4893 replies to this topic

[Lakers4Life]

That's assuming that Howard and Nash aren't going to score more in an offense that caters to them. In addition to that, once Dwight and Nash hit the spot with P&R, Gasol will average more than ten a night.

2012 Heat - 98.5 PPG
2007 Spurs - 98.5 PPG
2006 Heat - 99.9 PPG
2005 Spurs - 96.2 PPG
2004 Pistons - 90.1 PPG

Teams can win championships scoring under 100 PPG...they just have to play defense. A team's scoring is higher or lower not just because of their ability (or inability) to score, but also because of their pace. If a team plays slower, using up the clock, they can still be one of the best teams in the NBA...and most efficient scoring teams...without putting up 100 every night.

Right now, the Lakers are averaging 96.5 PPG. That's with us playing six games without Nash.

EDIT: Gasol is already averaging 13.8 PPG, so yeah.

I highlighted 2 key issues with this team in your post

1) Defence, I cbf looking it up but im pretty sure were ranked in the 20's for defensive efficiency, we are terrible on the defensive end. Its what happens when we have an older team, and Pau Gasol playing the way he is. Nash coming back is not going to help our defence either. Not to mention anything Mettta does on defence is lost on the offensive end, if not a deficit.

2) "Most efficient scoring teams" when 2 guys on your starting line up are shooting a combined 24 shots at around 39%, you are not being effective nor are you going to win a championship. One of our most efficient scorers in Howard shooting 63% takes 10 shots a game. Why the hell is Metta World Peace shooting as much shots when shooting 20% less? Why is Gasol shooting 4 more shots at 20% less?

Not to mention 4 of the 5 teams you mentioned above were known as some of the best defensive teams. Pistons and Spur teams were the most boring to watch because they kept scores down in the 70's we are not capable of that. The 2012 Heat were just a juggernaut on defence and offence. The 2006 heat could score a lot still.


Back to Metta World Peace, right now Battier is about 15x better than him not only does he defend but he also can score on the other end. how many times have you seen Metta World Peace CLANG an open wide open 3 and admit it you cringe everytime you see him pull up for a shot. Not to mention the fact that he over-dribbles and does stupid decisions.

For this team to become effective Metta needs to take about 5 shots less, Pau needs to take about 6 shots less and we also need our bench to step it up or acquire pieces to be effective till then, we aint winning nada this year.

If anything considering this in the TRADE PAU GASOL, trade them both if we can. lol. Not to mention they are both not going fit in D'Antonis system.

D'Antoni is so excited about the "names" on this team, yet he doenst realise how far Pau Gasol is from being "Pau Gasol" nor does he realise the Ron Artest is gone from the league and we have 36% shooting Metta.

Edited by Lakers4Life, November 14, 2012 - 07:25 PM.

[Lakers4Life]

Another thing to add a lot of people were happy with yesterdays game because we kept the spurs "close"

Does anyone realise how poorly the Spurs shot? Manu is still injured and shot 1-8 and he missed some pretty easy shots. Parker had the flu. They shot 38%. I dont think that was entirely our defence. They missed some gimmicks and open shots. While we did miss some open shots, the people that missed them - Gasol, Mettta, Morris, meeks and Jamison have been terrible all year. I dont know I think I might just need another 10 games to analyse this team. Sample sizes are not big enough JUST yet.


Edit: funny point - Metta is shooting 6 3 pointers a game at 31% lol. Just LOL.

Edited by Lakers4Life, November 14, 2012 - 07:29 PM.

[iDreamShake]

Another thing to add a lot of people were happy with yesterdays game because we kept the spurs "close"

Does anyone realise how poorly the Spurs shot? Manu is still injured and shot 1-8 and he missed some pretty easy shots. Parker had the flu. They shot 38%. I dont think that was entirely our defence. They missed some gimmicks and open shots. While we did miss some open shots, the people that missed them - Gasol, Mettta, Morris, meeks and Jamison have been terrible all year. I dont know I think I might just need another 10 games to analyse this team. Sample sizes are not big enough JUST yet.


Edit: funny point - Metta is shooting 6 3 pointers a game at 31% lol. Just LOL.

we really need a 3 who can shoot,,,that and a bench and we're the best team in the league without a healthy dwight

[Real Deal]

I highlighted 2 key issues with this team in your post

1) Defence, I cbf looking it up but im pretty sure were ranked in the 20's for defensive efficiency, we are terrible on the defensive end. Its what happens when we have an older team, and Pau Gasol playing the way he is. Nash coming back is not going to help our defence either. Not to mention anything Mettta does on defence is lost on the offensive end, if not a deficit.

