Where Would The Lakers Be If Bickerstaff Was Still The Coach?
- Thread starter Silkk
- Start date
... Smack, who is this nikka? 
Farmar, Sasha, Brown, Turiaf, Ariza were all good bench players.
Artest for Ariza was a short term move. We probably would still have Ariza right if his Agent didn't fukk things up. He left LAL for 1-2 million more. Now nobody knows where Ariza even plays.
Sasha got fat and he wasn't the same after that. But before that dude could catch and shoot with the best of em.
Turiaf was better than Jordan Hill.
Odom was so underrated as a post defender. He let Gasol be Gasol without taking away his space.
Jim Buss' stupidity was in hiring a coach to feature Bynum at the detriment of Gasol who was still the Lakers best post player.
I also blame Kobe for the funk Gasol into the year before(after the 2nd championship). Kobe was comin' off surgery and Gasol was having an MVP start to the season. The media and everybody else started saying that Gasol was the Lakers' MVP and best player. Kobe heard that and started jacking 28-33 shots game. Lakers struggled to win games and Phil had to play Gasol more minutes. He was never the same for the Lakers after that. Phil Jackson even made the comment about Kobe sabotaging games that year. I've never heard a coach say that about a player before that, especially a player of KObe's caliber
Trojan 24
Veteran
IDK about blaming Kobe, but we definitely burned Gasol out that first month or two. I believe Bynum was out too, which led to Gasol getting even more minutes.
go check the boxscores. We started that season 8 - 0(or something like that) and Gasol was ballin' out of his mind. The offense was being run through him. I dont know if Kobe purposely went out of his way to dispel the "gasol best player on Lakers" talk but i found it highly coincidental then that he started jacking up so many shots a game. At times we'd be leading by double digits and kobe would start jacking up bad shots and the other team would get back into the game.
Gasol's hamstring eventually gave out. That was the year i started questioning the contract the Lakers were willing to offer kobe, especially with Lebron showing interest in playing for the lakers(through back channels).
But Ariza was coming off a great playoff run where they won a title so..He didn't get exposed with the Rockets. He isn't a franchise player. He's not even a good 2nd option but he was an athletic swing who could defend.
Brown, Farmar and Ariza should have been kept and developed IMO.
Ariza was exposed because he was a product of the triangle and only played well when he was playing with stars. What did he do with the Rockets, Hornets, and Wizards?
Old ass Ron Ron is still a better player than him after all of these years.
They made the right decision of letting them go. The mistake they made was not rebuilding the bench after he had one of the best benches in the league.
They'd have 20 Ws and be tied with POR and DEN right now.
Bernie just let them play... and they were playing at a slow to medium pace which helped their defense a little bit since they weren't running and gunning... which further exposes their poor transition defense. That's the way this roster is built to play. Its just amazing they chose the coach that was the worst fit for them.
Bernie just let them play... and they were playing at a slow to medium pace which helped their defense a little bit since they weren't running and gunning... which further exposes their poor transition defense. That's the way this roster is built to play. Its just amazing they chose the coach that was the worst fit for them.