Lakers Thread

You'd rather see Sacre start over Gasol at the 4?!?

You'd rather see Sacre start over Gasol at the 4?!?

gasol becomes a liability at 4 when kobe, dwight and nash is on the floor. at times it looks like he has even fallen further down the pecking order on ofense.

even with the big win by lakers over portland that had the team giddy at the post game interview, one thing was clear, aldridge was still able to get away with a 12-17 performance on shooting mostly on jumpers. gasol just can not chase down most opposing 4s these days. ok maybe it might be to much to stop starting gasol in favor of sacre for a whole season, but in situations where the Lakers are up againt a tram with an athletic pf, the time that dwight and gasol plays together might have to be limited or another way might be that on defense gasol mans the paint and dwight comes out to chase opposing bigs that have range on their shot.

slowly other things are falling into place, dwight finding his shot. kobe and nash are doing well in tbe backcourt. mwp finding some consistency in his game. morris starting to develop and a little less turnover prone, finally showing why goudelock was expendable. morris might just bscome the real mini-mamba.

I mean, their offense is great .... but their defense at times is atrocious. I don't think this type of defense will break the streak of the Clippers. They need to teach that team a lesson. LOL. Barnes really doing well in the other face of LA.

gasol just can not chase down most opposing 4s these days. ok maybe it might be to much to stop starting gasol in favor of sacre for a whole season, but in situations where the Lakers are up againt a tram with an athletic pf, the time that dwight and gasol plays together might have to be limited or another way might be that on defense gasol mans the paint and dwight comes out to chase opposing bigs that have range on their shot...

for me gasol has to go, because at this point of his career he should already naturally transition to play more minutes at center like what garnett is doing. most nights the tandem of howard and gasol is too slow.

yessir

You'd rather see Sacre start over Gasol at the 4?!?

Have World Peace play more minutes at PF

Let's see how an athletic PF like Thaddeus Young does tonite...

Looks like the Lakers just can't seem to get out of the .500 hump.

You'd rather see Sacre start over Gasol at the 4?!?

Have World Peace play more minutes at PF

Let's see how an athletic PF like Thaddeus Young does tonite...

Thaddeus is more of a SF I think, especially when Philly still had Brand and Speights. I did not get to watch the game, based on the stats, it is an undestatement to say the starting front court tandem of the Lakers did very poorly.

Dwight 1-7 (0.142)
Gasol 2-12 (0.166)

Lavoy Allen 5-8 (0.625)
Young 6-15 (0.400)

Brand is Dallas

Kobe Bryant blames Lakers' age

"Cause we're old as s---," said the 34-year-old Bryant when asked why a lack of energy has been a problem for the Lakers all season. "What do you want? We just got to figure out how to play when we don't have that energy. We got to change things up a little bit defensively. We got to figure out what we want to do offensively, figure out what we want to do on nights when we don't have those legs or have that energy."
...
"You just saw an old damn team," Bryant continued. "I don't know how else to put it to you. We're just slow. You saw a team over there that was just younger and just had fresher legs and just played with more energy, and we were just stuck in the mud. I think individually we all have to figure out how to get ourselves ready each and every game to have a high level of energy. That's all that is."

And... MWP's response.

Metta World Peace, 33, refused to accept the age of the Lakers' roster as an excuse for their play, pointing out what the New York Knicks have accomplished so far this season.


"That's no excuse, the Knicks are playing great, so that's no excuse," World Peace said. "You can't use it as an excuse for us. Thank you. Thanks for trying."


Having an older roster hasn't stopped the Knicks from starting the season with a 21-10 record, good enough for the second-best mark in the Eastern Conference. The Knicks started the season with an average player age of 32 years and 240 days, the oldest in NBA history, according to STATS, LLC.

On the bright side, the Lakers were playing well before the loss.

But the thing is, most of the players that caused the average age in NY to go up don't get heavy usage. Thomas, Camby and Wallace are all off the bench, and I think Wallace is still out. Even their old rookie Prigioni is off the bench. Only Kidd is getting the most minutes out of the above 32 bunch. With the Lakers, Kobe, Pau, Nash, Metta are all getting heavy usage. Only Jamison is the above 32 yr old player that is not getting heavy usage.

That is the lamest excuse I've heard so far this season. First it was Brown, then Gasol, then D'antoni, and now it's age which targets all aged players and management's winning decisions on every moves. What a morale boost, eh?

The Spurs are another good example, while the Mavericks were one of the oldest teams in the league when they won it all a couple of years ago. Metta World Peace spouts his fair share of nonsense, but I'd say in this case he's got the right idea.

I still refuse to believe Gasol isn't capable of being more dominant. I vehemently believe D'Antoni doesn't know how to utilize him.

