In all honesty, it's the best move on his part. From offseason movements, I think the Lakers are still a step ahead of everyone else (though it'll be interesting to see Boston with Sheed and a healthy KG).

Artest move would make Lakers better than the championship roster with him playing 3 and 4, he pretty much added versatility to Lakers roster from last season.

Obviously there's always the Lakers doubter around but in reality, if Phil can control Rodman he can coach anybody (Artest isn't even as bad). With Kobe on his side too (one of the few players Ron actually respects) I really don't think it'll go terribly wrong.

oh yeah another thing, barring injuries there are going to be set starter at the 3 spot now, where last season Phil really didn't know who to start at that spot.

Great news for the Lakers. Barring serious injury, they'll be title contenders for the next 3-4 years.

I still think they are worse than this year, while other teams are better (Spurs, Mavs, Blazers). I still see them as favourites in the West but it will be much closer. Any of the big three from the East could beat them in the Finals.

How are they worse? They're basically bringing back the exact same team but have swapped Ariza with Artest. Now Ariza wasn't exactly chop liver for the Lakers but there wouldn't be too many teams that wouldn't trade Ariza for Artest. It's a major upgrade. The big question is whether or not Artest will fit in, but the Lakers have an excellent coaching staff and a couple of the few players Artest respects in the league (Kobe & Odom) which maximises the likelihood of it working. And if Bynum can stay on the floor the whole season (seems like a big if these days) and continue to develop, they're even better again.

The Mavs and Blazers have improved, no doubt. But they had a lot of ground to cover in trying to catch the Lakers. They may have covered that ground with the moves they made, time will tell I guess. I don't think they have at this stage though.

The Spurs will be tough. The Celtics will be very tough. The Cavs will be tough (but are they better with Shaq? It's debatable.) Conceivably, any of those three teams could beat the Lakers in a 7 game series. Then again, conceivably, the Lakers could beat either of those three teams in a 7 game series as well.

Jay-Jay Manners- I agree with everything you said. With this all said, I think a point and subject of this topic seems somewhat forgotten. We bring Lamar Odom off the bench! All there teams mentioned above simply don't have this luxury, where a sub is arguably better than your starter.

Other things I've heard, Adam's playing his best ball since joining the NBA so it'd be interesting to see how he go while Shannon has been fairly promosing while I was there.

Further with the Spurs they have upgraded but they are aging extremely fast. While I'm not sure if Mavs will ever get there again with Dirk; they have yet to recover since '05. I think the interesting teams to watch out for'd be Blazers and Clippers.

I definitely think Celtics will be much more dangerous with Sheed but I quite like our chances with Ron on Paul, length on Drew and Pau will hopefully help closing out better on Sheed's shot.