Pau! Blam! Zarff!

Only one of those 3 was not an exclamation of a big punch on the old Batman series with Adam West (before he became mayor of Quohog) and Burt Ward (before he.......well he hasn't done anything).  We're talking about Pau in this blog. 

I've mentioned before that I live in New York.  Well, one of the privileges/curses is the YES network.  I watched the Nets play the Lakers last night in Pau's Laker debut.  Here are my thoughts:

1) The Nets play inspired basketball...inspiring like a movie about how a billionaire made another couple million by firing 1000 factory workers and destroying the town where the factory is as thousands of puppies become homeless.  Please trade Jason Kidd.  

2)  The Lakers are a complete team now.  Gasol gives them the biggest front court in the league.  Odom, Pau, and Andrew Bynum (when he returns).  I like this.  I like it because it bucks a trend around the league.  The latest thing is people going small.  Not the Lakers.  They'll start 2 guys who could play center.  More on this later.

3) The key to that team is Odom.  He needs to be a Pippen-type player on that team.  When he is involved, rebounding, running the court, distributing and being the versatile player he can be, the Lakers are nasty.  When it's the Bryant show, they are beatable.  Odom tends to disappear at times and he can't if the Lakers want to win a title (a real possibility for the first time since Kobe forced Sha-quay out of town).

As I mentioned, everyone around the league is going small.  This has led to more entertaining games in my opinion.  The Lakers, with their new acquisition, are now a half court team.  They'll be starting two 7 footers and a 6'10" small forward.  They are going to try and execute in the half court.  I think this bodes well for them in the playoffs.  The 5 month long NBA post season is about 3 things:

1) Being healthy

2) Not giving up easy buckets

3) Executing in the half court

Right now, the Lakers have those things (or they will when Bynum comes back).  Anything can happen though, and nothing will derail this little fantasy like an injury.  If I had to predict, I still think this Laker team loses to the Spurs in a best of 7.  I like how they match up with Dallas and Phoenix.  And no, New Orleans isn't ready yet.

Bing!  Zang!  Pau!