The Lakers face a difficult situation heading into the All-Star Break with the trade deadline less than two weeks away. With the news of Pau Gasol's lack of availability for the next 6-8 weeks and Dwight Howard's inability to stay 100 percent healthy, Los Angeles must determine if being active in the trade market may make sense for the team.
Some pundits have argued that the Lakers's system under head coach Mike D'Antoni would be a bad fit for incoming players at this point in the season. Additionally, the Lakers' best trade piece, Gasol, no longer has any value so long as he is recovering from his foot injury. Internally, Earl Clark has emerged as a key contributor for the Lakers after merely being a throw-in in the Howard trade last year, but Los Angeles may need more if it hopes to reach the playoffs.
As mentioned earlier today, D'Antoni plans to speak with Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak regarding the team roster while in Miami on Sunday. The Lakers will be able to make a trade thanks to the disabled player exception which gives them the opportunity to acquire a player making up to $1.88MM this season. While Los Angeles may not have a wealth of financial flexibility to make a trade before the deadline, the question still remains whether they will make it.
I think the Lakers front office is delusional if they believe Howard will sign a long term contract with them. He doesn’t fit the offensive mold that D’Antoni desires and hasn’t seem to grow into the threat they were expecting him to be.
If I were the Lakers, I would try to trade him to the Clipps or Nets and see if they can get a decent package of controllable scorers.
lakers will never help the clippers win a title.. theres no way they would send d-12 to the clippers… anywhere else in the nba yes.. paper clips. no
part of it is that they are thinking too much on offense. Dwight should be able to score 10 points a game just by running down the center of the floor to the basket. Gasol could arguably score 6 points a game the same way. Kobe has finally figured out that he isnt Michael Jordan and shouldnt be isolating as much anymore. If Kobe took less shots, he would be much more efficient and they would be really hard to guard. Kobe can have an easier time if he shared ball handling duties with Nash and played more off the ball, on cuts to the basket and coming off screens to spot up. Both Kobe and Steve Nash could run plays in the pick and roll with multiple different players like Artest, Antwan Jamison, Earl Clark, Jody Meeks, Dwight, Gasol, setting up shots or points down low. They need to run the floor. They’ve been lazy the whole season and that was evident before D’Antoni came in and it hampered them from running the offense to its best extent. You have options to score in transition, off pick and rolls, in the post with Kobe, Gasol, Dwight, Jamison, Artest, and with offenses involving Gasol as a facilitator from the top of the Key and even in post situations. This would also leave room for Gasol and Dwight to work together in many capacities, similar to part of Memphis’ offense with Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph. In short, they have a couple of 1 on 1 players including Kobe to bail them out in situations where they cant find a shot, but these other options should be utilized more, and they need to work more as a collective group than having any one or two players lead the way. Kobe taking something like 15-18 shots a game would be a much better number for them as a team, and with Kobe getting less of a workload offensively, he may get some more energy on the defensive side of the ball. Their defense is a serious issue. Dwight cant be the only one doing it. They also have to help the helper b/c if Dwight comes to block the lane, his guy is wide open. They still cant guard the quick point guards off pick and rolls. They’ll get destroyed by Westbrook, Chris Paul, Ty Lawson, Lillard, etc. Their rotations need to be better and they have a few players that should be capable.