Mitzkrieg

detroit did re-sign rasheed. lost mehmet okur though. dunno how much that will affect them. he's a pretty decent player to bring in off the bench for ben wallace.

as for the lakers, i wouldn't count them out. even after detroit picked up rasheed last season, i don't think people were picking them to win a finals, especially against the lakers.

being a laker fan myself, i'm unhappy with the way things went. i think both the management and shaq had their pride in the way and weren't mature enough to deal with it. i would've prefered shaq to stay, but the trade was good enough. taking shaq's ft% into consideration, along with the fact that most of his game is bullying his way to the basket and dunking isn't a huge loss to me. his numbers have declined the last couple seasons, and i know you have to take into consideration adding malone and payton detracts from things, but still, i won't miss the hack-a-shaq one bit. if he could've made 65% to 70% of his free throws, a lot of the games they lost turn into wins.

i'll take odom, grant, and bulter. just putting each of them on the floor is more than 20% each in ft%. something the lakers have always had trouble with. also the fact that the lakers have been week at the forward position for the past bunch of seasons, picking up these guys improve that as well.

eh, there's more i could say, but i've said enough already. i believe the lakers could possibly make it to the conference finals next season if kobe stays and rudy t. works some magic.