Summer League Team : Russell smooth 21 (1-4)

We played some solid defense for stretches last night. That was the highlight for me.

 

Roster:
C: Hibbert, Black, Upshaw, Sacre
PF: Randle, Bass, Nance, Kelly
SF: Kobe, Young, Brown
SG: Clarkson, Williams
PG: Russell

C: Hibbert was an all star with playoff experience. He is tall and strong in 7'2" and 290lbs. Black and Upshaw are 2 projects. Black is a undersized but is very strong. Upshaw is tall and is a good shoot blocker. Sacre is another 7 footer and a serviceable 3-tier backup. Except Hibbert, all are blue collar type, defensive minded players. Fit in today's game style
PF: Randle is a beast. He has the physical tools but is still very raw. Bass and Nance may be better fit to Hibbertc or 1st unit. Bass is average defender and can hit midrange jumper to be a stretch 4. Nancy's energy and hustle is an ideal complement to slow Hibbert and aging Kobe. He could run fast break together our backcourt duo.
SF: Kobe is Kobe. He is still one of the most polished wing players. Has all the offensive weapons like midrange jumper, 3s, post up, can play PnR and set up half court game. Young is not a good fit. Brown is too green. Lakers could try to acquire a taller, stronger, athletic wing player.
SG: Clarkson should start to settle at SG and further develop his skill sets like cut-in, midrange, 3s, post up and defense. Kobe can still help to complement his skill for a few more seasons. Williams would be a reliable back up here. A 3 guards line up in Kobe, Williams and Clarkson is very quick, experienced almost unstoppable.
PG: Russell is their PG for years to come. Clarkson and Williams can see some minutes here.

Project starting lineup:
Hibbert, Nance, Kobe, Clarkson, Russell
Hibbert has the size the protect the rim. Clarkson and Russell are their engins. Kobe could concentrate to showcase his offensive weapons. Nance to provide energy and hustle.
6-7th men: Williams, Bass
Williams could back up the 3 guards rotation to continue the firepower. Bass is reliable player and can stretch the floor. Randle may take over Bass as the season progress.
8-10th men: Upshaw, Randle, SF
Upshaw has the size and is a great shot blocker to alter shots. He could see 15-20 minutes behind Hibbert.
Expandable: Black, Sacre, Kelly, Young

 

We shouldn't buy into the Princeton. We've had 14 assists in 2 games. That's laughable. The sets are laughable and we need to see a change. What I'm hoping for is Kobe witnesses what is going on out there and starts adjusting and telling Byron to adjust to more things these guys can do effectively. I'm certain that will happen. Byron respects Kobe a great, great, deal. Once Kobe is in his here expressing his views, I think those changes will come.

RE: Okafor. He needs to be high efficient with the style that he plays to be very effective. I was reading something @GoldenThroat said on another forum that stated that the average PPP in a half-court set is 1.04. I don't think Okafor is even close that in the Summer League. Can he get better? Sure. He just has to be highly efficient with the style he plays...

 

He shot 50%, no?

 

RE: Okafor. I like this summary. It came form fiendishoc on LG:

'He's using a awful lot of possessions. A lot of those FTs were from bail out calls / refs hating Black, so his efficiency could look a lot worse. If it were my team, and we were basically forced to run everything through him because he was always occupying the post, then I'd be concerned about the team offense for the future. Of course our offense didn't look much better, with all our useless movement running down the clock. It was basically a contest of who could suck less offensively, and someone had to win.'

 

6/14. However, there's other factors than just looking at FG percentage and determining whether or not he Okafor is efficient.

 

Tariq? Oh, he's a superstah!

CAn you guys smell it too?



Oops, wrong thread. That's ok, I'm leaving it.

 

I think our offense should look a lot like the Clippers' offense, mixed in with some princeton sets for kobe to operate from the midpost. I'd like to see Russell and Clarkson interchangeably in the CP3 role with Hibbert setting nice screens and Randle in the Biff role. Right now, the offense is extremely ugly and inefficient and is making everyone outside of Nance look awful. Why does Nance look good? Because his playing type isn't really run through an offense, but rather through hustle and garbage plays.

 

If we ran any type of offense that used the roll man consistently or sets to free up the weak side shooter, Russell would look a lot better.

We ran high horns (Double big man screen) once and got a foul. We didn't even look at the roll man (Not even trying to establish position/seal for an easy dump pass). I don't remember any successful P&R going to the weak side to get defenders to sink and get a kick for 3. DRs PG skills and mid-range game is going to waste because the only option this crappy offense is generating is ball handler ISO after the screen.

Complete waste of talent and resources. Put a damn shooter in the corner the pick and roll is going to, have the big man roll with authority establishing positions and give DR/JC the option to shoot, drive, pass to the big man, pass to the shooter. The name of that offense is what everyone else runs with great success.

Lakers PICKED DR, not the other way around, now play to his got damn strengths. It's not rocket science.

I didn't see Okafor hanging around the 3 point line, doing dribble hand offs, his a** was in the post where he dominates.

 

http://team.fastmodelsports.com/2015/07/10/san-antonios-influence-on-nba-xs-os/

 

I caught a replay of last night's game earlier, a couple thoughts.

Russell: He looked tired, dude needs to get conditioned and up to NBA speed. And we also need to use his strengths offensively. Not quite sure why we are going with the Princeton, it would work if we were going with JC as PG but we have Russell who can orchestrate the offense really well.

JC: Still looks like a man amongst boys. Didn't know what to expect from him but I was not expecting him to get this good.

Black: Dude is good, undersized but he makes up for it in strength, not the best one on one defender but as a helper he is good.

Upshaw: Has a good feel for the game defensively, needs to get in shape and fine tune his tools. Definitely a project but if he is focused can be very good in a couple years.

Brown: Better than the first game, he moved better defensively. Going to be a couple years of development for him to be a good 3D player, has the tools.

Nance: Dude has pogo sticks in his legs. High energy and effort every minute hes out there. Going to be Turiaf 2.0 for us and easily a crowd favorite.

Outside of JC and Black the guys have a lot to work on but man it's exciting to see them out there.

 

No talk of #9 aka Mystery Man aka Tony Mitchell?

He's not a standout like the guys we're expecting, but I really like the effort he's putting to try to make the squad, even though there is a very low chance he does.

I don't mind stashing him in the D-League if he's up for it.

 

BBall breakdown on stuff we ran last year during preseason; see if anything looks familiar?

 

Yeah, I in no way want to speak for GT. I think 1.04 ppg was the number he indicated was average for a halfcourt set, and I could be wrong. That's what I thought I seen on LG. If I'm mistaken, I apologize.

Nevertheless, you said what I was trying to say but you put it more simply and succintly. Thank you. As @therealdeal noted unless you use him as a number 1 option in the post, you're wasting his talent, and I agree with that. I'll leave it at that.