EG Blog: New Year’s Revolution

Well as the New Year is well and truly here (and coming from New Zealand we always get it a long time before the rest of you GMT +13 right now!) I thought I’d look at what mistakes the Lakers should look at avoiding this year..

It’s going well, we’re sitting at 20-11 and actually still improving. Most analysts are impressed and surprised with our ‘young team’ ranking them as one of the biggest surprises (along with Portland - think how good they could have been?!) from the West. What could possibly go wrong now? The answer is that winning and losing is often more about state of mind than physical ability, our mental state needs to stay strong now more than ever. Last year our collapse in the New Year wasn’t about making resolutions about playing harder or working together it was all about revolution instead. We salivated at the idea of having JKidd dishing the ball to Kobe like it was going out of fashion. Fancy getting a solid all-star point-guard for an unproven 19 year old kid and Kwame Brown.

We fell for it hook, line and sinker last year. I was there checking the net by the second waiting for the dream trade announcement that would propel us back to the top.. it would be like winning the lottery.. we dreamt the dream and then, rather rudely, the numbers changed and we wound up feeling like the biggest losers come the trade deadline. That feeling ripped through our squad, throw in a couple of key injuries and the mental state of the Lakers was in tatters. Kobe didn’t know whether to take it all back on or trust in team mates who were quite frankly lacking the confidence to live up to their abilities. The result was a tail-spin we were lucky to even recover from enough to scrape in - and limp out - of the playoffs.

The summer was the hardest I’ve known as a Laker fan. I was even resigned to losing Bryant at one point - I hate, and it’s not a word I use often, the way we aired everything publicly and was really concerned about the sudden state of the franchise. Just in time, we pulled together and the result was a surprisingly quick emergence of a number of our young players and a very encouraging record and approach to the games.

So this New Year, my wish is to look at ways to improve, but not look to win the lottery (hopefully, that’s the last time I mention lottery if you know what I mean!). We don’t need that revolution this year, the blockbuster trade is like searching for a silver-bullet solution, it’s not that it doesn’t exist, just that they’re exceptionally rare and everyone’s looking for them! Small trades I’m in favour of if they land us smart, defensively capable players with energy and the right attitude. Otherwise I like this squad right the way down. We made one relatively small trade, but what a trade! Cook wasn’t our type of player if we want to move on.. Ariza definitely is. I miss Evans as he was able to take some load when Kobe hit the bench, but Ariza was every bit worth that move.

Kwame is really our only trading piece - and that, IMHO, is more to do with his injury-prone body than what he contributes to the team and I hope we limit trading - no, more than that, limit trading talk to Kwame and possible ‘fillers’.

Happy New Year Lakers and loyal fans, let’s make 2008 a really good year with THIS squad.