I think the weight thing and conditioning came up because while some claim in silly fashion he can’t jump over a piece of paper, he has shown he can get up in the air pretty well on a lob or to block a shot. Once in awhile and not very often repetitively. “Quickly”. Dropping 10-15 lbs and getting into a little better shape while in the “prime” of his career would still have him being a very big and very strong player as he’s a BIG guy to begin with. I joked but was semi serious about him getting with the (a) trainer that (like) Julius used to hone his body when Magic was requesting it out of everyone. IF and a big IF Dre is serious about taking his game to a higher level. This year of course allowed for no extra time to work on anything. Let’s see how he looks after having this summer off and no injuries to prevent him from doing work. Then we’ll know as @Weezy alluded to …. how much he really “wants it”. Personally I think that would be pretty awesome in how much quicker even for a big guy than he is already he would be and how much that would help him at the rim, bad hands and all. Certainly if he pays attention and is serious that combined with Vogel’s coaching should be able to improve him defensively quite a bit.
I'm going to disagree on this Drummond subject and say, that this guy is getting entirely too much blowback on here IMO. First off, this Basketball IQ stuff...what exactly is that supposed to entail? He is a true center, he rebounds and scores entirely in the paint. He showed that he knows how to make the proper pass out of the paint, if the situation calls for it. What basketball IQ is he supposed to be lacking? If you ask me Drummond is better at recognizing ,and making the correct pass out of double teams than AD.( I don't know about Gasol because nobody bothers to double him in the paint at all.) This is a weakness in Anthony's game that he needs to address btw. What is it on defense? He is playing the way he is being told to play in our schemes, explain where exactly this " Lack of basketball IQ" is being shown when he plays. Please explain how Gasol and Trez were better on defense too. This take just gets thrown around freely on this board ,with no examples of such, like it's the gospel or something. The only thing I gather is that it's mostly from Gasol's admirers, that look to undermine this guy in order to prop up Gasol's lack of really doing anything of substance on the court. He should have been promised a starting role here because Gasol sucked. That is what it was, he wasn't doing anything, his production was poor and his effort wasn't far behind, even Dudley pointed that out. The crazy thing is that this dude sat out two months before signing here, came to a new team, hurt his toe in his first game, and never got to play with a healthy Lebron and AD at all. Yet he still produced 19 double digit rebound games, 14 double digit scoring games, and had more rebounds in the Phoenix series in 5 games than anybody else on the team period. In 20 mins a night in 25 games as a Laker... that is supposed to be some utter failure? Folks that is some nonsense. We didn't even run sets for the dude, I saw him put up 33 and 23 against the Knicks, 24 and 14 against Philly eating Dwight's lunch all game with Embiid out, hell I saw him put up 25 and 17 against AD and Gasol! That guy is not some scrub, maybe we just didn't have enough time to do anything with him, but tell him to go out and hit the boards and try to stay out of AD's way. Clogging the paint...pffft that is what a big man is supposed to do! Do work in the paint. We were really supposed to think, that with AD and Lebron both hobbled by lower leg issues, that our best play was to open up the paint so that they could drive to the rim? That doesn't make any sense in retrospect does it? How did that work out for AD? SMH...sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. Talk about lack of basketball IQ...That would be Kuzma IMO...He shoots when he should pass, passes when he should shoot, and makes plenty of bonehead plays whenever the game gets tight. Not much better than he was as a rookie IMO. I will give him one thing, he doesn't just jack up as many bad shots as he used to. I would say that's a sign of maturity, but I'm also sure that he was told by the staff that repeating that mess, would get him a seat on the bench because we had other options. I guess I will just continue to see it differently on the subject of Drummond.
i'm not sure what to say. the wall of text above sort of alternates between improperly defining basketball iq and simply dismissing it and is basically full of whataboutism in the absence of any real support for drummond being a smart player. AD is bad at passing out of double teams. but he's good at almost everything else on the court. drummond is good at rebounding (something we did fine without him), and that's about it. he doesn't set good screens or generally understand angles on either end. it's clear you don't see this, as you don't see why gasol's abilities here help him mitigate his lack of speed whereas drummond's slow pattern recognition negates any quickness advantage he has. the fact that he's not a smart player is why nobody traded for him and nobody is going to offer him a big contract. the problem is that guys like dwight howard and your boy marc gasol are just as effective and playing for the minimum, whereas we'll probably have to tie up our MLE to keep him just because we made some dumb promise and are falling prey to sunk cost effects.
