Ive been hearing the above quote quite a bit recently so i decided to take a look at Mr. Kupchak's illustrious career as the Lakers GM. Im not an expert and may miss a few things but here we go anyway.

His 1st major move was to bring in Karl Malone and Gary Payton. Generally regarded as great moves at the time. He got both to take less money for the chance to team with Shaq and Kobeand possibly win a chip. The fact that GP was trash that year and Malone who never got hurt was injured arent his fault. They made it to the finals and lost to the Pistons. It was a bittersweet win/loss. Verdict B+

His next Big Move....Trading Shaq. No Trading an at the time dominant Shaq for...wait for it....Odom, Caron Butler and Brian Grant? Really? That's all we landed for an all world center? Laughable and Miami eventually Laughed all the way to a chip. Remember this trade as it was a disgruntled Shaq who wanted out and we gave him up for peanuts. That trade left the Lakers preparing to usher in the darkest era in Lakerland. Verdict F

The above trade paved the way for the Lakers make another deal. Trading Caron Butler for Kwame Brown and bringing in Smush Parker to team with Kobe. We all know how that ended and it also created Kobe's public trade request. Verdict F

Next Big Move....Bringing in Pau. By all accounts this was a great move capitalizing on The grizzlies wanting to get rid of salary and Gasol by giving them scraps and cap room. We won a few titles AND he didnt do as Kobe wanted by trading Drew for Kidd.. This deal came at aperfect time because Drew had gotten injured. What some dont remember is Drew was dominating at the time of his injury and the Lakers were rolling. The deal would have still been made minus the injurybut the end result is an A++

Now we're at the end or at least to the present day Kupchak. He just traded the reigning 6th man of the year to The Dallas Mavericks for all intents and purposes a bag of skittles and a couple of snicker bars. Remember the Shaq trade i mentioned above? Disgruntled player seeks trade and gets wish granted for scraps? History has repeated itself here in Lakerland to an extnt. Lucky for us the team as a whole is light years better than the one that lost Shaq so a descent of that nature isnt likely. The question needs to be asked where do we go from here?. There are still moves to be made and once everything is done we will all see how this plays out. He could ultimately get an A+ or he could wipeout and hit F status once again.The verdict at this time is an Incomplete.

In Kupchak we trust? I dont know about that. The future is partly cloudy for the Lakers with an aging roster, Big contracts and no cap space as we move closer and closer towards life without Kobe. We havent developed any young players or made any moves to get any on the roster. He could channel his inner genius and make another Pauesque trade and all will be well. Or he could pull a Kwame Brown out of his hat and well we all know how that ended.

"Lakers and Celtics.

The NBA's two most storied franchises, two of the most famous organizations in sports history, with 32 titles between them, more than half of the 63 that the NBA has bestowed, meeting in the NBA Finals for the second time in three years and 12th time overall. This amazing, heated rivalry goes back 51 years, to 1959, Elgin Baylor's rookie year; that was the first time they met in the Finals with Bob Cousy's Celtics beating the Minneapolis Lakers, two years before the Lakers moved to L.A.

As a tribute to half a century of antagonism, antipathy, jealousy, mutual animosity and maybe, just maybe, the most grudging kind of respect that will never be acknowledged, but mostly because the Lakers' record in these colossal championship confrontations is an astoundingly embarrassing 2-9, we present today, as a public service to Lakers' fans the world over . . . 

A Guide to Hating the Celtics!

We begin with two storylines, premises, really, that you must understand up front:

1)  The Celtics cry. They cry more than Best Actress winners at the Oscars. They cry like every game is a wedding. Every time a call goes against them, there will be more tears than Kleenex can handle. They cry even after they have to dial 911 to mop up some fallen opponent who's been mugged and beaten within an inch of his life.

2)  The Celtics also foul. They foul on every play. They foul everyone, from stars to scrubs. They foul as a strategy. They foul as a style. They foul as a tradition. They foul hard and they foul incessantly. They foul just for the fun of fouling. They probably foul their own bus driver on the way to the arena.

Now, so you can hate them properly and profoundly, here they are, the Boston Celtics: after the jump

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Well, It actually hurt my fingers to type his name in the title of my FanPost. I fought through the pain ala LeBron and finished the rest of it typing left handed. Now on to the meat and potatoes of the 3rd FanPost in my trilogy of greatness!

Is LeBron James now the most hated player in the Laker Kingdom? Being a fan thru the Showtime Lakers that honor has always been reserved for a Celtic. Back then it was Larry Bird and more recently Paul "WheelChair" Pierce has carried the torch of the most hated player for our younger fans. Now we have a different monster on our hands. As great as Larry Legend was he couldn't touch the Magic Man imo. Magic Kicked his ass from college through their years in the NBA to the tune of 5 titles to 3 and Paul Pierce the self proclaimed greatest player in the world(?) can't even scratch the surface of The Greatness that is Kobe "Black Mamba" Bryant.

