Los Angeles Lakers Need To Make A Decision: Dwight Howard or Pau Gasol


Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol cannot play together.

There are rumors that either Gasol or Howard is going to be traded before the deadline. The Los Angeles Lakers desperately need to move one of them in order to have any chance of making things happen this season.

The Lakers biggest problem is that they have too much talent. They have too many dominant superstars who always want the ball and are willing to disregard defense in an attempt to excel at offense.

The Lakers need a defensive center and an offensive power forward or vice versa.

Steve Nash is the only player on the floor with a “right” to the ball. He decides who gets the ball and when they get it. However, the Lakers have too many players who refuse to play the game as a team. Nash cannot distribute to all of them.

Kobe Bryant is the best offensive player of the post-Michael Jordan era. This isn’t a burden but a gift. The Lakers have to learn to work with this.

Everybody on the Lakers floor wants to dominant the offensive. Scoring is important and praised while defense isn’t near as glamorous.

Gasol is being used to make space for Howard and this is kind of ridiculous. Gasol isn’t a great defender. He never has been. He’s not aggressive.

Howard is the explosive and aggressive one. He’s the Defensive Player of the Year, not Gasol.

The fact that the Lakers are considering having Gasol come off the bench is ridiculous. It’s lazy and weak coaching. Mike D’Antoni needs to force Howard and Gasol to become defense first players. However, there have been zero signs that D’Antoni is a strong enough coach to instruct superstars how to play the game. Since this isn’t going to change, the roster must.

Unless the Lakers are going to have a “just go out there and have fun, because that’s what it’s all about, season.”

He needs to reinforce fundamental basketball. The core of the problem is the Lakers just can’t play good basketball. There are far to many players who dominant in the same area and leave other areas weak.

Earl Clark, Jordan Hill, Jodie Meeks and Darius Morris have been much more important than they should have been to keeping the Lakers alive because they play the complete game.

Since Jim Buss made the decision to hire the, lets face it, weaker and cheaper coach, the Lakers are going to have to sacrifice either Gasol or Howard for lesser players who can play around superstars so the team can succeed.

Maybe, it’s the big three, not the big four, for a reason.

 


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