Roster Improvement: Free Agents Now and Later?

^But still, Pau is the least of our worries. He is not being used correctly. But then again, 90% of the team isn't being used to their maximum potential with MB running the show.

I agree. Maybe he's not playing with the right kind of energy, but he's still good. Expensive, but we'll have to live with that. If he only was able to rest a little and if other players were clicking on the offense, he'd have a much easier time. But right now, he's probably the most comfortable guy on the court. He should play more in the post IMO. Yes, he can hit some shots, but I want to see him either putting moves on whoever is guarding him in the post -- or passing the ball to Dwight, which he knows how to do.

Rooscooter wrote:

therealdeal wrote:So what does Pau Gasol have to do before Laker fans are ready to stop throwing him under the bus? He's played well to start the season and we're putting it on him that we're losing? We're trying to get Smith for him?

If Pau expires and we have a chance to get Smith, that's maybe one thing but trading Pau for him? Jesus, no.

And moving him to the bench would be worse. Not only is he playing fewer minutes and playing less effectively, but you have 19 million dollars on the bench losing any potential trade value. That's insanity.

Pau isn't the problem here. Not by a long shot.

You must quit watching when we cross half court on the defensive end....... he's been beyond horrible on rotations, blocking out or just about anything else on that end of the floor. On the offensive side of things we have a 7'-1 SF shooting and missing 18 foot jumpers while his man is in Howard's lap.....

His stats may be O.K... but so are everyone's.... his lack of anything other that pass first attitude is a huge problem.... the most effort he puts into anything on the defensive end is explaining to Howard what happened on the rotations...... while shrugging....

this. I keep hearing smith clogging the lane, well gasol has clearly gotten worse at shooting jumpers. He's been bricking wide open mid range jumpers so far this season. I honestly think smith is just as good a mid range shooter. Now he takes boneheaded 3s that he bricks alot so I think ppl confuse that with thinking he can't shoot. But from the mid range he's much better.

^^Again... you guys are "boxscoring" this..... watch the play and quit looking at the stats... He's playing on the perimeter all of the time and his man is constantly in the key zoning Howard and Kobe..... why? because he knows.... as we all do what Pau's going to do.... pass it like a hot potato or settle for a 20 footer....

On the other end of the floor I'm not sure how anyone could watch the last two games and say he's not among our biggest problems....

Rooscooter wrote:^^Again... you guys are "boxscoring" this..... watch the play and quit looking at the stats... He's playing on the perimeter all of the time and his man is constantly in the key zoning Howard and Kobe..... why? because he knows.... as we all do what Pau's going to do.... pass it like a hot potato or settle for a 20 footer....

On the other end of the floor I'm not sure how anyone could watch the last two games and say he's not among our biggest problems....

Yep. Howard isn't immune from criticism at that end, but man is Pau awful in his rotations. I cringe everytime I see him hedging strong.

Again, maybe he'd have more lift on his jumpers and more energy on the defensive end if Brown wasn't running him into the ground. And I do like the high-low alley oops to Howard. But he is not hitting enough of his jumpers and is not aggressive enough. Same problems, different season...

Seems like Pau's either a step slower or just really out of his comfort zone with Brown. I think right now he is best used as a center.

Having said that, Pau's ability to make smart basketball plays is one fo the reasons the Princeton was the offense chosen. Smith clearly is not the smartest player but he would make this team drastically better on the defensive end.

All in all, both have pitfalls, but I am getting tired of seeing lazy rebounding and boxing out and I'm pretty sure I saw Dwight get angry with him at one point last game.

And I'm not sure how he "hinted" anything. He has no affiliation to the franchise outside of his oncourt legacy. He was stating his fantasy trade would be Pau for Smith. He's been saying that for awhile.

therealdeal wrote:So what does Pau Gasol have to do before Laker fans are ready to stop throwing him under the bus? He's played well to start the season and we're putting it on him that we're losing? We're trying to get Smith for him?

If Pau expires and we have a chance to get Smith, that's maybe one thing but trading Pau for him? Jesus, no.

And moving him to the bench would be worse. Not only is he playing fewer minutes and playing less effectively, but you have 19 million dollars on the bench losing any potential trade value. That's insanity.

Pau isn't the problem here. Not by a long shot.

It's not about Pau's play or skillset. He's the most offensively skilled big in the league & that's why it's been so hard to part with him. We're just an old slow team now & the twin towers approach is doing nothing but adding to the problems. We need to get younger & faster. Josh Smith is one of the few players we can trade Pau for without hurting our interior defense. Pau is the better player but Josh would help solve our biggest weakness. No he can't create offense the way Pau does, but with Nash out there creating for guys & 2 of the top 5 players in the league, we'll be just fine on offense. We will miss his passing alot but Dwight is a very capable passer when we're running the offense through the bigs.

Rooscooter wrote:You must quit watching when we cross half court on the defensive end....... he's been beyond horrible on rotations, blocking out or just about anything else on that end of the floor. On the offensive side of things we have a 7'-1 SF shooting and missing 18 foot jumpers while his man is in Howard's lap.....

