Vee's Spot: WHAT HAPPENED?

[kobeschik24]

As Pau Gasol made his debut as a Los Angeles Laker, almost every teammate of his has stepped up to the plate and is playing better than their pre-Gasol days.

I say almost everyone because one teammate sticks out when comparing stats: Luke Walton. These days, it is rare to see Walton make a good play, a good pass, or even a basket. He has been taking shots he hasn't been succeeding in percentage wise and his infamous high basketball IQ seems to have dropped immensely.

Walton hasn't started since Gasol entered the team and this seems to have affected his game.

In his 2006-2007 season as a Laker, Walton averaged 11.6 points per game. This season, it has dropped to a very low 6.6 ppg playing about 20 minutes pg.

When Gasol joined the team, there was a great increase of stats for players like Lamar Odom. Odom wasn't playing his best basketball while Kwame Brown was the Laker center, but quickly changed his game.

While Walton dropped to 6.6 ppg and 3.6 rebounds per game, Odom improved his game making 13.6 ppg and 10 rpg.

You don't even have to compare seasons, you can simply compare the first half of the '07-'08 season to the second half so far.

While trades were being made, there was rumor that Odom and Walton would be traded for someone like Jason Kidd. When the Gasol trade was made, Odom and Walton had a chance to relax, at least for the rest of the season. It is possible that Odom realized the chance of a trade and upped his game, but for Walton, saying that he simply doesn't care is an understatement.

It is half time in the Seattle SuperSonics vs Lakers game and Walton hasn't done anything significant but throw the ball away a couple times. Lucky for him, we have Kobe Bryant, Gasol, Odom, and Derek Fisher on the court as well bringing the score to 62-43. If the Lakers win this one, it will bring their winning streak to 8 for the first time in 4 years.

So the question is, what happened to the player with the highest basketball IQ?

[Chicano]

Finally! The return of kobeschik24! Awesome. Missed your presence here greatly. Glad to see ya'.

Well on topic, yes Luke has been atrocious certainly. There are many theories/excuses, the contract, the injuries, blah blah blah, but whatever it is, he is NOT getting the job done and has been by far currently since Kwah-May-Brown is gone, the biggest disappointment by FAR this season on our team currently. He is truly our only great weakness imo.. Coby Karl doesn't really count and Mbenga, he is what he is & most of us love him anyway. lol. His jumpshot is almost non existent pretty much, where's the confidence? the stroke? the mechanics? just Turrible. He makes me nervous as hell everytime he's in the game. He's an adventure to say the least, but definitely a non healthy one. I have seen far too many games this season when he's in there, things go bad, we lose the lead, the other team comes back, or we lose ball games. I truly hope he can recover as we all should and do i hope, but it's been too long already, and i just don't know how much longer we can wait. Thank God Vlad has stepped it up though, but now with this minor injury I suppose, we will have to see walton more for better or for worse, probably for worse. It can't be said how much we truly miss Ariza, but reality is reality and we gotta' go with what we got.

& certainly it seems like most of our players have stepped up their games even more since the acquisition of senor gasol indeed, like a boost of energy, motivation, and more confidence that we are truly a championship calibur team if we want it, sky's the limit. we believe now more than ever! & when bynum comes back, nobody knows just how damn good we'll be, but it will be scary, that's for sure.

[revgen]

Luke should not even be playing. He needs to be rehabbing.

Last year you'd see Luke putting up 10-4-3. Now he's putting up 5-4-3. His shots have gotten worse because his legs have no jump in them. If Ariza wasn't injured Luke wouldn't be playing. He'd be rehabbing like he should be.

Nobody goes from 10-4-3 to to 5-4-3 because of some excuse like a "contract year". Luke isn't that kind of player.

If you think he is, then you haven't been paying attention for the last 5 years. If Luke was a guy who wanted to make cash he wouldn't have stayed in college for 5 years at Arizona.
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[halekulani]

[kobeschik24]

[PnOySneakerBoi24]