2) "Most efficient scoring teams" when 2 guys on your starting line up are shooting a combined 24 shots at around 39%, you are not being effective nor are you going to win a championship. One of our most efficient scorers in Howard shooting 63% takes 10 shots a game. Why the hell is Metta World Peace shooting as much shots when shooting 20% less? Why is Gasol shooting 4 more shots at 20% less?

Not to mention 4 of the 5 teams you mentioned above were known as some of the best defensive teams. Pistons and Spur teams were the most boring to watch because they kept scores down in the 70's we are not capable of that. The 2012 Heat were just a juggernaut on defence and offence. The 2006 heat could score a lot still.


Back to Metta World Peace, right now Battier is about 15x better than him not only does he defend but he also can score on the other end. how many times have you seen Metta World Peace CLANG an open wide open 3 and admit it you cringe everytime you see him pull up for a shot. Not to mention the fact that he over-dribbles and does stupid decisions.

For this team to become effective Metta needs to take about 5 shots less, Pau needs to take about 6 shots less and we also need our bench to step it up or acquire pieces to be effective till then, we aint winning nada this year.

If anything considering this in the TRADE PAU GASOL, trade them both if we can. lol. Not to mention they are both not going fit in D'Antonis system.

D'Antoni is so excited about the "names" on this team, yet he doenst realise how far Pau Gasol is from being "Pau Gasol" nor does he realise the Ron Artest is gone from the league and we have 36% shooting Metta.

PP100 (points per 100 possessions), which is also considered Offensive Rating, we are 9th. Our FG% is 10th in the NBA (that is 2's and 3's combined, but you know that). Three-point shooting? We are 19th, which is where we usually struggle offensively (26th last year, 24th when we won it all in 2010, 19th when we won in 2009).

I wouldn't worry about the threes TOO much, since we were horrible in both of our last championship seasons. With our new offense, and Nash back in, the 3PT% should improve.

However, we aren't THAT bad defensively, either. We are 14th in defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions), and even more important, we hold teams to under 42% shooting, which is VERY good (top five)...and that's without a defensive system in place.

Our two biggest problems (turnovers, and transition defense) is what will make or break our season. We will never be a better team getting back on defense, unless we trade Gasol for Smith (that will most certainly help us), but the turnovers should come down by January or February, and when D'Antoni takes over, Nash re-appears, and we start to learn our new offense.

I'm not too worried.

[bfc1125roy]

PP100 (points per 100 possessions), which is also considered Offensive Rating, we are 9th. Our FG% is 10th in the NBA (that is 2's and 3's combined, but you know that). Three-point shooting? We are 19th, which is where we usually struggle offensively (26th last year, 24th when we won it all in 2010, 19th when we won in 2009).

I wouldn't worry about the threes TOO much, since we were horrible in both of our last championship seasons. With our new offense, and Nash back in, the 3PT% should improve.

However, we aren't THAT bad defensively, either. We are 14th in defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions), and even more important, we hold teams to under 42% shooting, which is VERY good (top five)...and that's without a defensive system in place.

Our two biggest problems (turnovers, and transition defense) is what will make or break our season. We will never be a better team getting back on defense, unless we trade Gasol for Smith (that will most certainly help us), but the turnovers should come down by January or February, and when D'Antoni takes over, Nash re-appears, and we start to learn our new offense.

I'm not too worried.

Although our opponents aren't scoring with great efficiency, to me just from watching the games (as well as our record) our defense seems pretty bad, especially considering we have Howard in the middle now. The shots we give up are pretty awful, and our offense seems to be doing better the last few games but teams aren't having that difficult a time scoring on us either. At times it feels like we are trading quick baskets. The Spurs game last night was a good example of how LA couldn't lockdown on key possessions like they were able to during the championship years.

I guess a lot of it has to do with turnovers though, which you brought up. Since our transition defense is going to be poor due to the team's age anyways, there's not too much that can be done about that other than improving the offense.

[Real Deal]

i'm interested what deal you think would be good for gasol real deal assuming he's worth being traded, honestly i look around the league and don't see much. a lot of teams have young developmental bigs or the contenders have bigs.