His stats may be O.K... but so are everyone's.... his lack of anything other that pass first attitude is a huge problem.... the most effort he puts into anything on the defensive end is explaining to Howard what happened on the rotations...... while shrugging....

Pretty much this

Pretty frustrating when he drops passes, is camped out by the 3pt line and doesn't try to defend the basket. I'm not saying Smith is the answer but we need to get younger.

Oh and # firemikebrown

You guys keep whining about Pau's defense, but everyone's defense has been terrible including our two best players in Kobe and Dwight should we get rid of them too? Of course not. Pau has to improve his defense no doubt about it, but so does everyone on the Lakers. Our team defense is just bad right now. I don't think you can really single out one single player. As I already mentioned Smith and Dwight would be a terrific defensive combo, but neither can shoot/space the floor which will lead to a very clogged lane for both guys. Pau has been terrific offensively and on the boards. He's the third option still and is averaging 16 points and 12 boards. Pretty good for a guy who is the 3rd option on offense.

Texas Lakers Fan wrote:You guys keep whining about Pau's defense, but everyone's defense has been terrible including our two best players in Kobe and Dwight should we get rid of them too? Of course not. Pau has to improve his defense no doubt about it, but so does everyone on the Lakers. Our team defense is just bad right now. I don't think you can really single out one single player. As I already mentioned Smith and Dwight would be a terrific defensive combo, but neither can shoot/space the floor which will lead to a very clogged lane for both guys. Pau has been terrific offensively and on the boards. He's the third option still and is averaging 16 points and 12 boards. Pretty good for a guy who is the 3rd option on offense.

Okay, so because others aren't playing up to their potential on defense, its okay for Pau? Kobe's playing on a bum foot and Dwight's recovering from offseason back surgery, what's Pau's excuse? Nobody is "whining", just simply pointing out the obvious.

I'm not even advocating a Smith/Gasol swap either, so I'm not sure why you continue to bring it up. I still think Pau would be more effective with less minutes, I'm hoping Brown gets his head out of his ***.

I can not believe how blind some of you people are. Gasol is our LAST problem. I wanted to use a worse word then blind, but i dont want to get banned. The Lakers TEAM has ZERO leadership from the bench. And the leadership that is on the floor, is too busy thinking about crap instead of playing basketball. Its freakin basketball, its not rocket science. This idiot has turned it into Ivy league calculus.

That's the secret part of the Princeton offense. When you get the ball, you have to count backwards in primes from 101, and then pass the ball while visualizing a contour integral.

Ok, thought I'd bump this, since it is clear there will be tweaks to the Roster now that MDA is the coach.

What do we need to get rid of? Guys who can't run well. can't finish, can't pass, and can't shoot. This is RING or bust. So no time to waste in developing D-League guys like DJO, Sacre, and Clark.

Guys who can shoot, I think, are most important (even more than speed and athleticism). This is especially true for guys who already know MDA's system.

Raja Bell (slow, but a good back up with Meeks)
Michael Redd (bad wheel? I prefer him for this offense, over DJO)


Guys who can run, hit the 3, and defend
Pietrus (Knee heeled?)
West
??

Someone to replace Sacre
Kenyon (bad knee)
???

No clue who we'll be going after, but I do think roster changes (albeit minimal ones) are forth-coming.

Any news on Delonte West?

We have to trade Pau ... pb is Lakers FO waited too long to pull the trigger ( again ...after CP3 debacle) .
As this point , the probability of our team getting better this season by trading Pau is near zero ... trading Pau for the sake of it doesn't make sense ... his contract may get us back good/better value next season as it is expring though

Pau gets this year and gets traded next season for cap space

We have a lot of talent on this roster. would not surprise me at all to see front office parlay Pau into some nice pieces for us. We'll see. Every team could always use tweaks, but I also think we are a contender put together as is. You could do a lot worse than Pau, that is for sure. I think I'd like to see him in Dan Tony's offense first.

I don't want to see any major roster moves until we see what the coach can do with what he has.

Now when I say major, I mean our starters, including Ron Ron and Pau. With the bench they are going to have to decide what to do about Ebanks. I could see him playing for D' Antoni, but I'm not sure what the repercussions will be about the DUI.

Since D' Antoni has worked with Duhon before, I'd love to see him get more minutes. I think he's fine for him as backup PG.

Pau for Faried! Evevthough its impossible to happen.

I'm worried that Hill won't see the floor much with MDA. He's known to love to play stretch 4 and that's what Jamison is. Between Dwight/Pau/Jamison, that's pretty much all the mins at PF/C.

Hill has become my favorite player, but if he can get a good return, maybe he is trade bait? Hopefully, Jamison just becomes a role player and not so much a 6th man kinda guy because I'd hate to lose Hill... though he is our best trade piece.

Meh, I'll wait and see how MDA wants to run this thing.

Trade Pau for Love? Can we hit another home run?