Afflalo is already better than Delfino was last year. He’s always in the right spot. He’s got a good stroke. He runs hard in transition which led to an AND1 in the first half (Kings game) and had a nice strong finish off a curl soon after.

Basketball related observations … I thought that Amir had very encouraging on-the-ball defense. Obviously Amir is a 20 year old kid who needs lot of seasoning and work, but I remember him D’ing up somebody tight on the 3 point line and he was sticking hands in the face and making it very uncomfortable for whichever Laker it was. For a big to have that kind of instinct, to me it signals he was coached well somewhere along the way and/or he has confidence that he doesn’t have to give up ground to prevent getting beat to the hoop on a drive.

If Samb comes along over the next couple of years in a manner similar to the way Maxiell has, I think he can be something useful, possibly something special. I disagree with Darshan that we should send him to the NBDL. I think he can benefit (and the team can benefit) more from and is capable of withstanding NBA burn if we ease him in like we did Friday. As much as I’ve tried to make Nazr a victim, he has to rely on his strengths or develop new ones if he’s going to make a case to me to get burn over Samb. While Nazr has veteran understanding, he was getting beat like he stole something by the athletic Lakers’ bigs. Samb looked lost quite a bit (as does Amir) like when Odom killed him on the ball-fake, but Samb looked unafraid. We’ll suffer from these two being young’ns if we have them both out there together, but I imagine Friday was an extenuating circumstance. Samb challenged the Lakers in the post on both sides of the ball. His touch is absolutely beautiful for any NBA player, let alone a man of his size. He has all the makings of the shot-blocking impact we had from Ben, and tons more offense in a 7′1″ package.

I could go on and on (and seemingly I already have), but I do want to note that most people here seem to have been pretty impressed by Afflalo, and I just haven’t seen it. Nothing has stuck out for me about his D, and while his jumper looks nice, it hasn’t been going down. As for Hayes getting 20 mins … I don’t care if it’s 10, 20 or 30, get the man a 3 year extension, NOW. Tonight should be just fine, it’s the injury-depleted Kings.

http://www.nba.com/allaccess/nbaUserProfile.jsp

This is sorta off-topic, but has Sheed gotten a technical yet this year? jackdutch mentioned Rip and Sheed’s behavior last night, and truth be told I didn’t see anything particularly disappointing from Sheed outside of one silly outburst that he walked away from unscathed (whereas Rip appears to me to have become emotionally destructive to the team lately), so that has me wondering if he has any Ts yet.

FG, TO, TO, TO, TO

Do that on the road and you’re going to lose 9 times out of ten.

As for +/- scores Amir Johnson was +9, Afflalo +4, and Maxiell was -23.

http://www.nba.com/games/20071116/DETLAL/boxscore.html

My guess is Maxiell is less effective against taller, faster lineups due to issues involving court vision and peremiter shooting and the Lakers have a ton of players that are bad matchups for Max (Vlad Rad, Odom, Bynum) all of whom are good matchups for Amir. Afflalo has just flat earned more time with his hustle.

I’ll defend Flip Murray a bit. ANY PG would be gassed in the 4th quarter playing the minutes that Murray played and while the long term effects aren’t the same as with the starters fatigue still ended up costing the team last night.

Not that I blame him but Hunter was awful last night with 2 asts. and 3 TOs in 7 minutes. Either make the guy a coach, give him regular playing time, or cut him. Hunter is not Steve Kerr where he’s coming into the game to make a shot and can do it until he’s 40 or Mutumbo where he’s playing half court post defense and didn’t get any shorter. He’s an athletic, hard-nosed, reliable PG who needs to be playing with controlled intensity to succeed. Hunter can either ball at age 37 or he can’t. If you have 41 minutes of trust in Flip Murray but only 7 minutes of trust in Lindsey Hunter with Billups and Stuckey out maybe it’s time to put Hunter in a suit and tie as assistant coach and find somebody else to be your 4th PG.

Still, lots of long term positives in an exciting loss. I’m optimistic about this team.

from the get-go though, we seemed like we were barely hanging on. kobe hadn’t done anything through the 3rd and we were leading by 2. it was just a matter of time. and once the refs get into both rip and sheed’s head, without chauncey around to pick up the slack, we are dead in the water. those two should know better especially last night. there was nobody else to shepherd the flock. completely selfish, a-hole behavior.

Afflalo played good defense and always seems to know where to go on offense.

Jarvis is such a huge upgrade of Delfino and Mo Evans (who is now on my shit list for his little dance after going over Rip’s back)

Man, my hopes for Samb just doubled. Before I was just hoping he would eventually develop (in two years) into a 6-12 minute/game backup center. I still think we should send him to the D-League though.

Would have like to have seen Maxiell go at Brian Cook. He would have destroyed him.

Flip looked gassed at the end of the game.

Amir doesn’t blow me away like he does everyone else but he’s got a good +/- these last two games.

Lindsay looked rusty.

I’m a Nazr defender but our biggest needs are a shot-blocker and a rebounder. Amir can provide the former although he still needs to work on the latter (he gave up position way too many times).