 | jy826 (15)
04/02/2008 |  After signing Karl Malone and Gary Payton as free-agents in the summer, everyone seemed ready to hand the Lakers the NBA title. However there were problems. Gary Payton didn't mesh with the triangle offense and at age 35 wasn't the player he once was. Karl Malone, at 40, wasn't either but fit in much better however suffered a knee injury when Scott Williams came crashing down on him in a regular season game and had to sit out 40 games in the regular season and this would haunt the Lakers in the playoffs. Kobe Bryant also had to deal with the distraction of his sexual assault case in Colorado and had to fly back and forth between Colorado and LA to attend hearings while Shaq was finally starting to show signs that he was in decline. Despite this the Lakers were able to reach the NBA Finals in a matchup with the Detroit Pistons and were seen as the favorites in the series. But the Lakers were not at full strength because Karl Malone hurt his knee in the the Western Conference Finals against Minnesota but was still able to play in that series and Game One of the Finals but in game two of the series, Karl Malone re-hurt his knee and his effectiveness was limited for the rest of the series and was forced to sit out game five. And with Malone injured the Lakers had no effective power forward to fit in his place as Horace Grant whom the team had also signed in the offseason, suffered an injury during the end of the regualar season and the team was forced to go to Slava Medvenko who had decent offensive skills but was not a good defensive player or rebounder. Kobe seemed to also have hit a wall during the NBA Finals and struggled during the series also. Thus this team was dominated by the Pistons in the Finals, and might have been swept if Kobe hadn't hit a 3-pointer at the end of regulation in game two which sent the Lakers won in OT. The Pistons, who were cleary the better team during the series, won the series in five games and the Lakers and Karl Malone were without a title. This team was far from the greatest team ever even if Karl Malone had been healthy for the series, but this team can be considered an oustanding one as it beat an excellent San Antonio Spurs team, in the Western Conference Semi-Finals (and in truth may have been the best team in the West and possibly even better then Detroit) even though it didn't go all the way.
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