Dwight Howard Discussion: The Taiwan Terror

Alright..I played 2k19 with Dwight on the Lakers and I started him next to AD...(along with leBron green and bradley)...and i played against the clippers on Hall of Fame.

I crushed the Clippers 85-67. Dwight had 16-8-3, AD had 28-10-3, and LeBron had 16-7-6. Kuzma had 10 off the bench, Green had 9 (all 3's), and KCP had 6 (all 3's).

If Dwight can run PnR, rebound, block shots, and defend the other team's best big...this is GREAT pick-up for us...because we know that Dwight is certainly capable, and he's not THAT old yet (it's not like he's 37). He actually does have a chance to secure one last bag with us if he plays well....similar to Brook Lopez

 

Well there you go.

 

That confirms it. Killer signing.

 

Welcome Dwight!

Lakers 2020 Champs!

 

LOL. Usually 2k is a great indicator guys...let me live!

 

LT, I know you have good intentions, but I'm tired of members/mods trying to push a narrative to my posts. Argue the content instead of focusing on some agenda you guys made up to insinuate with. You guys only do that cause you know your can't refute the content.

I can support Rob/Rambis and wish them well and still make a critique without making this a Magic vs Rob thing. Remember how I termed Rob as Mamba-certified when Laker fans were running wild with tiki torches at dude. I supported him then and still do. But dude has made mistakes and I don't know why its so hard to convey that without someone hinting at it as hate because my guy is Magic.

Facts: AD doesn't want to play the 5 spot and a new narrative is put out that he'll happily take it on in the playoffs.

Facts: After seeing what happened to his homie Boogie, he ain't going to f*** up his money. We can't offer him a 30%max extension cause he waived his trade kicker that would have placed his salary within that vicinity. He's opting out next summer to get that bag.

Facts: We knew Boogie was a health concern cause he was coming off a quad injury. We knew we couldn't rush him back cause he got that quad injury within months after coming back from an Achilles. His contract dictated the expectations we had towards him. He got paid less than Javale McGee ffs. Speaking of which, before he came to LA dude was not putting up starter level minutes anywhere. He avg 9mins per with the dubs. Combine that with how he gassed out last year after a fast start and it's more effective to play McGee in short bursts kinda like the dubs did. So we sign our centers to 7.5m knowing AD wants a stabilizing force there during the regular season. Meanwhile we go ham at the SG slot.

Facts: FO did not appropriately address the 5 spot for the regular season and if the intention is to keep AD as our franchise player, you do everything to show him his career/health matters.

That's not Rob/FO hate...that's f***ing facts bro and you can highlight that. Actually, I'll do it for you.

 

That's your opinion and you're welcome to say I told you so, but facts are aside from you most everyone here, me included, was real excited about our 5 rotation with Javale and Boogie.

 

Why score is so low ? lt should be after second quarter,maybe you played 2K05

 

And thats fine. Unless I strongly believe a position, I like to play devil's advocate to gain perspective the majority might not see.

I didn't like our summer as much as the majority. That doesn't mean I wanted the FO's heads to roll. I actually wanted folks to join the FO and guide Rob till he gains experience and rapport with his contemporaries to take over as "the man".

Playmakers: Rondo/Caruso. They could play big minutes this year and be capable of doing so. But their recent rapsheet says otherwise. So Bron insurance till the playoffs is limited and at the very best unproven yet. Remember this was the dude that was demanding for a PG...with Ky on the roster.

Bron/AD backups: You want our stars fresh for the playoffs. Dudz and Kuz are the only guys that have the physical traits to play backup at the forward spots. I mean we could go play Green, KCP and Av at the 3 a bit more during the regular season, but then we get pretty small at the 4. So it's really all on Kuz to take the lion's share of those minutes to allow AD to keep his wind.

Centers: you already know my beef with that. Dwight needed us, but we also needed him and he willingly came. I'm hoping for the best, but at least I know with Dwight, he is capable of playing 30mins per (and that's even with injury). That's something I couldn't confidently say about McGee or Boogie based off last year.

 

I actually saw this and thought he had those crazy balls girlfriend eyes!

 

First off #HowDoesShaqsA**Taste?



Also before NSAIDs became the treatment of choice for athletes, glucocorticoids were the rage in anti-inflammatories. Bigs always are always considered health risks due to the likelihood of genetic mutations that permeate their DNA. You can call Shaq all types of things, but his body is his own and only her knows how it will react to forms of therapy/treatment. In the case of early medicated therapy, weight gain was a side effect. Then if you chose to go the NSAIDs route, high BP and renal failure is a possibility and it did happen to his good friend Alonzo Mourning. Kob is a killer and no one quite has that type if mentality...but he didn't have to say that s***. And if he really wanted to, he could have said it another way.



@Savory Griddles you kind of answered your own question when it comes to options. A platoon of big men could hanger been low cost (vet mins) and still provided depth for AD to remain at the 4. You had guys like Jordan Bell and WCS that meet the Lakers desires of having young athletic bigs. Noel is a conundrum to me, so I'm not sure he was an option, but that was another guy on a vet min.

If we're serious about Giannis in '21, then Horford and Vuc are probably not legit options. But I would have gone big over Green any day. Plus those dudes contracts descend annually which would create more potential cap in summers to come. In the case of Horford his final year is only partially guaranteed.

Then there's the trade route with Whiteside and Myers Leonard.

I mean we could even shore up the spot right now with Faried and Noah along with Dwite, but for some reason we jumped the gun in locking up roster spots with Dudz and Daniels when Kawhi wasn't even in the saddle yet.

With Boogs playing limited minutes/games in a predominantly red shirt year and with asthmatic Mcgee fading as the year wore on, it's shocking we didn't see potential red flags to our center depth...even knowing that AD had an aversion to it.

 

AD is going to play 5 during stretches whether he likes it or not...because I'm willing to bet our best lineup will be AD, LeBron, Kuzma, Green and KCP or Bradley (or caruso?) in crunch time. I felt like we had the bigs covered between AD/Boogie/Javale because they were all going to split minutes at the 5 and at the 4, you have AD/LeBron/Kuzma and even Dudley to share minutes at the 4....I think our wing depth is a much bigger problem and that's where I agree...going for Dudley/Daniels at the crack of free agency was a mistake. We needed wing depth and we have not achieved that yet. Good thing is....we should be able to get one of those via buyouts or even trade when it comes time for it...I think where we messed up with re-signing KCP at that number AND Green at an even bigger number...you either take KCP at 8M and then fetch out 15m to a bigger more legit wing (who was available though?) OR you get Green and use that $8m on another bigger wing instead of KCP (who was available at $8m?). I hope we can get iggy somehow...no way memphis holds onto him all year.

 

we had enough centers in july. and we have enough centers now. and if another one goes down, we can sign another waiver wire type to fill minutes.

if AD wanted to play next to a big-money center, he should have gone elsewhere or asked the lakers to spend the money that way. they would have. but it's silly to overspend at c in the modern nba, when each year there are several successful 15-20mpg centers making WAY less than the 30mpg starter types.

i'm just glad we didn't overload on non-shooters who like to dribble a lot like last year.

 

This times 100. Thank you Abeer for literally always taking the words out of my mouth in way less sentences.