But there is one man. A 6'9 260 pd freak of nature who has single handedly caught the attention of us Laker Fans, Lebron James. He was hyped up coming out of High School and given the Title of "King James" which was the 1st red flag for me. King? before his 1st NBA game?WTF? I overlooked it and gave the Kid the benefit of the doubt. I even started to kind of like him when the Lebrons nike commercials were out. I even chuckled at the pre game antics last year. No Big Deal. But That all started to change with the "Handshake Gate" incident and the subsequent snubbing of the postgame media session. Then this season kicked off and i saw the love affair every sports network, analyst and Fly by Night fan had with this guy increase tenfold. But here's where i took notice and exception. They started to compare him to our very own King of Lakerdom. Our King who has the jewelry and Crown to prove it. 4 times over. That got my Anti-Lebron juices flowing and he follows that up with a plethora of decisions that in my contact improved eyes make it look like he's trying to one up Kobe or follow in his footsteps...He decides to change numbers, not a biggie but then says nobody should ever wear 23. lol really? You're changing numbers to honor Mike? I dont believe it so i start to dislike him even more. I turn to sportcenter one day and see him Dancing on the sideline During a game. Not celebrating but dancing? The whop, Kid n Play and i think he was probably doing the "rerun" at some point. Cmon man your team is playing and you're over there disrespecting the opposing team and Attracting attention to yourself which i believe was the main reason anyway. My hate for him at that point was as high as i thought it could get until the elbow....I dont know how severe his elbow is injured..IF it is but shooting a free-throw quite easily with perfect form once then in 20 seconds it hurts to the point you hafta shoot the 2nd one left handed seems just a lil bit Oscar worthy to me..I take it for what it looked like you were trying to show up the Bulls ala Michael Jordan shooting a freethrow with his eyes closed.....

Everything he does irritates me to no end. From sticking his chest out when he makes a shot to playing Drama King when he falls down and how he goes sprinting crying to a ref when he actually gets called for a foul. it makes me cringe and i wish i was in the league so i could give him a 80's style hard foul.. Am I hater? in a sense i guess i am. But i know one thing. I HATE Lebron James and i dont think im the only one that does in Lakerdom.

Feel Free to cast your vote on my very own Hate Lebron Poll!

I was waiting on someone else to touch on this subject because i didn't think i could sufficiently write what i and many other Laker Fans are feeling at this point. We're getting screwed by the refs. I know there are other things that attributed to the 2 Laker losses but there's only 1 thing that stands out above the rest. The Free-Throw disparity.

In L.A. the FT difference for both games together was 3. It was basically even in both with the Thunder gettin 3 more freebies a a whole. The series moves to OKC and they shoot 82 free-throws? In the 2 games separately they shot 22 more freebies in game 3 and 20 more in game 4. I've never been one for bashing the refs as a whole because i tend to think things usually even out but this is unheard of. How can a team have more points in the paint and not shoot free-throws? It's not like it's our points in the paint are coming as a result of our Fast Break so what gives? I cant explain that but i can shed a lil light on the Lakers play the rest of game 4

I had lost alot of confidence in this team but i took a step back and looked at it from a player's perspective. I dont know how many people on here have actually played organized ball, but when you're in a game and everything you do is a foul while the other team is doing the same thing and not getting called it seriously sucks the life out your team. The worst part is there's nothing you can do about it. How could they possibly stay confident and stick to the gameplan when everytime they tried to respond the refs took them out the game? There were numerous plays where we would drive and get bumped with a no call, then on the same trip down the court a thunder player would drive get bumped and the refs would call a foul. I understand why they gave up at one point in the game. They realized there was no way they were gonna get back in the game getting whistle whipped like they were. As much as we like to think we have a Superman and we do, even Superman cant defeat Kryptonite and by the looks of this series so far the men in Black and white are playing the role of Lex Luthor perfectly.

I've ranted and wrote enough..I feel better and if we can actually get a somewhat evenly called game preferably 2 we can and will win this series. Then play the Jazz and probably the Spurs on our way to the Finals.  Feel free to comment and rant amongst yourselves. 

The NFL draft is almost upon us and everyone has their opinions on what the Bears will/should do. It's part of the excitement the drafts brings.

As we all know or for some who dont know, Every pick in the draft has a "value" and a numerical number that goes with it. For instance the 1st overall pick has a value of 3000 points and theoretically any trade of draft picks for that 1st overall pick would have to equal that number. The Bears have pick 75 which is valued at 215 points, pick 109 =76pts, 141=35.5,181=19, and 218 =4.2.  That is what we have to work with in this years draft.

I Included the pick value chart so you can check it out and come up with your own scenarios of what you would do to move up and pick the best safety possible.

We just witnessed the results of Ron Artest's and Dj Mbenga's secret trip to visit King Midas before Last night's game vs the Kings with Ron Ron getting a nice all around golden do' and Mbenga well Mbenga looks like King Midas didnt have enough gold in his finger to sufficiently cover that medicine ball he calls a head...It makes me ask the question, if given prior notice Should the Lakers as a whole go and pay King Midas a visit? We have seen this type of team solidarity in sports before ie Teams collectively wearing headbands, The Fro Hawks and Bald Heads...What better way for the Lakers to show team unity by walking out on the floor for game 1 vs the Thunder rockin the "Golden Locks"? Ammo could get his hair AND Mustache touched by Midas. That alone would strike fear in the Thunder! Gasol with his Hair and scruffy beard both returned to the Golden Shine they used to have before he stopped washing them..Fisher with a Golden Goatee...They would be unstoppable!  What do you think Laker Fans? I know where my Vote is going, how bout you?   update, Rumor has it L.O. is growing a playoff beard and is going to color it Gold..YES!