While the Lakers have high hopes for guards Kendrick Nunn and Talen Horton-Tucker, both players are relatively young, so the decision to sign Rajon Rondo reflects the team’s desire to hedge its bets in the backcourt, writes Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report.
Los Angeles may not lean heavily on Rondo, who will turn 36 during the 2021/22 season, but he gives the team a proven backup at the point in case Nunn and Horton-Tucker struggle at all. Rondo is also more of a distributor than Nunn and Horton-Tucker, who are score-first guards, so he could be a better fit in certain lineups and situations.
Here’s more on the Lakers:
- Within his article on the Rondo signing, Pincus cites a source who says Anthony Davis was frustrated at times last season with the looks he got in the post from Dennis Schröder compared to the ones he got from Rondo the year before. That may have been one factor in the Lakers’ decision to let Schröder walk in free agency.
- Jovan Buha of The Athletic identifies five Lakers lineups he’s looking forward to seeing in 2021/22, including a switchable, center-less unit (LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Kent Bazemore, Trevor Ariza, and Horton-Tucker) and one in which LeBron is surrounded by shooters (Malik Monk, Wayne Ellington, Carmelo Anthony, and Marc Gasol).
- The South Bay Lakers – Los Angeles’ G League affiliate – officially announced Miles Simon as the team’s head coach for the 2021/22 season. Simon has spent the last four seasons as an assistant on the Lakers’ staff and coached the team’s Summer League squad in 2017 and 2018.
These two lineups look pretty good:
Westbrook, Bazemore, Bron, AD, Howard
Westbrook, Nunn, Melo, Bron, AD
We’ll see a bunch of diferent lineups, gotta put everyone in the mix, so come playoff time they have the much needed chemistry and healthy bodies.
1000% Lakers may be old and stuff. But they have a deep roster and will be able to rest Bron and AD at times.
Bron usually enters the season with something to prove, be it someone else was named MVP, be it a finals loss, be it changing new teams.
Last year, AD went down and they lost to the Suns and he was all nba second team.
He knows at 36 going 37 he physically can carry his teams to the finals anymore. He need help and he’s definitely got it. He will be able to cruise through the season, hopefully injury free. Come the back end of the year play themselves into a seeding they like and make a strong finals push.
If Bron gets his 5th ring and 37 that’ll be super impressive
LeBron had the luxury of of being able to “cruise through the season” during his 20’s and early 30’s when he was in the eastern conference. He’ll no longer have that advantage in the West at 37.
Disagree mid 20’s he was out there getting MVP’s, chasing MJ, going to Miami to team up with Wade then going back home to bring a title to the land. He was making a legacy and chasing the goat. Now at 36 hes made his legacy, he doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone and this year is going to be about building chemistry, staying fit and healthy, having great performances every now and then but waiting till the finals to get number 5
GreenWood Oh. You might want to research his career stats. Try basketball reference. You can see his MPG are over 40 in season 2-5 and then stay pretty consistent for his whole career
Also you might want to factor in playoff games and minutes too. You, apparently, might be surprised at the number of playoff games the man has been in.
Tazza sentence 5 is I assume missing a key “not”. Please check for nots in case someone actually wants to think about your post… or skim it.
Thing is about Buha’s various lineups— I guess AD is getting rest? AD will be in the ones that work best. There’s a lot of good scrubs but they’re scrubs.
Yeah I’m worried about Vogel more than the roster. His rotations are horrible. I think if they struggle, he’s out.
I don’t think they would want to have their often injured 30 somethings to expend the extra energy switching everything on defense.
I’d agree with AD if he posted up more than once per game.
Hence as the article reads, Schroder is out!
Sadly guards tend to have the ball more than big men, which means that big men depend on their guards to give them the ball in the right set ups & situations, which again sadly in these days with a large number of the best ever bigs & the ever declining level of guards, just doesn’t happen, hence the rise in the point-forward & point-center, so guards can do what they seem to be good only at now, shooting, instead of passing which should be their #1 skill!
@ElDon
Who are these “best ever bigs”? And please understand that in the 80-2000 if a big dared to shoot a 3pt shot they would’ve been banished to sit on the bench for a woke. Had the NBA game been what it is now, more bigs would’ve worked on their craft of shooting from 20-30ft out. Not guys like Shaq but others
Shooting from distance is not really fun for a big guy, except maybe for the softys or Euros.
Shroder just wanted the freedom to drive to a contested shot whenever he wanted to, esp during televised games. It was part of his personal get-rich-quick scheme, but not what AD wanted to see.
When a center retires, he will more and more over the years, regret all the time and effort that was wasted while NOT getting the ball from the guards, who do what they want in easy open space.
Well this has been my experience anyway!
@KnicksFanCavsFan… I have been watching the NBA for 40 years & as a matter of fact Jokic, Embiid, AD, KAT & DMC (pre-injuries) have played at MVP level consistently now & they would have in any time in these last 40 years!
Also in no particular order in the last few years have been other pretty good bigs like Horford, Drummond, DJ, Bam, Capela, Vucevic, Sabonis, JV, Gobert, Gasol, DH12 & Ayton… I mean in the 90’s for example there were the few elite, a few decent & a lot of useless guys like Longley!
So to me is a fact, which I will not change my view about it, that right now the league has the best bigs it has ever had!
So the point is that the guards job is to give them the ball at the right spot & time so they can do their magic, sadly most times than not guards just only shoot & shoot, which ain’t very entertaining to watch!