Aside from a Smith/Korver trade, it's hard for me to imagine another that would benefit both teams involved. I'm sure I can come up with many more that would rip off the opposing team, but I hate doing that.

I will throw out one name, though: Amare Stoudemire. If the Knicks start to struggle when he returns, or they want to bring him off the bench (which has been discussed), it makes you wonder what it would take to bring him in for Gasol, who would probably work wonders for a Knicks team that would want a player who will willingly defer to a superstar teammate.

P&R with Nash and Amare, D'Antoni coaching? Where is that from?

Hard to configure a trade with the Knicks, though. We'd have to give them something else, and we don't have much to offer coming off our bench. They wouldn't want Ron, and they already had Jordan Hill for around 20 games before tossing him aside.

[Real Deal]

Although our opponents aren't scoring with great efficiency, to me just from watching the games (as well as our record) our defense seems pretty bad, especially considering we have Howard in the middle now. The shots we give up are pretty awful, and our offense seems to be doing better the last few games but teams aren't having that difficult a time scoring on us either. At times it feels like we are trading quick baskets. The Spurs game last night was a good example of how LA couldn't lockdown on key possessions like they were able to during the championship years.

I guess a lot of it has to do with turnovers though, which you brought up. Since our transition defense is going to be poor due to the team's age anyways, there's not too much that can be done about that other than improving the offense.

Well, we did hold the Spurs to 84 points (compared to their 97 PPG average) and 39% FG (compared to their 47% FG average, 3rd in the league).

To me, it's easy to identify our inability to lock down at the end of a game: our best defenders are getting old. Ron Artest was on Tony Parker, and back in 2004, that would have been awesome. Today? Parker easily takes him off the dribble. Same with Green escaping Kobe, while Bryant was forced to pay close attention to a Parker drive. In final possessions, isolations become the most dangerous strategies on the court...and so do mismatches. If you have an older group of guys out there, they will have a hard time sticking with their man, and mismatches almost always turn into easy buckets.

If the Spurs made the decision to drive, we had Howard there...and Kobe was roaming. We could have stopped it. But, Popovich is a legend of a coach, and the result is a play that capitalized on our age and lack of coaching.

[Japago]

The Lakers wouldn't trade for A'mare and the Knicks would gladly do A'mare for Gasol.

He has chronic knee issues and is currently out because of a knee issue. His contract is uninsured for that reason. He still had ok numbers last season, but didn't look like the same A'mare.

Pau is older and is struggling so far this season, but he still has more value than A'mare.

[last stand 2.0]

i like the idea of korver and smith just because you could star korver at SF and he'd be the NBAs happiest man. he'd be in absolute heaven with all of the shots he'd get.

howard/ hill
smith/ jamison
korver/ artest
kobe/ meeks
nash/ blake

suddenly you are hurting that much on the bench, and korver can space the floor for the starters. i think thatd make the lakers very tough to beat

[Lakers4Life]

PP100 (points per 100 possessions), which is also considered Offensive Rating, we are 9th. Our FG% is 10th in the NBA (that is 2's and 3's combined, but you know that). Three-point shooting? We are 19th, which is where we usually struggle offensively (26th last year, 24th when we won it all in 2010, 19th when we won in 2009).

I wouldn't worry about the threes TOO much, since we were horrible in both of our last championship seasons. With our new offense, and Nash back in, the 3PT% should improve.

However, we aren't THAT bad defensively, either. We are 14th in defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions), and even more important, we hold teams to under 42% shooting, which is VERY good (top five)...and that's without a defensive system in place.

Our two biggest problems (turnovers, and transition defense) is what will make or break our season. We will never be a better team getting back on defense, unless we trade Gasol for Smith (that will most certainly help us), but the turnovers should come down by January or February, and when D'Antoni takes over, Nash re-appears, and we start to learn our new offense.

I'm not too worried.

Good post, agree with nearly everything.

Aside from a Smith/Korver trade, it's hard for me to imagine another that would benefit both teams involved. I'm sure I can come up with many more that would rip off the opposing team, but I hate doing that.

I will throw out one name, though: Amare Stoudemire. If the Knicks start to struggle when he returns, or they want to bring him off the bench (which has been discussed), it makes you wonder what it would take to bring him in for Gasol, who would probably work wonders for a Knicks team that would want a player who will willingly defer to a superstar teammate.

P&R with Nash and Amare, D'Antoni coaching? Where is that from?

