to my totally biased view of the upcoming game.  A note before I start.  I'm using the ESPN depth chart to view the prospective match-ups at each position.  

At the point, you have Fisher vs Blake.  I'm giving this to Fish.  For one, I doubt Blake will be playing the majority of minutes.  From the looks of it, the rookie Bayless may be finishing games.

I'll make this disclaimer now.  With the exception of a few players, Kobe will always have the advantage over the other 2 guard.  enough said.  But...Roy has a ton of game.  I'm not sure where he is with his knee.  Prior to surgery, Roy was excelling into pre-superstar status.  This year may place him up a level.

At the 3 it shows Batum starting.  Don't know anything about this dude or dud.  I do know that Outlaw had a couple monster games against us last year.  Assuming Outlaw starts, an Odom vs Outlaw is an interesting match-up.  Knowing that few can match Odom's versatility, defensively, Odom may have a hard time containing Outlaw on the O-boards.  On the offensive side, Odom has a definite advantage.  Given Odom's tendency to be radically inconsistent, I'll call this a push.  If, for whatever reason, Jackson decides to start V-Rad, I'll give the advantage to us considering the chip on Odom shoulder should jump start his game to drop 15, 12, & 6 on whoever they put in front of him.

At the 4 and 5 I'm calling a push.  The Aldridge/Oden and Bynum/Gasol tandems are both a work in progress.  On a good night Aldridge can play the part of a monster and outplay Gasol.  But in the long run, Gasol will put up more consistent numbers.  Although the soft play of Gasol gets annoying.  I'm not sure what to think of Oden.  He was great in college for one year and that's all you can go on.  Bynum on the other hand showed the skills of a future all-star.  The only question for both is health and how they will jell with their counter part at the 4.

I'm still concerned with the quantity and quality of turnovers.  Several bad turnovers in a short stretch can really swing the game the other way.  I think that will be an ongoing theme for this years team.  Can they protect the ball?  This team loves to share the ball and when they do, there's flashbacks of the Showtime era Lakers.  If the turnovers can be limited to 10-12 a game, they will be very tough to beat.

I don't think the critics are giving this Portland squad enough credit.  They won 15+ games in a row last year.  You can't do that without having something special. When these teams meet there is an underlining rivalry dating back to the Western Conference finals in which Portland was a quarter away from the Finals.   I can't think of a tougher place for the Lakers to play than at Portland.  Since the game is @ Staples, overall I give the advantage to the Lakers.

Score 105-96