Summer League Team : Russell smooth 21 (1-4)

Exactly, Mudiay has space to operate and shooters to kick the ball out to, Russell doesn't. Mudiay still made some fantastic passes...that one where he drove to the rim, went up, took contact, and then fired the pass along the baseline was impressive as hell. This is the type of offense the Lakers should be running in order to maximize Russell's abilities, not the Princeton which takes the ball out of his hands.

7 Seconds or Less (basically spacing, shooting, create cross matches through pick and rolls) turned Steve Nash from a borderline All-Star into an MVP. Russell's skill set is very similar, yet so far the Lakers have insisted on running an offense that will allow him to be a good but not great player. Of course it's only three games and there is tons of time to tweak the offense, but if this is what they run next season I can't imagine that Byron's days at the helm will last much longer.

Jim Buss tried to recreate Showtime/SSOL by bringing in D'Antoni and Nash, but the problem was that Nash was old, Dwight wasn't a willing pick and roll partner, and D'Antoni wasn't Phil Jackson. Selecting Russell is a sign that they are looking to bring excitement back to Los Angeles, and the Princeton offense is just not the way to do it.

Case in point, for me the most exciting games last year were when Lin and Clarkson were on the court together and running high pick and roll all day long. They were getting into the lane, finding shooters, and creating chaos. It wasn't until Byron gave up on some of the Princeton sets and allowed them to run those things that it happened though. Hopefully we don't see a repeat this year, the Lakers need to come out of the gate swinging with an offense that suits the players.

 

If you pause the video (please excuse the quality) at 8 seconds, you can see that there is really no spacing. There are four defenders in the paint. But I do wish Russell just pulled up for a 3 since Okafor was all the way at the free throw line.

 

I understand your frustration man and believe me I feel the same way on a lot of days too. What keeps me staying positive is that as bad as our Front Office has been at times the past few years, they have shown at times that they can make bold moves when given the assets. The Gasol trade, the CP3 trade, the Nash and Howard trades, were all great at the time, but some were poor in retrospect because of a lot of bad luck.

The league vetoing the Paul trade was indescribably horrible because after reversing that trade, it greatly depreciated the value we could have gotten from trading Pau or Lamar because everyone knew we HAD to trade them at some point soon.

The Nash/Dwight experiment was derailed by the perfect storm: a Steve Nash season ending injury when he had been healthy the year before, the horrible Dwight attitude, Mike D'Antoni, Kobe's achilles. Some of this was within our control, but not all.

At the end of the day, I think the Lakers went with a stroke of bold with the Russell pick, when a lot of other's would have played it safe with Okafor. It could either blow up in our face, or we can be raving in 2 years about the pick when we're back to contender status. I'm hoping and staying optimistic that it's the latter. Hope you do too brother.

 

Thanks for posting that article about when Byron scrapped the Princeton in Cleveland for Kyrie.

So any chance of Byron doing that here? What's the point of learning the "basics" of the Princeton only to scrap it midway through the season for different offensive sets? The lack of off-ball movement aside, I hate the Princeton because it takes the bigs away from the basket.

Also when we initiate our offense we make a couple of passes and set a screen or two, and if you look at it, those actions do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Russell just ends up with the ball on a different side of the floor....there are no mismatches, no off-ball screens freeing someone up....it's literally useless movement that wastes 10 seconds of our shot clock.

Someone said Byron and his system are like Mark Jackson in GS. I wish Byron was even Mark Jackson. Yes he posted up Klay, emphasized more iso, and didn't run enough plays for Curry off the ball.....but he still elevated that GS team. I was very upset with Byron last year but we also had no talent. This year I will be less patient.

 

Agreed....you can't say their success with Mark was entirely on the defensive end. They made the Playoffs, even the 2nd round with Mark. They were still a good offensive team (Curry and Klay and Bogut will do that).Obviously Kerr is much more an X's and O's guy but I'd wager to say Mark isn't a complete idiot....yes he's more a motivator in the same mold as B Scott.

Anyways my point was that Byron isn't even as smart as Mark. I don't know what the hell the team is thinking. Surely Mitch has had to have a conversation with Byron about our system right?

 

Thanks! Hoping for the best with the Lakers. Can't change pick might as well root the ones we already have

 

Anyone know what "seed" we are in Summer League? Trying to figure out when our next game is....apparently it's based off of what standing we are in.

 

Isn't this the same offense we will see in the regular season anyway?

 

Unfortunately.

 

Thanks Cachook!

 

My hopes are dashed. We need D'Antoni for D'Angelo. Mike will make him look good

 

Are you saying we ran the same offense this summer we did last year?

If so, you think the offense looked better with Kobe running it last year?