Hard to configure a trade with the Knicks, though. We'd have to give them something else, and we don't have much to offer coming off our bench. They wouldn't want Ron, and they already had Jordan Hill for around 20 games before tossing him aside.

Really bad post. lol. Amare? Guy is worse than Pau. 1 his defence is worse and 2 he has chronic knee problems.3 his contract is much larger and longer, it will be like Andrew Bynum all over again cant have that uncertainty, if anything Knicks have to give US more, because that is highway robbery. Especially considering Amare and Melo dont fit together well at all.

Edited by Lakers4Life, November 14, 2012 - 09:19 PM.

[Real Deal]

I don't think his knees are THAT bad. He just had a 25/8 season two years ago, no Melo. His numbers from last year reflect being on a team with Carmelo Anthony dominating the ball.

Amare and Melo can't play together simply because the two don't compliment each other well. Amare and Nash? That's different.

On this team, Amare would be scoring behind Kobe and Dwight. It's not that he wouldn't want that role as a second or third option in New York, it's that he didn't like standing there and watching Carmelo shoot 19 times a game, while he was getting under 14, ALL WHILE the Knicks were 17th in the NBA in scoring. That is what pissed him off.

Amare is a bad defender, but he's right there with Gasol. I can't really say Pau is better, can't say Amare is...both are irrelevant on that end.

But the fact that we can stick Amare in P&R with Nash...and Dwight...and then have Kobe doing his own thing OR replacing Nash in those P&R...it's scary.

EDIT: Amare is making as much as Gasol right now. He gets paid up to $23 million in his final year, two seasons from now, but hopefully after next year, Kobe will be taking less money, Ron will be gone (or taking less), and we'll be good to go.

[ツ]

Gasol for Amare, I'm digging that.

[Hollywood]

Gasol for Amare, I'm digging that.

His back is my only concern

[Japago]

He's out at least another month because of a knee issue(they said he was going to miss 6-8 weeks at the beginning of the season.) He missed 19 games last season. His contract is uninsured because of his knees.

Too much of a risk.

[JSaber20]

I don't think his knees are THAT bad. He just had a 25/8 season two years ago, no Melo. His numbers from last year reflect being on a team with Carmelo Anthony dominating the ball.

Amare and Melo can't play together simply because the two don't compliment each other well. Amare and Nash? That's different.

On this team, Amare would be scoring behind Kobe and Dwight. It's not that he wouldn't want that role as a second or third option in New York, it's that he didn't like standing there and watching Carmelo shoot 19 times a game, while he was getting under 14, ALL WHILE the Knicks were 17th in the NBA in scoring. That is what pissed him off.

Amare is a bad defender, but he's right there with Gasol. I can't really say Pau is better, can't say Amare is...both are irrelevant on that end.

But the fact that we can stick Amare in P&R with Nash...and Dwight...and then have Kobe doing his own thing OR replacing Nash in those P&R...it's scary.

EDIT: Amare is making as much as Gasol right now. He gets paid up to $23 million in his final year, two seasons from now, but hopefully after next year, Kobe will be taking less money, Ron will be gone (or taking less), and we'll be good to go.

But I'm not sure the Lakers want to waste that 2014 cap space on Amare.

[Real Deal]

If they have plans to use it on a free agent, then it makes sense not to trade for Amare.

But, if they are going to trade for Josh Smith...they are going to pay him after this season, and he's at $13 million already. I doubt the Lakers want to bring him here for half a season, then decline him while trying to keep his best friend, Dwight Howard.

So, with Dwight making over $20 million after his extension, and Smith making bank, Kobe probably taking $15 million (instead of $30 mill), we won't have room to offer a big free agent a max deal anyway.

Forgot Nash's $10 million. In fact...Dwight's $20+ million, Kobe's $15+ million, Nash's $10 million (guaranteed)...that means no superstar contract in the works, unless Kobe retires. That's with just Kobe, Howard and Nash...nobody else (no Smith).

[last stand 2.0]

i like the josh smith deal more if we get korver as well. amare would have chemistry with nash and spread the floor better as well.

[West Coast]

I keep reading the title of this thread as "Gasol has been traded", keeps screwing with my mind

[last stand 2.0]

I keep reading the title of this thread as "Gasol has been traded", keeps screwing with my mind

every time. i nominate a title change. i'm sick of coming on LN and thinking gasols been traded

[L.A.K.E.R]

Changed the title. It was bothering me as well.