Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol duo or Kobe Bryant - How will L.A. Lakers offense shape up next NBA season?
It is no surprise that many people are writing off Los Angeles Lakers as championship contenders in the next NBA Season, after their awful display against Dallas Mavericks last time around.
The point which everyone is missing however is that Lakers still have a mighty core in the form Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum- players who can win matches on their own.
However, the fact cannot be denied that a grueling tasks lies ahead of Lakers and they need to work on a lot of things to re-establish themselves as favorites in upcoming season.
Mike Brown, who took over the responsibility of coaching Lakers after the stepping down of great Phil Jackson, needs to make some calculated decisions. Luckily for him, extended offseason because of the NBA lockout has provided
him some more time to brainstorm and hence come up with a compact strategy.
However the steepest of tasks for Mike maybe to make it very clear that Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum are the players around which the attack revolves around. With Bryant in the team, such strategy is a little hard to swallow as he
has been the main the main strength of Lakers offense for quite a long time but Pau and Bynum with their performances over two-three seasons have succeeded in making an impression that they are no less than Bryant and can be counted upon.
Gasol and Bynum’s collective average was 30.1 points and 19.6 rebounds per game. Bynum had to miss most of the matches in the beginning due to injury but showed shades of brilliance in matches that he played.
Gasol was not in his full motion this past season for unknown reasons. Though he finished with a reasonable average but most of the times looked pretty rusty in the court. Played a vital role in Lakers humiliating loss to Dallas
Mavericks as a lot was expected from him in the match but then again, it was not only Gasol’s fault. Bryant and Co all looked anemic in that series.
If Gasol had been a bit more aggressive, Lakers might have managed to grab a single match of the series. Bynum on the other hand was easily the most dominating and consistent player from Lakers. He remained a threat for every opponent
throughout the season and proved that he is easily amongst the best youngsters in NBA at the moment.
Phil Jackson was a brilliant coach without any ambiguity but his problem was that he started relying on Kobe Bryant too heavily. And to be fair to Phil, this move was pretty justified as Bryant had been the backbone of Lakers for
years. But in basketball one cannot rely on a single player for very long and this is where Phil missed the trick.
Bynum and Gasol might be more effective under Brown. Post positions will be well defined now and this will give both Gasol and Bynum time to organize their position in the paint.
Focus on strengthening the post with Bynum and Gasol will immensely help Bryant too. He will not have to penetrate through a tight defense since he would not be the part of primary offense anymore and this will give him an option
to sneak in with some points.
Bryant is still a class act and his presence in the team is essential if Lakers want to give themselves a chance of winning the championship but if they manage to win it somehow, it will be the result of combined team effort and
not his individual performances.
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