My main most recent reason for characterizing Drummond as playing with lower BBIQ is that he was frequently out of position on D against the Suns. He seemed to be trying, but we started almost every game with multiple Ayton dunks while Drummond was out of position.
So in essence, your determination that he doesn't " generally understand the angles on ether end" are evidence of his low basketball IQ. Hmmm so...It would great if you could actually point these instances out in actual game play. Pick some specific instances, I have every Lakers game from this season recorded. I would love for you to point out these poor recognition of angles on both ends. The guy only averaged 20 minutes so it wouldn't take much time to view his entire time on the court in 25 games. I call nonsense on that spiel, so run back some actual games where this took place.
Why do you post about Gasol everyone you're talking about Drummond? It's not one or the other, we can have both, one of them or neither. Then you write a lot but is full of whataboutism, very hard to discuss with anyone like that. Reflect on the way write and see if you would like to read a comment like that
I want to know if either Gasol or Drummond like pineapple on their pizza. That’s the one I want back next season.
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...-just-ended-with-benching-in-critical-game-6/ i might as well have written that one.
Was he out of position because he didn't know what to do? Or because of what he was asked to do? Phoenix absolutely killed Gasol with guard penatration, the only major difference I saw between the two, was that Drummond did a better job of cutting off the guards, but they lobbed over him or cut behind him. Gasol simply tried to stay closer to Ayton and conceded the lane to the guards. Makes me wonder if Vogel was asking too much of both, cut off the guards and get back to Ayton. AD defended that better, but they forced a switch from Drummond to AD and caught AD in the post with Ayton. He scored easily on AD from deep all series. They didn't bother to force a switch with Gasol, the guards just went by him at will. By the time Vogel decided to send a wing to trap some of that guard action, the series was over because AD was hurt again.
right. both got exploited in pick and roll action against one of the best pick and rollers in history, an elite lob man, and a 30ppg safety valve on the weakside. all of which was solved when we benched them and played davis at the 5. one is a vet min guy who works better with our offense. the other will eat up our mle and wants to start and put up stats (as we've seen in this thread, they're highly valued).
Didn't say anything of substance, a lot like you. How could anyone watch that series and not see the Suns blowing by Gasol unimpeded to the rim in every game? Good position? Pffft..yeah in a good position to give up layups to any guard that came down his side of the floor. Spacing...yeah that really opened up the offense didn't it, evidenced by all those points we were scoring.
It's a good question. I do not know whether Vogel was asking too much of the Centers. Vogel has his flaws, but he is a solid defensive coach. We didn't seem to have that issue with Ayton when we played them during the season. I did not record the games like you, so maybe you saw something Drummond was doing right that I missed in those moments. What I did see over and over again was an uncontested Ayton dunking while Drummond was out of position. You can ask my wife how many times she heard me shouting "Where's the D?!?"
Why you gotta go there? Is it an internet rule that to win an argument you have to throw in a minimum of one personal insult? Please make your case without the insults and if it's a good case, you'll win without making it personal.
Davis can't guard centers in the paint though. It works out great if the other team doesn't have a post up threat. It doesn't when they do. It's not a given that playing AD at the 5 is going to force the opposing center off the floor. He couldn't do anything with Ayton on the low block, he can't guard Jokic on the block, he couldn't guard Embiid on the block, and he couldn't guard Drummond on the block when we played Cleveland. His defense has limitations against true centers.
he can and has guarded all of them. he blocked jokic's shot in isolation to seal a win last year, iirc. the lakers let drummond go iso against davis because they knew it was a terrible offensive option, and the cavs lost. there's a theme, here, btw. more deflection, however, as drummond can't guard any of the others, either.
Meh..It's all basketball talk, it's a difference of opinion. I reject yours based off of what I see. I thought Gasol was horrible most of the season, and Drummond was decent and productive in the 25 games he played. Personally I think the perimeter players were more of an issue than either, but since the topic was Drummond specifically, that's my take on the topic at hand.
Personal jab? Out of here that There is a reason we have centers on the team. AD is a power forward not a center. True we lost the series, that was the bottom line. Man you guys are sensitive. That is a jab? I pointed out that the writer didn't make any specific point in regards to actual plays or how specifically someone else did it differently. Just like abeers does.
