Roy Hibbert Discussion 2015-16: No Buyout

You wanted more guys to stalk Kobe in the showers?

 

Yup

And tell him theyre gonna win a championship

He also took less money to sign here

 

I wish he phrased it like "we're gonna go all the way" & given a questionable look. Would have made for an even more epic story.

 

So, it's a been a week since the trade. But aside from changing his twitter page, it doesn't appear that we've heard anything from him. No press conference. No radio interview. Nothing.

 

I'm sure they'll do it alongside Lou and Bass as well.

 

Los Angeles Lakers Offer Roy Hibbert the Biggest Stage to Resurrect Career
By David Murphy, Featured Columnist Jul 13, 2015

Roy Hibbert was an All-Star as recently as the 2013-14 season. Now the 7’2” center brings his defensive power to the bright lights and big stage of the Los Angeles Lakers with a chance to reclaim his elite form.

The Lakers front office first chased after LaMarcus Aldridge, DeAndre Jordan and Greg Monroe in the opening days of free agency. But as team general manager Mitch Kupchak recently revealed, there was a backup plan in place all along.

“Not knowing what would happen, we had a contingency plan set up with Indiana,” Kupchak said during a TWC interview with Chris McGee. “If we did not get so-and-so and so-and-so, then the deal for Hibbert would kick in.”

The Lakers’ fallback position was an extremely safe gamble—trading only a future second-round draft pick to the Indiana Pacers, per Lakers.com. The team will also assume the final year of Hibbert’s contract at $15,514,031.





Hibbert joins an interesting mixture of veterans and very young players, including five-time champion Kobe Bryant and this year’s No. 2 draft pick, D’Angelo Russell. The youth contingent also includes last year’s No. 7 pick, Julius Randle, who missed all but 14 minutes of his rookie season with a broken leg, as well as Jordan Clarkson—the speedy NBA All-Rookie First Team selection.

It should be noted that Indiana was looking to move in a faster, smaller direction by trading Hibbert. At the end of the season, per Candace Buckner of the Indianapolis Star, Pacers coach Frank Vogel acknowledged the likelihood of a lesser role for the two-time All-Star.

“We'll have to see how it all plays out and what the roster ultimately looks like,” Vogel said, “but there's a possibility that Roy's role will be diminished, if we're trying to play faster and trying to play smaller.”

Meanwhile, in the Western division, Kupchak will be looking for a comeback effort from Hibbert, per the TWC interview:

For some reason the last year or so in Indiana, he kind of lost his way. I did talk to him recently and he didn’t put blame on anyone except himself. We know he’s going to play hard, it’s a contract year, so we’ll get his best effort. We’re hoping that at 28, we can see a player who can do some things that we just talked about, rebound and defend and block shots, and protect the rim, which is something we desperately need.





Hibbert, whose strengths have always been in the low post, will have backup help from a couple of young players with similar mindsets. Tarik Black went undrafted last year andwill be back for his second season with the Lakers, as will Robert Upshaw—an undrafted 7-foot shot-blocking savant who is on the team's summer league squad and is also expected to sign a two-year non-guaranteed contract, according to ESPN's Baxter Holmes.

The hope is that in addition to what Hibbert brings on the court, he can also serve as a mentor to Black and Upshaw, teaching them all the tricks of the pivot trade. And, the former Indiana frontcourt anchor isn't exactly ancient—he’s only heading into his eighth NBA season.

Much has been made about the mammoth center’s train wreck status during the 2014 playoffs, carrying over into this season’s tenure in Indiana’s dog house. And yet it’s also worth noting that the Pacers were the league’s fourth-best team defensively this season, despite being without Paul George and George Hill for most of the year.

Despite Hibbert’s recent murky mess, it’s not unreasonable to believe he can return to last year’s regular season fettle, which resulted in an All-Star appearance and finishing second in Defensive Player of the Year voting.

As Kupchak alluded to, better rim protection is an urgent requirement for the Lakers—the team gave up 105.3 points per game this past season, the second-most porous defense in the league. That lackluster effort was compounded by averaging 98.5 points at the other end of the floor.

The result was a 21-61 record—the worst in franchise history. If Hibbert can help plug the sieve defensively and make an offensive contribution on par with his career average of 11.1 points per game, L.A. should have a net gain—especially compared with what they got defensively from Jordan Hill.

Even with a down season, Hibbert was the NBA’s 13th-best shot-blocker, per Basketball-Reference, with 125 total blocks. He also had the 17th-best defensive rating at 100.6. Hill, meanwhile, didn’t crack the top 20 in either category, with 52 blocks and a defensive rating of 109, i.e. allowing 109 points per 100 possessions.



Roy Hibbert and Jordan Hill, advanced stats, 2014-15
eFG%oRTGdRTGTR%BLK%
Hibbert.446101100.615.55.1
Hill.46110110916.42.3
Basketball-Reference



The hope is that Hibbert can improve on a respectable season and get back to where he was before as a feared interior defender—he was the league’s fourth-best shot-swatter in 2013-14 with 182 blocks and second-best the season before with 206 rejections.

