The Lakers lost to the Sacramento Kings last night despite a huge 38
points from Kobe Bryant and it seems all the same problems that got Mike Brown
fired still exist with the D’Antoni led Lakers: Turnovers still plague the
Lakers as they gave the Kings 20 extra possessions last night. That’s fairly
normal for the Lakers, who have averaged 16.67 turnovers every single night;
this wouldn’t be such a huge problem since the team, dating back to the Phil
Jackson era, has never been known to hold on to the ball all that well, but
those teams made up for all of the turnovers with excellent transition defense
and above average half court defense. This team has not played any transition
defense throughout the year despite having one of the quickest and fastest shot
blockers this side of Hakeem Olajuwon and having some young and fresh legs at
the point guard and shooting guard spots in Darius Morris and Jodie Meeks.
I fully expect the turnovers to go down a notch once Steve Nash and
Steve Blake make their back to the court (reports have said that they are at
least two more games from coming back), and now that D’Antoni is the coach,
Nash should be playing up to his standards upon his return. But that won’t make
a difference if Los Angeles doesn’t feed off of its two dominant forces in
Bryant and Dwight Howard.
So far, the Lakers have had Bryant at his absolute best as he has been
scoring with efficiency (27.3 points per game on 53.1% shooting) and has been
playing the role of Playmaker with Nash still sidelined (5.2 assists per game),
however, last night saw a disturbing trend with the team as they seemingly
refused to give Howard touches in the post. For the first time all season, the
opposing team outscored the Lakers in the paint and it wasn’t even close: the
Kings had an enormous 50-22 point lead in that aspect and considering the
players Los Angeles has down low, this number is completely unacceptable. It’s
common knowledge that D’Antoni dislikes using true post players, but Howard is
the NBA’s most dominant force down low since former Laker Shaquille O’Neal; in
a league that’s notorious now-a-days for the lack of true centers and size down
low, the team has to go with the league’s most dominant player on the low
block. Last night, Howard only took 4 shots making two of them. His four free
throws came thanks to the Hack-a-Dwight strategy in the fourth quarter (Howard
sank 3-4 from the line last night). This is the one major problem I had with
the D’Antoni signing: He doesn’t use post players in his system and, until Nash
comes back, it seems Howard’s role with the team will diminish unless Bryant
and the rest of the perimeter players actively seek Howard in the post. This
could be similar to the Bryant-O’Neal Lakers if D’Antoni allows it; so far, it’s
looking less likely for that to happen as it seems like D’Antoni wants Howard
in more of an Amare Stoudemire role, setting screens and getting open shots
because of Nash (in this case, Bryant) but never really getting any touches as
a post player. This is the absolute worst strategy to apply with this team
because: Howard is the best player in the post in the Western Conference;
notice how he is never left one-on-one because nobody can handle him. If teams
let him play one-on-one, he would likely have one of the best scoring performances
of all time since he still shoots an extremely efficient 61% from the floor. This
coupled with the fact that he does not have any of Stoudemire’s game within his
repertoire, should make D’Antoni changing up his system inevitable however; he
has yet to do so. I said it before: the team doesn’t have the right personnel
for Mike D’Antoni to be the coach for this team. The amount of veterans and
post players doesn’t make this system ideal for this team, but we won’t know
how good or bad it is until Steve Nash comes back from his leg fracture.
Something is definitely wrong with the offensive system if Meeks, Morris, Metta World Peace and Pau Gasol all have more shot attempts than
Howard. On the season, while Howard has a ridiculous amount of free throws (130
attempts in 12 games, making only 64 of them for a very bad 49%), he has 23
less shot attempts than Gasol (135-158) while sinking 15 more shots (83-68). So
far, Gasol has been playing well below average on offense and has been taking shots
well outside of his range. At this pace, Mitch Kupchak might shake the roster
up before the trade deadline and pick up a few more three point shooters that
can play small forward. The most popular rumor around being the reported Gasol for Josh Smith deal, though I personally think it’s highly unlikely, but
if it opens up more touches for Howard, I’m all for it.
In some unrelated and personal positive news: So far, I have successfully predicted what Antawn Jamison and Kobe Bryant would play like so far in this season, give or take a few shooting percentage numbers. I’m extremely pleased with the Bryant prediction as he has been out playing even my high expectations for him; so far, his WS/48 is an insane .276, higher than LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Kevin Durant. He already has half of last season's OWS in 12 games! He is currently leading the league in OWS with 2.1. Kobe Bryant truly seems to be immortal.
