Mike Brown sees Dwight Howard as defensive messiah – NBA News
The Los Angeles Lakers is a club obsessed with winning and they have 16 NBA championships to prove it. However, they have not won one in two seasons and up until Friday, didn’t look like they were going to win one in the upcoming
season as well. That is too long a time for the Lakers to remain out of championship talk. So they went and got themselves the best centre in the NBA at the moment in Dwight Howard.
The Lakers acquired Howard in a four team blockbuster trade that was finalized on Friday. In return, the Lakers lost former centre Andrew Bynum to the Philadelphia 76ers.
Last season, the Lakers lost in the Western Conference Semifinals to the Oklahoma City Thunder, in a series in which the Lakers were simply blown away by the Thunder. The series proved that the Thunder were the new team to beat
in the Western Conference.
The Lakers particularly struggled on defence, as Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum were not able to stop the offense of opposing teams and the Lakers did not have a defensive specialist in the line-up.
However, the addition of Dwight Howard into the team changes all of that. Howard is a three time defensive player of the year and will be a great addition to the Lakers front court alongside Gasol. Lakers Head Coach Mike Brown
realizes the kind of player he is getting in Howard and what he can do for the team, particularly on the defensive end.
“You’re talking about a guy who is seven feet, who has the feet that he has, it’s unbelievable. His foot quickness is something, to me, that stands out right away, more than anything else. It helps him run in transition offensive
transition, and get easy baskets. But more importantly, in a pick-and-roll situation defensively he’s going to help guys like Steve Nash, and Kobe and Metta (World Peace) and whoever else we have on the perimeter defend the pick and roll game,” said Brown
while talking to ESPN.
Brown has a huge job on his hand next season of managing a roster filled with superstars and playing his cards right to effectively use all the stars in the line-up. He will also be under constant pressure on winning an NBA championship,
as anything else will be considered a disappointment and failure for a team with the talent that the Lakers currently boast.
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