...in the real world - not the internet where everyone everyone is way too smart for everything. I mean, teams don't normally rent several billboards and take out full page ads to lure free agents - that's not even normal practice for the Lakers. Sure individuals/groups do it from time to time but the scale of this is a strategy and because it's not normal free agent recruitment procedure, and knowing how Dwight is, then YES it is clever. Can another team do it? Absolutely - but unless Dwight makes a visit to China in the next few months, the full weight of Rocket fans won't be felt on Dwight this summer like the full weight of Lakers fans will be felt on him. In fact the Lakers are the largest fan base of the NBA - that's a an advantage worth exploiting.
If Dwight chooses another team, it's only because he couldn't handle our awesomess! Asshats. I look forward to watching them shrivel up and become irrelevant for the next 5 years. Lebron turning his back on them should be entertaining as well
I don't think the lakers want him as much as they would hate it he left the storied franchise. They aren't the cute girl at the club anymore, the are the old one who thinks she's still got it.
i'm with you on this. offensive was NOT our issue this past year. Defense was. having both dwight and asik down low turns any team we face into a jump shooting team. even with our anemic offense down low, asik still averaged double digits in points - that's mainly due to the ability of our guards getting into the lane and getting him and our under-performing 4's easy shots at the rim. that will not change if we keep lin. i actually think that by getting howard and keeping asik, we've eliminated 80% of our issues at the 4, and that's defense and rebounding. i hope we keep the fast pace offense intact. can you imagine how many fast break points we'll have per game with asik and howard gobbling up rebounds and throwing outlet passes? we'd be the most fun team to watch if we weren't already this past year. even in a half court offense, if teams needs to account for howard's average offense down low, lin and harden will be even that much more effective.
A lot of our offense comes from Lin/harden/parsons slashing. With two big men crowding the paint, is this going to bog down the offense?
I'm not as enthusiastic as Fighton about the Asik/Howard combo on offense, but I'm willing to give it a shot. On defense they will be pretty beast (after getting used to one another), but offense? Neither can stretch the floor; will bog down the paint and can be exploited by smart teams. It would be like a super version of GSmith and Asik, which worked great against certain teams...not so much against others. But we needn't play Asik and Howard together ALL the time. We can stagger their minutes some to better combat the types of teams we're playing. We can be harder to predict, or more flexible ourselves, which in turn means other teams have to do more to account for us (because we could sub in Asik for DMo or something and completely change the floor spacing). And when Asik and Howard are on the floor, I imagine we'd run a lot of double screens w/ them. Asik would set the high pick and Howard the lower pick. Howard is great at finishing low PnRs, esp. since he won't have to 'handle' the ball as much, and Asik loves doing the dirty work (iunno if he loves it, but he does it w/o complaint). It'd give our two guards a lot of options.
...one of those bigs would likely be a high screener and the other big would probably be a weak side baseline cutter or Houston would bring in a stretch 4 if it just isn't working(I guess that would be DMo given the current roster). Harden is a smart passer and can make teams pay provided the spacing is there. Besides, if Harden misses more buckets in the paint, we could be just as effective with Asik and Howard cleaning up the boards similar to how Hibbert just hangs out waiting for a slasher to miss in the paint before getting an easy put back. This might be one of those cases where you get back more than you lose.
I always thought that was funny, Asik and Howard wouldn't work because neither can shoot the midrange shot so they want to bring in a guy who can't shoot the midrange shot but thinks he can. LOL.
I'm definitely willing to give it a shot, but if a great opportunity comes along and Asik has to be in the deal, I'm not gonna pass that up.
I had to click on a couple of posts to see what the guy quoted from you, and since I have him on ignore, now I feel dirty... thanks! ;-)- He simply fills space here, in my humble opinion.
Well, Smith is a much better shooter than Asik, though I get the slight sense of irony here. Asik essentially takes all his shots (like 6 out of 7 FGAs) at the rim, where he's 60.5%. He takes 1 attempt a game from 3-9 ft for a saddening 27% JSmith takes a third of his shots (roughly 5 out of 15) at the rim for a whopping 77.6%, and from 3-9 ft, he takes 2.5 attempts a game for 39%. What's frustrating is his continued desire to take shots from 16-23 ft, at 4 attempts a game for 33% conversion.
I thought I would never see the day where an NBA team (who have won 10+ NBA Championships) would have to go this route for a player to re-sign with them. Do they REALLY fear mediocrity? No matter WHAT you do L.A., Dwight Howard sees the kind of shape that the organization is in right now... towards rebuilding... The writing is ON THE WALL for Kobe and Nash to retire in the next 2-3 seasons! Basically, this past season that just ended was y'alls ONLY tryout period to try and impress Howard into signing a LONG-TERM extension with y'all. Guess what though?? Y'all FAILED, getting SWEPT by the San Antonio Spurs! The only way y'all have a remote chance of resigning him is if y'all had younger players with potential (see C.Parsons, J.Harden, P.Beverley) What's that Lakers? Y'all will TRADE Kobe Bryant for the #1 pick in next years draft?? Laughable! NO ONE will want to trade an up and coming 18-22 year old for an aging 36-37 year old Kobe Bryant. I just feel like this will NOT end well for the Lakers. Dwight Howard is as good as gone from Laker Land, no matter what the reports say otherwise. Dwight Howard does NOT owe y'all anything, Lakers. Dwight Howard could come back and counter with "Change" to y'alls "STAY." ad.
No, I don't think he was being facetious. He literally meant thanks for the Lakers perspective, I think. That's probably because of your opening line in your post: "there are several people here in LA who are perfectly fine with dwight leaving" Assumed you were a poster on the LA side giving insight.
Yeah his insistence on being a chucker is what really destroys him as a player. If they could do a deal in his contract that said that his entire contract could be voided if he took more than 3 shots per game further than 3 feet from the rim then I'd be all for signing him. Even then, I'd MUCH rather have Dwight Howard.
Here's my guess (don't know if cyberx or anyone else mentioned it or not... didn't read through the entire thread): The Lakers are going to tell Dwight Howard that they'd fire D'Antoni and hire Phil or one of his proteges to coach with Phil given some basketball operations exec role if he agrees to sign with them. If Dwight does sign there, then they'd follow through on it-- though I am not sure how much power Jim Buss actually gives Phil. Otherwise, they are keeping D'Antoni rather than paying him, Mike Brown, plus the new coach.
I don't think he will want to spend what he feels are his prime years playing through this lakers situation. But if the clips get him that woud be dissapointing. The Heat woud still be better. They need Harden to complete the trio that will be nasty enough to take out Lebron.
