Someday the Lakers will be good again. Given their history as a franchise and the seemingly inescapable pull of talent to Los Angeles, it probably won’t be too long before it happens, either.
It’s just not likely to happen with Byron Scott as coach.
Scott’s not a bad coach, although his most recent gig in Cleveland ended after three seasons of disappointment and a 64-166 cumulative record. The main problem for Scott is that Los Angeles brass have sent him on a fool’s errand.
The Lakers finished 27-55 last year, last in their division, second worst in the Western Conference and sixth worst in the entire NBA. They lost their best player from last season, Pau Gasol, to Chicago, and Jodie Meeks, their second best player, to Detroit. Their reinforcements include Kobe Bryant, 35 and coming off another serious injury that limited him to six games last year, and Carlos Boozer, at 32 a longtime defensive non-entity who’s coming off one of the worst offensive seasons of his career. Steve Nash is expected back too, but at 40 it is difficult to expect he will bring anything with him.
They also overpaid to keep Jordan Hill, a useful role player with questionable defence, and Nick Young, also a useful role player with even worse defence – who shoots way, way too much.
To be fair, they also made an astute signing on the cheap of Ed Davis, a solid forward, traded for Jeremy Lin, who can thrive in a supersub role and drafted Julius Randle, a genuinely exciting prospect. But all in all, the Lakers are an objectively bad collection of basketball talent.
This is the fire into which Byron Scott has been thrown. To his credit, the two-time NBA Finals coach with the Nets took over a Hornets team in an equally woeful situation in 2004/05 and had them in the play-offs by 2007/08. But the parallels are only instructive if you think Randle will turn out like Chris Paul, the Hall of Fame talent New Orleans selected with the fourth pick in 2005 and who was largely responsible for the rise of the Hornets under Scott.
Unfortunately for Scott, his Cleveland experience is probably more telling in this regard. LeBron James left the Cavaliers after the 2009/2010 season, Scott was subsequently hired to coach a team mostly devoid of talent and in three years he never could get them to approach respectability.
Scott understands one of the biggest immediate problems facing the Lakers, at least. Los Angeles had the fourth-worst point differential in the NBA last season, despite an offence that ranked 11th by points scored, thanks to the 109.2 points per game they surrendered. Now, they also hoisted the seventh-most field goal attempts per game, meaning some of that eye-popping points allowed total was a result of playing at a fast pace that inflated points totals on both sides.
But 109 is also a lot of points now matter how you slice it.
Scott is saying the right things about improving that, including telling ESPN LA that one of his first texts with Kobe concerned defence. "He told me he was working out with Wesley (Johnson) and Nick (Young)," Scott said. "I told them that sounded great, but they 'better be ready to play some defence'."
Nice as that is, however much Scott emphasises defence as a value or insists his players work on it, the fact is LA don’t have good defenders. Almost up and down the roster, from Nash to Boozer to a hobbled Bryant to Lin to Young to Hill, the Lakers are staffed by players who just aren’t good at defending.
If it didn’t seem like such a heartless thing to do to a franchise favourite who won three titles with LA in the 1980s, and if they hadn’t given him such a generous contract (four years, $17 million (Dh62.4m) according to ESPN LA), it would seem like LA had simply hired Scott, a known entity who’s been around the NBA a bit, because it would be easy to replace him with someone else when they were closer to being a realistic contender.
As it stands, it appears the Lakers genuinely hope he's their long-term coaching answer. Scott had better hope they're patient, that they really mean long-term, because it's going to be at least a few seasons before the Lakers resemble anything like the Los Angeles Lakers again.
In the meantime he can expect a lot of long nights, exasperating 120-105 results and the responsibility of trying to keep poor Kobe, a notorious competitor, from assaulting his teammates.
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
RESULT
Wolves 1 (Traore 67')
Tottenham 2 (Moura 8', Vertonghen 90 1')
Man of the Match: Adama Traore (Wolves)
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Akeed
Based: Muscat
Launch year: 2018
Number of employees: 40
Sector: Online food delivery
Funding: Raised $3.2m since inception
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Opening weekend Premier League fixtures
Weekend of August 10-13
Arsenal v Manchester City
Bournemouth v Cardiff City
Fulham v Crystal Palace
Huddersfield Town v Chelsea
Liverpool v West Ham United
Manchester United v Leicester City
Newcastle United v Tottenham Hotspur
Southampton v Burnley
Watford v Brighton & Hove Albion
Wolverhampton Wanderers v Everton
If you go
The Flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct to Johannesburg from Dubai and Abu Dhabi respectively. Economy return tickets cost from Dh2,650, including taxes.
The trip
Worldwide Motorhoming Holidays (worldwidemotorhomingholidays.co.uk) operates fly-drive motorhome holidays in eight destinations, including South Africa. Its 14-day Kruger and the Battlefields itinerary starts from Dh17,500, including campgrounds, excursions, unit hire and flights. Bobo Campers has a range of RVs for hire, including the 4-berth Discoverer 4 from Dh600 per day.
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
THE BIO
Age: 30
Favourite book: The Power of Habit
Favourite quote: "The world is full of good people, if you cannot find one, be one"
Favourite exercise: The snatch
Favourite colour: Blue
How does ToTok work?
The calling app is available to download on Google Play and Apple App Store
To successfully install ToTok, users are asked to enter their phone number and then create a nickname.
The app then gives users the option add their existing phone contacts, allowing them to immediately contact people also using the application by video or voice call or via message.
Users can also invite other contacts to download ToTok to allow them to make contact through the app.
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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Company%C2%A0profile
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
The specs: 2019 Infiniti QX50
Price, base: Dh138,000 (estimate)
Engine: 2.0L, turbocharged, in-line four-cylinder
Transmission: Continuously variable transmission
Power: 268hp @ 5,600rpm
Torque: 380Nm @ 4,400rpm
Fuel economy: 6.7L / 100km (estimate)
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
If you go
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Seattle from Dh5,555 return, including taxes. Portland is a 260 km drive from Seattle and Emirates offers codeshare flights to Portland with its partner Alaska Airlines.
The car
Hertz (www.hertz.ae) offers compact car rental from about $300 per week, including taxes. Emirates Skywards members can earn points on their car hire through Hertz.
Parks and accommodation
For information on Crater Lake National Park, visit www.nps.gov/crla/index.htm . Because of the altitude, large parts of the park are closed in winter due to snow. While the park’s summer season is May 22-October 31, typically, the full loop of the Rim Drive is only possible from late July until the end of October. Entry costs $25 per car for a day. For accommodation, see www.travelcraterlake.com. For information on Umpqua Hot Springs, see www.fs.usda.gov and https://soakoregon.com/umpqua-hot-springs/. For Bend, see https://www.visitbend.com/.
A%20QUIET%20PLACE
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NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Dubai World Cup factbox
Most wins by a trainer: Godolphin’s Saeed bin Suroor(9)
Most wins by a jockey: Jerry Bailey(4)
Most wins by an owner: Godolphin(9)
Most wins by a horse: Godolphin’s Thunder Snow(2)
