AGRI Biz

The 2008-09 Los Angeles Lakers accomplished something that hadn't been done in 20 years: They became the first NBA Finals runner-up since the 1988-89 Detroit Pistons to win a championship the following season. If you were to look at the 20 championships won in the years between, you'd realize how big a part experience plays. Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls managed to repeat four times en route to six titles. The Shaq/Kobe Lakers ...

I've heard of kicking a dog while it's down but I've also heard that's it's best to let a sleeping dog lie. So which one is it with the 2009-10 Lakers? I can't really tell you as of right now but I do know that we're about to find out. Regardless of how lousy the defending champions looked in their Game 4 loss on Saturday night I feel like it's my duty to ...

The 2010 NBA Playoffs feature 16 head coaches each with varying levels of experience and success. Only four of the 16 can lay claim to ever guiding a team to an NBA title. Some, like Larry Brown and Phil Jackson, are definitely on the back nine of their careers. Others, like Scotty Brooks, Scott Skiles, and Nate McMillan look like they'll be coaching for at least the next 15 years. Where does each ...

My Fansided colleague, Drew Decker, wrote a post last August on basketball website Sir Charles In Charge listing who he felt were the league's 10 worst general managers. While I agreed with most of his list, I took exception to a couple of names—most notably, the Milwaukee Bucks' John Hammond. Decker and I exchanged opinions until we agreed to disagree. My contention was based on what I perceive to be a general ...

If you feel a wind blowing from the west to the east today, it could be the power of Los Angeles Lakers fans breathing one big collective sigh of relief. As reported first by NBA.com , the Lakers and Bryant agree today on a three-year, maximum extension that Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting to be for approximately $90 million. That means Bryant will remain a Laker until the end of the 2013-14 ...

The Los Angeles Lakers' victory over the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night was one of only a handful of games this season Lakers fans could really savor and feel good about. The win was one of those games that the Lakers needed to remind themselves as well as their fans of how good they can be when they commit to playing team defense, knock down their open three-pointers, and get ...

As the NBA regular season begins its final full month of action, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. While the top seeds in each conferences seem to be locked up by the Lakers and Cavaliers, the 14 other playoff seeds, as well as home-court advantage throughout the playoffs, are up in the air. In the aftermath of the Lakers' come-from-behind victory over the Nuggets on Sunday night, I figured ...

The Lakers are 27-6 and owners of the NBA's best record. Much of that has to do with a home-heavy schedule, which saw the Lakers play 22 of their first 33 games at home. After a 12-2 November, the Lakers followed that up with an equally impressive 12-3 record in December. So far the Lakers are undefeated in 2010 thanks to victories against the Sacramento Kings and Sunday night's drubbing of the ...

If you missed Part I, "Looking Back: The Best OffSeason Moves So Far", click here. You know the old expression that hindsight is 20/20. And while that is true most of the time, there are instances where teams in every sport try to make bold moves that they hope will pan out in spite of the fact that most people thought it was a bad move at the time. Is anyone surprised ...

If there's one thing that a lot of NBA fans are guilty of it's what I like to call "GM Worship". This happens when a fan thinks that every move that their team's GM makes is brilliant. I remember Raptors fans in the summer of 2008 who couldn't shut up about the brilliance of Bryan Colangelo. They couldn't have been any giddier about Hassan Adams, Roko Ukic, and Nathan Jawai. A year ...