When you've got Metta World Peace in the post and Gasol on the perimeter, you know the coach is a fucking moron. I don't give two fucks of what D'Antoni did in Phoenix. He's a gimmick coach who can run P&R basketball and only that. Take away Steve Nash from him & he's a shit, shit coach. Fuck him. Fuck management for being so fearful of his sisters "control" over the franchise that he'd opt for this nincompoop over the most succesful coach in basketball history.

"We have to figure that out," Bryant said. "We need to go through him a lot, lot more. A lot, lot more. He needs more touches on the elbow, more touches on the post. He's not a scorer type of a person, he'll be the first to admit that, but he can make plays for others down there. He can control the game from down there, and we got to find a way to get him more activated."

"Bryant said he planned to speak with D'Antoni about Gasol's role at practice Saturday. "Pau is just going to continue to be patient," Bryant said. "He's obviously frustrated and has every right to be. I'm frustrated for him. But, I mean, that's something that we have to solve because we're not going to get where we have to go with him not playing at maximum potential and using his maximum potential."

"I won two championships with [Gasol]. We won two championships playing through him, really. I know what he's capable of doing."

They keep saying it & having sit downs & dinners and what not...yet I see nothing of it in game.

Even if it is from Bleacher Report, it's worth a read;

Gasol is the team's second-best passer behind Nash, and he has better fundamental skills in the post than Dwight Howard. But D'Antoni seems hellbent on ignoring those attributes while trying to emphasize the poorest aspect of Gasol's game.

Would it kill D'Antoni to draw up a few plays for Gasol at the rim? Or how about running a few pick-and-roll plays with Nash that begin with Howard on the elbow and Gasol in the paint?

Unfortunately for the Lakers, it may take a Gasol trade to prove that he is really not the problem, and then the Lakers can spend the rest of their spring trying to find D'Antoni's replacement since the playoffs don't seem like a reality while he's roaming the sidelines.

Click.

"Offensive guru" my ass, he's an offensive guru when he knows how to use his best players to the best of their ability. Then I'll call you an offensive guru. Heck even Stoudemire threw his ass under the bus saying he's never had a coach who has held him accountable for not playing D. You think Phil Jackson would be "scared" to bench Howard because of his terrible free throw shooting? D'Antoni is, oh franchise player to be, can't bench him. Be a coach bitch, it's more important to win the damn game before you worry about the future.

Griffin was embarrassing gasol on defense. it was a good decision to keep him on the bench for most of the 4th qtr

Griffin was embarrassing gasol on defense. it was a good decision to keep him on the bench for most of the 4th qtr

Gasol/D'Antoni do have a reputation in the league for playing/coaching good defense...

Their defense wasn't too bad down the stretch when they almost pulled off the comeback, though the Clippers were doing a pretty decent job of almost choking the game away with some poor offense while they tried to run down the clock; tough to say which was the bigger factor in the game ending up as close as it was. Aside from that however, their defense was very ordinary for most of the game, quite a lot of standing back and giving the Clippers plenty of room to do what they wanted.

The Lakers won't change their coach now that means Gasol's role won't change and he will continue to suck under this system. Just trade him already for a more athletic/shooters role players that they can use off the bench.

Lakers bench right now, Hill (good), Meeks (streaky), Morris ( ) and Jamison who is frustrated on his role too.

I believe there will be a major change soon, they are Lakers and that's that.

And just where are they going to get these athletic shooters from?

I mean athletic or shooters kind of players. Like Corey Brewer, Dorrell Wright, Wayne Ellington, etc.

Right. And where are they going to get them from?

http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=b7hsqvr

I dont really understand why a coach comes in and refuses to play the kind of game he has the players for. Does this make sense? Did the best coaches in history use their roster the right way or force it into their system? (this is not a retorical question. Maybe some of you have an answer for me)

Who wasn't being embarassed by Griffin? Even Howard got dunked on so that's a bullshit reason, with that logic even he should've been benched.

Who wasn't being embarassed by Griffin? Even Howard got dunked on so that's a bullshit reason, with that logic even he should've been benched.

Dito that. Everybody's still thinking about those two big posters by Griffin over Gasol last year whilst at least one of these was a clear charge. Griffin goes all-in with his dunks, but never gets called for a charge because it's spectacular. That makes it very tough to defend. Apart from that I'd rather get dunked on by BG than shoot a brick against the side of the backboard.

Im not talking about dunks

The fact remains that Griffin was easily getting past gasol on the wing and beating him down the court on transition. This is just more evidence that gasol is better suited to play center at this stage of his career.

It's ok if you cry

Well I aint no Lakers fan, so there is no reason to cry for me. Youre statin the obvious with Gasol since he has gotten a step slower and was never a good one on one defender. That does not mean he should play C so, but rather he should guard the weaker of the two opponent big men. (In this case Jordan, who might be athletic but does not have the footwork to go past Gasol).