Lakers: Former LA Player Sounds Off on Team's Use of Their Big Men
Last week was the time to come in with justified hot take on the Lakers. Los Angeles lost three consecutive games and gave up bucket after bucket to Sacramento, Memphis, and Denver. The Denver finale was a 137-96 drubbing.
The Lakers loss to Denver was so bad that even Magic Johnson took to twitter to call out the team’s performance.
A former LA player with a much different stature in the team’s history also sounded off. The one and only Kwame Brown aired his grievances with Lakers use, or lack thereof, of their big men.
"You're not gonna win coming off screens shooting threes all day long. It ain't working yet. I know if I was a big man on that team I would just run up and down, foul, and get the hell up out of there. Because they know they're not wanted. They know y'all not using them the right way. If I could be a fly on that wall in that locker room I know them people sitting around like 'this is some b*******‘.
Contrary to Kwame’s opinion, two of the top teams in the West, Golden State and the Jazz, rank in the top five in three-point attempts. This writer hasn’t broken down all the film, but one would assume there’s some screens involved to get those open looks. Both squads rank in the top ten in three-point percentage.
Kwame continued on his rant to voice his disgust with the Lakers use of Dwight Howard. Howard has started in seven games this year and is averaging 5.4 points per game and 5.4 rebounds per game.
Dwight Howard, poor Dwight Howard. He come off the bench cold as I don't know what. Dudes been rolling, getting layups all day and then you expect a 30-plus-year-old man to come off the bench after sitting that long ready to go and play some defense. Yeah good luck with that.”
In the Lakers last 12 games, Howard is averaging 14.4 minutes per game and has four DNPs.
Kwame isn’t completely off base, but playing 36-year-old Dwight Howard 30 minutes per game and feeding him the ball likely isn’t going to fix the Lakers’ problems.
