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They are sunk! It's possible they aren't even the 8th best team in the west. (BTW, I had to laugh at Houston #7 in that list someone posted).
Haters? No, no ones a hater, everyone, except Lakers fans realize what Shaq meant to the Lakers. He meant back-to-back-to-back championships. If you want to argue that, you can do it all day. But you know for a fact, the Lakers do not win anything with out Shaq being a part of that team. You want to deny his impact in those 3 years? No, it's the haters that discount Shaq for doing what he did, and saying what he did.
The core? You lost the core. Great job, you kept Kobe, and aging downfall? Payton is obviously the epitimy of that. We'll see how it goes with Rudy as the next coach for the Payton/Kobe show. who knows, maybe Payton wasen't very keen to the triangle, which involved him moving more without the ball, instead of working with the ball.
Everyone knows Shaq is on the way down, but if you can honestly say that's a reason for the Lakers to rid themselves of him, then Jerry Buss is a bigger idiot then I thought he was. He's STILL the most dominating 7-footer in the game (I said most dominating, not the BEST 7-footer) and he changes the game in a way no one else does. You also lost Fish, which IMO was one guy the needed to keep. He's still decent, he still has uncanny ability to come in and hit 3's off the bench. Oh, don't worry about the fact you have no bench, now.
The Lakers IMO are still playoff bound. But they aren't good enough to make a legitimate run. And yes, don't fool yourselves, there is a difference.
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