Other than starting us in a double digit deficit, what other purpose does starting AB and Ariza serve?
not to always be swooping in for frank, but i think the vets all need to be given their chance to fail before being benched. deandre and baze got theirs. ariza's getting his now. bradley is just vogel's security blanket, so...it is what it is, there. i feel like if and when we sign stan, ariza goes to the bench to hang out with the others. next man down.
Why does Bradley continue to catch so much flack? Not great by any means whatsoever but both sides of the ball “consistently” who is playing better in that slot? Continues to decently shoot the 3 and decently other plays as well. Sure he f***s up too just like everyone else. Agree on Ariza but I think @abeer3 is accurate in his take above …. he’s headed for the bench. Was just awful today.
I think he's a rotational player but not a starter. He's shooting decent but he's a guy teams will let shoot and if you're playing ariza/howard/russ: that's 3 non shooters on top of that. Also his size make him vulnerable on switches - he's best in drop coverage with a traditional center. So that means he fits with what Vogel wants to do and should be ok if matched with AD/Howard. But his presence also seems to make it less likely that Vogel with go with his bigger more athletic younger guys and go with an all switching lineup tl;dr he's not an anchor like Ariza and he should be seeing minutes but his availability is making it less likely the lakers play the scheme and personnel which they have the best chance for success
I can get behind Bradley starting. He's been hit or miss on defense this year but he is shooting nearly 40% from 3 point land filling in that KCP role from the 2 spot. I can't defend the Ariza decision. Depending on matchup either Monk or Reaves or Stanley Johnson should be out there instead.
i think my issue is that despite shooting 40% from three, avery has been really bad offensively, mostly because he needs to make 50% at a high volume for teams to abandon successful defensive schemes against us. they don't/can't defend monk in the same way, for example. also, despite giving effort, bradley is too small for big wings and too slow for pgs on defense, so he's barely been a positive on that end. i think he plays for sort of symbolic reasons more than anything. and i'm fine with that. you just can't play more than one guy for those reasons. reaves, stan, and monk have simply won the minutes at the wing, imo. after those three and bradley, it's hard to argue anyone else should play unless there are injuries.
My comments above were a lot about last night with the Heat. Monk wasn’t outplaying him really if factoring offense plus defense and Reaves for whatever reasons wasn’t either so much so that Vogel who has valued him so much gave him very few minutes. He really didn’t have it going either side and was making mistakes.
yeah, didn't see the game, was going to tune in but they were down a billion in the first half, and i figured why bother. there are obviously reasons to play different guys on different nights, but i think monk/johnson/reaves/bradley have pretty consistently outplayed ellington/ariza/baze(obviously). and i'd rather give THT developmental minutes than waste more on vets who aren't impacting winning anyway.
Our starting lineups have been all over the place. We need to settle in on some type of rotation. I know part of that is injuries but a lot of it is indecision and second guessing. We can't change line ups to adjust to every team we play. We need our own identify. Russ, Lebron, Stanley, Howard and Monk for now and slide AD into Dwight's spot when ready. That leaves a good sub pattern for Reaves, Bradley, Howard and Carmelo. Trevor is not there yet.
For me his bizzare lineup decisions are fireable offenses (Remember DJ/Bradley combos early in the year?)
Yeah I don’t know what Frank is doing. Imagine if he started like Russ, Monk or Reaves, Stan, LeBron, AD The slow starts probably end, and he can still play his guys Bradley and Ariza off the bench along with THT, Melo, maybe Dwight, and whichever one of Monk and Reaves isn’t starting. But that lineup can score and play defense, team politics he damned.
i'm a little worried the armchair coaches are extrapolating way too much from small samples all around. most lineup combos we're running are bad because we're bad. if frank starts the game with THT/Stan/Bron/Reaves/Monk and we get down 25, he'll get roasted for that, too, imo. OH SO NOW WE DON'T CARE ABOUT REBOUNDING OR LONG RANGE SHOOTING FRANK??!!!
Nobody said that lineup should start though. The above tweet mentioned they’ve played 2 minutes together since they won that game. Probably just means they should play together again sometime. Frank is too stubborn though, he’s stuck on Ariza and Bradley, and for some reason Melo at center sometimes. Here’s hoping AD returning ends that for good. Frank needs to find some middle grounds with lineups, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, he can stagger guys so lineups like that one at least get another look.
