After watching the soundbite, I agree with you. but if Darvin thinks that Rasheed will be a rollup his sleeves kind of guy to help work with AD or other bigs, maybe it can work.
It was interesting how he said the comment about defence for Lebron and also mentioned maintenance regarding Lebron. It makes me think he is going to ask Lebron to turn up the defensive effort and spread out the ball handling on offense more. It would be great to get 30-32 mins of concentrated effort from Lebron. As for Russ, it really sounds like he wants him to come up a lot of levels defensively. In my opinion, they should make Russ the point of attack guarding the best guard each night. And they should really talk up the importance of that to the media to get Russ to feel some pride there. It would be quite a sight to see if he used his athleticism just one time in his career to put up a really solid defensive season. And then we get to AD, this all really rests on him being healthy…
he quietly pointed to AD as the most important player, imo, and that's the right call. hopefully management agrees and considers it in terms of roster-building because they did not do that last year.
Russ’s skillet isn’t a great fit, but if he has the right mindset, he wouldn’t be the net negative he has been. Based on his outright defiance and passive aggressive blame shifting last year, I’m not optimistic. But, there are cases where it’s not what’s said, when it’s said, or how it’s said, but by whom it’s said, that finally lands. The messenger matters, sometimes.
i keed. but yeah, all we can do is hope that a different person delivering the same message helps it land.
Goddamnit I had to re read the bold like five times. I thought it was some obscure pun or something, then I noticed the typo.
I think he's going to try to get Bron on the Greek Freak minutes program. AD should lead the team in role and minutes per game. Productive and health was emphasized by Ham. With the defense Ham wants to hang his hat on, it starts with AD. If that doesn't land, it's a house of cards waiting to collapse. Another perk to the potential the Sheed hire is how to be vocal. To this day, AD feels like Bron's second board seat to me. Whatever Bron wants, AD will echo. I don't think he has an identity as a Laker on his own two feet, yet. If he's the key, he has to be as loud and commanding as anyone else in the room. I don't know who they built this roster for last year. The Russ trade was for Bron and AD (proxy), but the rest of the roster wasn't for any of them. If each outperformed their prime, then they would have all been great fits. Instead we got the worst version of most of those signings. Separate note: I think Ham is really going to enjoy coaching Stan. For one, as of today's he's our best (arguably only) wing defender. I think he probably sees some of himself in him. size/build wise, bouncing around the league, hard hat and lunch pail kind of player. If he could help steer him, that'd be big.
Nothing against Darv but pointing to AD as a focus doesn't require a genius set of coach skills. A five minute cut per game on LBJ's minutes would be huge as well as necessary, it likely cost him games last season. This does clean the slate for Russ which may do the trick for him, who knows? Darv isn't going to get Russ to make 3s, but maybe he can make him stop shooting them. As well as AD. That foolishness must end. We look like absolute newbs out there when those two launch away. AD is .186 on treys, dude, you're fired. Anyone that lets a player shoot 3s when they are .186 on an entire season is weak and should not coach. The key for Darv will be to get Russ to play D and make him think it was his idea. If he's smart, he'll do just that. He'll tell him D is the new fashion or some bulls*** like that.
I was pretty hyped during and after the press conference today, but then I had to reel in my excitement and remind myself that this team is still old and sucks. Lebron is still old (and will be older), AD is still glass and Westbrook is still Westbrick.
Hype is real. Day didn't start very well when I read about Sheed. But really enjoyed listening to Ham. He looks like a really humble guy. Effort and grit is his M.O. We really need that in this team. Mentioned a lot of things that really went bad last year, accountability, defense, energy, team spirit. He seems to be what this team has been lacking, so really hoping he can build his type of culture. I'm hyped!
dedmon and dieng are FAs again, and i think svtzr has suggested we try to get lopez himself. all we need is a guy who can give us 15-20mpg defending the 5 spot and stretching the floor. again, this was the (very smart, imo) idea behind getting gasol (which worked, btw).
Really wish we could get Mo Bamba. He's young, long (7-10 wingspan), lot of upside still, fits our need at C and shot 38% on four 3 point attempts a game.
We had a Lopez. That SAME Lopez who wanted to remain a Laker with a hometown discount. Thanks for that one too Magic. Even worse than deciding you weren’t going to pay Zubac and handing him to the Clippers for a couple months of Muscala.
I like the Ham hire. I think we had to get away from the retread coaches. I believe that Ham’s no nonsense approach is the right way to go moving forward. While Vogel was scapegoated by the FO and they did him zero favors with the roster, he also lost the team last year. Ham offers a fresh start and a tougher attitude and mindset. He’s hungry.