Here's my first blog entry for Beyond the Universe:
Of this season’s 39 games, the Lakers have had their prime starting lineup for 27 of them. Luke Walton stepped in for Vladimir Radmanovic for 11 games, Trevor Ariza came in for another. Lamar Odom also subbed for Pau Gasol for a game. That’s four different starting lineups, with over 2/3 of the total games with their complete dominant lineup, and all but two games played with four regular starters. Give me a break! The Lakers are 32-8 because of their health, not in spite of their injuries. Kobe and Pau are fit as fiddles and sound as dollars, but give either one of them so much as turf toe and L.A. heads south.
You want injuries? Take a look at Jerry Sloan’s ragtag gang. 13 different starting lineups! 13! The Lakers have had four, and Doug Collins says they have injury problems. I’m fairly certain Jerry isn’t just doing it to keep other coaches off his trail, either. It gets worse, though. Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer, the Jazz franchise players (Kobe and Pau?) have played a whopping two games together! Out of 40 games this season, Williams has played 28, and Boozer has played 12.
Yet Jerry has somehow eked out a 24-17 season with his infirmary ward on the court. You want to call the Jazz players soft? Go ahead. But the fact of the matter is, you hammer any other NBA coach with the injuries Sloan’s had to deal with and he’ll go to pieces in a second. The Clippers? The Heat? Their frail squads couldn’t even come close to winning seasons last year because their stars were on the mend. Brilliant is the coach that can keep any kind of chemistry going with this kind of revolving door lineup.
Now, when the Jazz make the playoffs this season (they will), on top of all their broken players, well, that spells Coach of the Year for Jerry S. At least it should. Come to that, when they give him the 2008-09 COY, they should retroactively award him at least 10 years’ worth of COYs that he deserves from previous seasons, but that’s neither here nor there.