But Hibbert also has a particular signature move that isn’t reflected in standard stats—one that has been confounding opposing players for years. It’s all about timing a straight-up jump in the air to defend an opponent at the rim—the law of verticality.

Jared Wade


As Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated wrote: “Vogel explained to Hibbert the NBA's principle of verticality, which allows a defender to jump straight up and absorb contact from a ballhandler, as long as he establishes a legal defensive position before leaving the ground and remains vertical in the air.”

Hibbert embraced the concept and perfected it to a tee. “If someone serves up the ball, I'll send it out of there," the center said. “If he tucks it, I'm going straight up every time."

The Lakers will need Hibbert to use that verticality and other defensive tools to help bring the team back into contention.

That also means offering the big man one of the league’s largest stages to operate on—the Lakers still command a huge media market, and there’s all those championship banners as a reminder of the NBA’s ultimate prize.

With one year left on his contract, Hibbert has a chance to resurrect his career and make a case for an extended stay in Los Angeles.

It’s time for the big man to jump for the stars, once again.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...hibbert-the-biggest-stage-to-resurrect-career

 

More Roy.... all day all Roy....

Roy Hibbert’s Hollywood Remake: How the Center and the Lakers Can Help Each Other

JULY 16, 2015
by KIRK GOLDSBERRY

Roy Hibbert and the Los Angeles Lakers need each other. One player, one team, both searching for a return to form. Five years ago, the Lakers won the franchise’s 16th NBA title. Since then, by way of their failed Dwight Howard–Steve Nash–Kobe Bryant superteam, they have slid into disrepair. Two years ago, Hibbert was the defensive anchor of an Indiana Pacers team that took the Miami Heat to seven games in the Eastern Conference finals. Since then, he’s been reduced to a shell of his former self. Hibbert served as the poster child for the Great Indiana Implosion of 2014-15, and he was told, in no uncertain terms, that he would be coming off the bench in the upcoming season if he stayed with the Pacers. He opted in, and he was promptly traded.

And it could be the best possible outcome, for Hibbert and for L.A.

The Lakers need all the help they can get, especially on defense. They ranked 29th in defensive efficiency last season after ranking 28th in 2013-14. That might be about to change, especially near the basket. If he does nothing else, Hibbert should improve the purple and gold’s rim protection.



The addition of Hibbert won’t turn the Lakers defense into the Iron Curtain overnight. At their recent peak, the Pacers were an amazing defensive unit, and Hibbert may have been the biggest reason for that, but he was by no means the only reason. He was supported by the kinds of tough, long, and willing perimeter defenders that made every pick-and-roll action a fight. Great rim protection begins on the perimeter, and Paul George, David West, George Hill, and even Lance Stephenson were basically the NBA Secret Service.

Looking at the 2015-16 Lakers roster, it’s hard to identify anyone other than Hibbert who will be a plus defender. Nick Young is not Paul George; Lou Williams is not George Hill; 37-year-old Kobe Bryant is not 27-year-old Kobe Bryant. By any measure, the Lakers were a defensive tire fire last season, especially in the paint. Their opponents scored 18.9 field goals per game within 5 feet of the basket, third most in the league. The Pacers allowed only 14.8 field goals per game inside of 5 feet, second fewest in the league.

For years now, Hibbert has been one of the league’s most effective “volume rim protectors.” Out of 40 NBA players who defended at least seven shots per game at the rim last season, Hibbert ranked fourth in opponent field goal percentage (42.6 percent) in those situations. Only Rudy Gobert, Serge Ibaka, and Andrew Bogut were more obstructive.

That’s a crucial upgrade for the Lakers, who largely relied on Jordan Hill for rim protection last season. Hill ranked 38th in this group while allowing opponents to convert 55.4 percent of those shots.

Hibbert’s offensive contributions have been more … enigmatic.






A player of Hibbert’s size should at least be an above-average scorer near the rim; he’s not, and his post moves remain way too raw for a veteran center making max money. His ability to shoot midrange jumpers is better than most people expect, but his mediocrity close to the basket remains the reddest of flags on his shot chart. It’s like he’s defending himself out there.



In a way, he is. Over the past two seasons, Hibbert’s confidence visibly deteriorated. As his former teammate David West said on his way out the door to San Antonio, “Roy wants to play, he knows he’s unpopular right now, but we talked and he’s going to be a professional. He’s always been a professional. He’s had his ups and downs but he’s always been a pro and been diligent about his work.” For a moment, Hibbert was the best at what he did, and what he did had value. But basketball moves pretty fast — and right now, it’s being played pretty small. The changes in the league and his shaky confidence have led him to Los Angeles, hoping for a Hollywood ending to his up-and-down career.


http://grantland.com/the-triangle/r...he-center-and-the-lakers-can-help-each-other/

 

Roy getting swole for the media day.

But for real though, good for him getting it in. Looks like he really wants to go out there and find himself again.

 

He's walking through the motion....hands aren't on the barbell yet

 

He has a grip on the bar.

 

Really? We should call him Roy "Wolverine" Hibbert

 

He looks genuinely happy here. That's a big smile on his face.