He’s going up there regardless but a second title, they could put it up there before he retires and no one would say anything.
It's not that you don't have a point, but he is a generational talent when healthy. If we could learn to manage his minutes correctly and use him as lightly as possible during the regular season, if he can bring his A Game during the playoffs, he is a problem for every team in the league and by himself, gives us a shot at the title. IF we walked away from that and his next team learned from our mistakes and managed his game correctly, how bad would we feel to watch him winning rings on another team?
He's one of the greatest defensive players I've ever seen when he's fully healthy. Going to be crazy that him, Duncan, Lebron will likely not win even one DPOY between the 3 of them. I would only put Giannis, Kawhii, Draymond into the category of those 3 as just uber elite in terms of versatility in both on and off ball defense (forgot Dwight and Igoudala who were also freaks) in the last 2 decades He can do all the Duncan rim protection stuff but his ability to switch and guard wings/guards is unreal. It was baffling the last 2 years when guys like Kat/JJJ were going at him. Last night JJJ tried going one on one against AD and a guy who is an all-star caliber guy who was going off looked like a G leaguer. AD just enveloped him in the 4th
DPOY funny: Gobert, Marc Gasol, Chandler, Marcus Smart all good defensive players but I'm not taking any of these guys over Duncan, AD, Lebron (younger) or even Iggy
AD sure is changing my mind about moving him this summer. When he’s this locked in, he’s just so dominant on both ends of the floor.
As he should FOJ22. He's a top 3 two way player in the league when healthy. Of course that is the big caveat. But as abeer3 said, the best thing we can do while he's here under contract is to put a great complementary team around him that can survive for a while in the regular season when he or Lebron are out. Personally, I think Rob has done a great job assembling just such a team finally, again. Let's please not bother with Kyrie or Draymond or any of these guys who will eat up all our cap space. That makes no sense. What we see now on the court (especially when Dlo returns) is a fun and balanced team with tons of potential: size, youth, shooting, defense. It's great to see. And easy to root for.
The ring is NOT the only thing! IMNHO. The Lakers having historically “great” players on the roster for their fans to watch play the game of professional basketball is who they are as well, while they attempt to have a squad capable (with luck) of “winning it all” every year. This period of LeBron and AD …. enjoy it while we have them, because cutting your LeBron off to spite your Brow …. just to have (no guarantees) hopefully less frequently injured players ….. will only guarantee we will have lesser players immediately to replace them ….. judging from who of their same tier superstars are currently unavailable.
yeah, people want some sort of guaranteed title winning roster, and there's no such thing. every team depends on star health (as slick will TELL YOU), and most of them struggle with it (as i WILL TELL YOU). but (as slick won't tell you), there's also plenty of middle ground between a ring and finishing 11th in depressing fashion. if you build your team properly, you can overcome standard misfortunes that befall nba teams and still be competitive. what does all this have to do with AD? easy: he's the hardest thing to obtain in the nba (two-way allstar in his prime). you don't dump these guys, and if they're hurt, you just hope they get un-hurt. you see NO just rolling with zion's various injuries, and you watched philly basically wait 4 years on embiid to be able to finally play most of a season. those teams knew/know that what they get in return will put them back in the same spot they've been (NO really understands this, multiple times over). we're joking in the other thread about kd injuring himself in warmups. as i've pointed out, kd is a) older and b) a similar or greater injury risk as AD. anyway, haha and all, but the nets made that trade unwillingly. and mikal bridges has scored 40 a couple times since and they'll have picks...and they'd still rather just have kd back. much like NO would still rather just have AD instead of ingram (also hurt almost as often as AD!) and whatever.
When he's on, he's borderline the best player in the league. But then I always wonder, why does it come and go? Could just be a killer instinct type of thing, but it's tough to say that when we see him go full alpha at times. He's puzzling.
It comes when he's healthy for a while and goes when he gets injured. AD might look like a finesse player but he's really a banger. He needs to be very physical to play his best and it probably takes him a few weeks to get his rhythm, confidence and aggression back. Wing players like KD/Steph that play further away from the basket can come back from an injury and start playing like they never missed a game.
Wasn’t able to watch the game. Why did AD only have 7 fga? Was he triple teamed all game or something?
Raptors aggressively doubled him and made other guys beat them. He'll bounce back offensively next game, I'm not worried.