Mike Bresnahan @Mike_Bresnahan · 28m 28 minutes ago With Nash out and Ronnie Price doubtful (bruised knee) for tomorrow's opener, the Lakers' backup point guard is rookie Jordan Clarkson. So, I guess he went from 'probable' to 'hopeful' to 'doubtful.' LOL. Who knows? I guess we'll just have to wait and see...
Serena Winters @SerenaWinters · 6m 6 minutes ago Today's Lakers Injury Updates: Jordan Hill went full practice. Byron said Ronnie Price is "pretty close" & they'll see how he feels tom. If he's pretty close, then my guess would be on how he feels tomorrow; if he reports no setbacks after today's practice, I'd imagine he'd be cleared to go.
Everything happens for a reason... well see whose really meant to shine tomorrow off the get go. Shoot,maybe they both light it up in their duties/roles and its both of their nights to build towards the year.
I think he'll play. Ronnie is a tough. I'm not saying he has to, but if he shows up tonight, and puts up a fight, that'll win a lot of respect from Kobe and co.
WOW again, following good news about X being soon available to us as well, maybe even a sighting tonight against Houston. That would surprise me though. Price probably doesn't want Kobe calling him a puss..... as you know he would be out there.
All I know is FOOTBALL players, PLAY when theyre QUESTIONABLE.. If a basketball player is probable, he better effing play lol.
Harden will be too strong for Price. Jeremy will actually be a good matchup against Harden, but we'll most likely see Wes, who will most likely get in foul trouble early fouling Harden on jumpshots.
Well Harden is going to get half our team in foul trouble no matter what because it's what the NBA wants.
But I feel Price is the type that can throw him off his game being all up in his beard... If he draws a couple fouls on Ron than fudge it, its worth the look semi-early.
I thought Ronnie looked terrible. He looked like a guy who has bounced around the league and is a 3rd string PG in most cases for a reason. He couldn't run the offense off the bench at all. He didn't fit with them. Lin makes the offense run in the 2nd unit. Even if Lin starts, the majority of his time needs to be with the bench unit to keep things moving there.
Ronnie was rough out there. I hope that was just the bone bruise talking. But what concerned me more was the decision making which just wasn't good at all. Love what he brings on D, but man he needs to get his head together on offense.
I agree that Ronnie looked really bad... because offensively, that is who he is... Price is just a poor offensive player. He's shot 38% from the field and 29% from 3 for his 9-year career, so there's no reason to believe that he can even suddenly become a below-average offensive player who puts up 42%/33%. The Lin/Price two-PG lineup doesn't work either, because Price can't shoot. A typical 2-PG lineup should mean that now your team has great spacing in the background, but with Ronnie this isn't true. The Lakers need to sign a point who can score the ball in place of Price imo. It's not like this team has a lot of offensive firepower and can get away with playing Price in the role of an initiator (which he also doesn't do well...). Whether Price is playing on the 1st or 2nd team, it doesn't really matter, because both squads don't have enough offensive punch to mask his poor shooting. I love the hustle of Price, but the team just needs more playmaking/scoring/shooting from the PG position and Ronnie has 9 years of experience that shows he can't provide a high level of those things.
^^ Solid post Gangsterbomb, and pretty hard to dispute or debate. I was rooting for Ronnie, and I guess he'll have a few weeks to prove us wrong while we wait for our injury exception (or two possibly now) to go through. But I really don't like Price in the starting lineup at all. He's just too big of a liability on the offensive end.
Way too big of an offensive liability. It doesn't help when your offensive sets already don't have effective spacing. What teams will do as we'll notice coming up is clog the paint and dare us to shoot, and given the fact we don't have a lot of great 'shooters', you have nights where we shoot 35% from the field...if the objective for Kobe to operate in the pinch/elbow of the floor or anywhere from the free-throw line extended down, the more effective the spacing is, the more effective he will be. If not, he'll have to exert more effort and work harder to get his shots. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of choices right now. Lin can't play all 48, we can't burn Kobe and ask him to faciliate; maybe we go get Bynum or someone more talented offensive that could help us on the offensive end of the floor...
X and Clarkson should play; I've been saying give Clarkson minutes to develop. We are going nowhere this season. What would it hurt to split time between X and Clarkson or leave them in there playing a little longer to bring Kobe's minutes down to say 32?
