Centers are unimportant and yet, we are at our best when AD plays center. ????? Does anyone find this fact ironic? Centers are very important, there just aren't many out there who can both dominate defensively while being a true power in the modern offensive frameworks. AD is likely the best center in today's NBA, however he suffers from physical limitations, so we play him out of position for as long as we can. This means, for us, we need to find physical big men who can physically dominate the other big men in the league, grab rebounds. If we can find two of them, add fouling hard to that list. If any of them is capable of giving us 5-10 put backs, garbage time points, then all the better. Of course the guy who has done that for us already was D12 and to a slightly lesser degree McGee. I think Drummond does this too, but he is a bit slower than D12 and seems to have small hands. His turnovers and poor post moves make me doubt him at times. I agree with you guys that he should lose some weight and hope that some skills training this off season pays dividends.
It's all about keeping AD healthy for the playoffs. He's the best center in the league when we get there. We need defensive bigs that are durable and athletic (and/or smart) with small enough egos to not mind getting perma-benched in the playoffs. Frankly, the McGee-Dwight pairing was close to ideal. They had great chemistry and respect for each other which led to a common understanding of their roles in the playoffs. I still like Gasol, but as the priority is to protect AD from injuries, I'm a bit worried how durable he'd be at age 37 next season. As for Drum and Trez they don't check the small ego box. They're still young and getting benched in the playoffs is a bad look for players still looking to get paid. They both need to go, imo.
More reason th think he'll be back... The NFT is in Laker colors with the Hollywood sign. If he's in another jersey next season could be a little strange for the winner he flies out and the shoe they design.
Copy that …. What’s with the “FAREWELL” though on his jersey? And why isn’t he in the gym sweating his fat a** instead of farting around on social media?
No rebounding one-trick-pony is worth big paper. His offense is decent-on-a-bad-team type stuff. His defense is so-so. He wants to get paid, I haven't heard any talk out there about teams willing to throw down but we shouldn't be.
To go a step further, Shroder, Trezz, Drummond and Gasol all complained or made demands about playing time either before, during or after the season. That’s far too many guys with their own agendas to create a championship culture.
I don't and have necessarily liked Trezz's fit with the Lakers but I thought he handled himself well. He made some cryptic statements but he was active on the bench, played hard when asked so I don't think he should get a bad rap.
Centers in the NBA are the Running back position in football. Sure, they can help a lot if they are good but they are as important to the current game as baseball managers in MLB.
They are important, just not that much in our roster, because whoever we sign, in playoff time with the game on the line you are playing AD at the 5 so the center we sign will be more important for the regular season. It's basically a punching bag. We can't pay up a guy that will play very little time in POs or will not be in closing units Yes!
Its all about matchups. Lopez was vital in beating the Nets but he's really struggling defensively against the Suns with highly skilled guards like CP3/Book. This is why keeping AD healthy is vital because he can play the small ball center or the low post center position very well in the playoffs. We can't change AD, he is who he is. He's in the mold of Pau who is going to get beat up physically playing Center. But in the playoffs he has to step up if he wants to reach the pantheons of Laker big men. I remember the 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 season it would drive me NUTS when we played Bynum/Pau in crucial minutes because it was quite obvious that pairing is not as good as Pau/LO. Phil was smart in saving Pau until 2nd half of the season and letting that LO/Pau lineup loose and build up chemistry/habits for the playoffs. I think we need to use the same strategy with AD and give him minutes in 2nd half of season at Center and build up habits/chemistry with other lineups. We need Drummond back - 1) AD insurance 2) Matchup vs Ayton/Jokic
i agree with most of the above but think a few other vet min centers will work just as well as drummond for this purpose.
Man this current version of the Lakers could use an Odom: more than anything else not having a forward next to Lebron who can play decent enough defense and be a consistent offensive threat is the missing link. There's a gap as I think the guards despite their inconsistent shooting, together when healthy do a lot of things well and allow flexibility both on offense and defense. But then when you get to the non AD/Lebron forwards its such a big drop where neither Kuzma or Morris can actually be counted on to either space the floor or be a threat.
