They're also not even paying attention to their own rookie ladder. Last year we had three guys in the top 10: JC, Randle, and Black. This year we have two more. That's five of the top 20 players to enter the league in the last two years - on our team. That's stupid.
Like I've said previously, Randle has played about 40 games above the HIGH SCHOOL level entering this season, coming off major surgery. He's hitting a wall, and no one should be surprised. But if he can push through it, he's that beast we know he can be. BTW, although his scoring has trailed off since the demotion (14.1 per 36 in October, 14.5 in November, 16.2 in December but down to 8.6 this month), look at his rebounding per 36 by month: 10.2, 10.9, 14.7, 15.4. Monstrous.
If I had to place blame it would be 60% Byron and 40% Randle Scott - You see the kid struggling to score, you see him pressing every time he thinks he has a scoring opportunity, why not design some plays that get him easy looks? Involve him in the pick and roll, run a duck in for him, try to get him some easy buckets so he gets back into a groove. Also, he's playing tentative out there because he's trying too hard not to make mistakes. Why is he doing that? Because he thinks he will get yanked for making them or publicly shamed like a week ago. He's making it incredibly hard on him to play his game. I saw a recent tweet saying Byron told him he needs to relax, but you are part of the reason he's playing like summer league Randle because in his mind he's on that minute restriction and needs to do everything a mile a minute before he comes out. It's his job to make it easy on his players, but he's doing the opposite. Randle - Your coach sucks, no confidence in that jumper, ball getting stripped or no calls when you attack the basket.....so what? Keep boarding, keep making plays for your teammates and the easy buckets will come. Watch tape, stop standing around when you don't have the ball, make some cuts to the basket and get easy buckets. And most of all keep your damn head up. Too much reliance on refs bailing him out, too much worrying about when he will come out, just play. If you score 0 points but have 15 boards and 5 assists so be it you took what the defense gave you, if you put up 20 points great, build off of it keep working on your jumper, studying the defense and creating easy buckets for yourself. Keep boarding, step up your defense, don't hang your head, create easy opportunities for yourself and keep making plays for others. Who cares what that moron Scott thinks, learn from your rookie counterpart DAR, screw him, play your game and do what got you here. The rest will take care of itself.
lol, drafting a role player with an extended career at 27 is a freaking home run. these guys are morons.
Company line. If ESPN releases an article that praises the Lakers they get no clicks. Laker fans are confident in the team and don't need the opinion of some idiot at ESPN to validate them. Laker haters won't click on a link that's pro-Lakers. How do you win? You post negatively about the Lakers. Outraged Laker fans click because they're furious with such stupidity and need to see the logic. Laker haters click to gleefully agree with whatever stupid thing hates on the Lakers. Easy pick of you're an ESPN employee.
yeah, it's just the contradictory logic WITHIN the argument that baffles/annoys me. this same bunch is always praising the C Bags for drafting a bunch of bench players.
Worst part is 90% of the fan base isn't in tune with the NBA enough to know better. Kobe's been a victim of that his whole career.
Decent game for Randle tonight. Don't care about the numbers. Just like the improved activity and aggressiveness. Needs to build that confidence back up again.
Agreed. He looked a little tentative right after the bone bruise but then he ramped it up some notches as the game went on. He got back to beasting a bit, needs to do more of the same especially when we are down a few key guys.
Randle needs to finish plays, no excuses. His defense is bad...if his offense is also bad, there is no reason to play him. I know he rebounds well but his rebounding cannot cover all the deficiencies.
My predictions right now : - DAR will be a top 3-5 PG in this league within the next 4-5 seasons - JC has a very long way to go defensively . We'll see how the DAR-JC dynamic will work too , both will need to become good catch and shoot players to play off each other . He'll be a very good 6th man on a good team if he stays such a defensive liability - Nance will be a 7th to 9th guy in the rotations of a good team . I don't believe in Julius becoming good enough to play a key role on a contender at all
I really believe that once Julius can develop a jumper, he makes the leap to "really good" instantly. His combination of quickness and strength at his position are pretty impressive, but right now defenders have caught on to the fact that his skillset is limited to just driving hard to the left. Developing a consistent jump shot would open up his game so much, similar to the way Blake Griffin's game has opened up the past 2 years. Then after the jumper comes, he should try to get that right hand finish improved to take the leap to stardom and make guys like Chad Ford eat their words.
All I'm seeing with Julius is him focusing way too hard on that jumper. Then after missing 2-3 of them, he loses all his confidence for the game. I understand there's not much going for him in the offensive sets right now, but he's not doing himself any favors with his body language and effort on the court. Yes, he has a nose for rebounds, but too many times he gets out hustled and doesn't box out. A majority of his rebounds come from him just going after it rather than establishing position and boxing out. He has to overcome this rookie wall he's hit by working on himself. This has more to do with him than it does Byron. Everyone has the scouting report on him now, and knows how to guard him. He needs to work on his jumper, his right hand, his control, his footwork, and playing off the ball effectively.
Why? Do you realize that Julius and D'Angelo are not even old enough to legally get a drink at a bar right now? How can you say one will be a Top 3-5 PG and one can't be a contributor on a Championship level team? That's preposterous. What I DO know is that D'Angelo has shown the ability to get to spots at will in the pick and roll. He's shown a solid understanding of defense and offensive spacing. He's shown at LEAST the potential to be a lights out shooter. He's also shown that he needs a lot of work physically. He's careless with his handle at times. He's not always the most engaged person on the floor. While D'Angelo has shown he can be very good at a number of things, he hasn't shown an elite level of one single thing. Randle on the other hand has shown an elite ability to rebound the ball. Not just as a rookie or a sophomore either, but in the entire league. Randle is 14th in the NBA in rebounding overall, but he's playing the least amount of anyone else in the Top 15. He's rebounding at a rate on par with any of the NBA's top rebounders outside of Andre Drummond who is rebounding like Wilt Chamberlain this season. If Julius was playing 33 minutes (roughly starter's minutes) he'd be averaging 11.9 rebounds per game which would be tied for 3rd in the entire NBA with Dwight Howard and behind only Drummond and DeAndre Jordan. Now there's a lot of growing Randle needs to do. He's still sub-par in help defense. He needs to understand defensive footwork better. He still has no confidence in his jump shot which would change everything about his game (look at Larry Nance Jr. for an example). If/when Julius begins to knock down that mid-range jumper his entire game opens up completely. Not to mention Julius has shown tremendous ability to get out on the fast break. Even assuming that Julius doesn't develop any further than he has RIGHT NOW (a silly assumption to make in my opinion), he's roughly as effective a basketball player as Tristan Thompson who just got basically a max contract and was key to helping the Cavs' run to the Finals last year. To say he can't be a key contributor to a Championship level team is short-sighted. So I disagree with what you said.
