Well that sucks. Julius is such an important piece of our core. This season has been brutal enough. If it's something serious we definitely need to keep that pick.
No worries gents, he will be back to assuming his 20 minutes a night role off the bench as the future of our franchise.
Rough start but he came back with passion in the second half and hustled hard. Missed a lot of looks but maybe the ankle was bugging him. The first three pointer was awesome. Not as much the second.
I really like Julius. He's playing well for us. But man it frustrates me to see a guy with so much potential make the same mistakes game after game. He's not really made any improvement in hitting his jump shot so far in the season and his right hand is still a huge liability. He's extremely predictable on offense.The Clippers clearly did their scouting and sagged off him tonight and Randle did not make them pay. I know we have to be patient but part of me thinks he's a little hard headed like Kobe in that he overwhelmingly believes in his ability to succeed. The thing with Kobe is that he had the work ethic, smarts, and discipline to put in the work and learn new skills constantly. I only hope Randle's picking up that behavior off of Kobe right now because with the right tools this kid can be devastating.
Kobe at 19 was a lot like Julius. Kobe's game was predicated on his ability to get to the rim and make spectacular plays when he was Julius's age. His jumper wasn't nearly as deadly as it was even 3-4 years into Kobe's career. 1. Julius is rarely put in a position to succeed. I see him constantly given the ball in a weird spot on the wing where he's got very little room to drive to his left and not enough space to bank a shot. The angle is terrible. 2. His shot is pretty much broken. Oddly enough it looks better from three point range than from inside the line, but it's not great and he knows it. He'd rather drive and try to get fouled. Understandable from a kid. 3. Coming off the bench has clearly taken some of his edge off. He's not nearly the same Julius we saw play against Dallas early this year. Not nearly the same kid. I do agree he makes a lot of the same mistakes, but I also think he's a volume player. Give him 30 minutes and his game looks a heck of a lot better than it did when he plays 15-20 minutes. Didn't we see that proven true in Summer League when he looked like crap most of the time? Now we're right back in that. He needs time to get going and find a rhythm and he's not getting that.
I don't think you make excuses for young players. No matter the coach, no matter the system, no matter the minutes, the good ones MAKE you play them more. Does anyone think you could've kept Kobe on the bench much longer? Big picture, this is essentially only year one. He'll get the time and results once he earns it.
I would agree except Byron has now proven he does not reward good play with more minutes. Both D'Angelo and Julius responded very well when they were embarrassingly benched for guys who (at the time) were performing at a level beneath their own. Byron didn't reward their good play though. In fact he's done everything except that. So how does one earn more minutes with Byron Scott at the helm?
You bring up a valid point, but if they dominate once they are in, eventually they will force Byron's hand or he'll be fired.
Didn't Randle have like 2-3 double doubles in 20 minutes after he got benched? What else can he do? Byron doesn't reward great play. Russell was solid too... There's nothing to do but play like crap and hope the coach gets fired.
He had a nice game today in limited minutes. That 3-point shot looks decent. I'd give him the go ahead to keep launching when he's open...
Yeah they did, and drill sergeant Boron still kept their minutes cut for the humility effect he seems to want to see out of them. More like humiliation when they did step their games up and still were treated like scrubs. It would have been one thing if they were not already starting to blow up a bit and get confidence as rookies. Have to say though now that Scott's done it, it's nice to see Nance make the most out of his chance and show continued improvement. No same result with Russell and the other "rookie" Williams.
Yeah props to Larry for taking advantage of the situation. He looks night and day different from the player we saw in Summer League. Unfortunately for the team, the person getting those minutes SHOULD be Julius. Julius is the one who is supposed to carry our team in the future (along with Russell and Clarkson), not Larry. Julius should be getting 30 minutes to Larry's 20ish minutes. It's ludicrous that we're sitting here now only 10 games away from half-way through the season and we're still not playing Julius and D'Angelo 30 minutes a game. As a fan it's just mindboggling what's going on with our team. The fact that Byron is still here is a testament to the Lakers' ineffectiveness. At this point I'm fine with a full office purge.
