Some hoop

Baron Davis on the Lakers, after facing them twice in the season’s first 9 days: They’re a very good team. We all know that. Most importantly, they’re a team on a mission. They went all the way to the Fianls and had a taste of it. Now they got Bynum back and Lamar coming off the bench. They’re a machine. They know what they’re trying to accomplish. They showed what the bar is.”

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Pretty funny Phil Jackson comments on the Space Cadet, courtesy of Ramona at Inside the Lakers:

[Jackson] gave a rather strange answer when asked about Radmanovic's status as a starter.

`` I'm not going to answer that question,'' Jackson said.

Because?

`` I don't want to answer that question. I don't want to talk about it either positively or negatively, and I don't want him to hear about it.''

Come on, like Vlad reads the papers?

``He has friends who can read."

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Ron Artest wears number 96, an odd enough choice that you knew it had to have some significance. It turns out that it is a tribute to Queensbridge, the Queens housing project where he grew up. The 9 is the q and the 6 the b, which is frankly pretty creative, even for a crazy guy.