Ever since the 2020 championship, the Lakers have gone away from AD. I remember so clearly, during our championship run the team (Specifically LeBron and Rondo) made an effort to get AD going and get him the ball to run the offense through him and getting him easy buckets in the paint.
Since then our guards have been more score first and playmake second. Bron looks to create his own shot as well most of the times and simply makes the right play. He does not necessarily try and get AD the ball in his comfort spots. We don’t run any sorts of plays for AD (At least none that I’ve been able to see). Even AR is always looking to score (granted he’s no Point Guard but still) and at times I feel he even ignores Bron when going for a bucket.
Ironically D’Lo has been the one to get AD the ball more than anyone. I think the coaches should ensure that our guards make it a point to get AD easy shots from his comfort spots and run plays for that. I feel it’s more on the coaching staff than anyone on the team. On our 2020 coaching staff we had J. Kidd and Lionel Hollins which definitely helped with the over-all identity and playing style of the team.
AD as a big needs to have his guards and coaching staff play through him. We can blame him all we want for not being more aggressive on the offensive end but it should be a big responsibility of the team and coaching staff to get your Big Dog good looks and plays for him.
TL:DR - Our guards and coaching staff should make it a point to run plays for AD and get him some easy looks.
They also correctly know AD is a weak passer, teams can’t treat Bron that way : but AD is maybe the weakest passer of the top 5 bigs : Giannis jokic : bam embid sabonis all are much better at making passing reads. I’ve given up hoping he improves it much more he has a tiny bit but he’s lost his jumper : he was good in midrange last year but this year back to sucking
This is definitely true, but I think the other Laker players don’t know where to be if AD gets doubled. Nick Nurse has greatly helped Embiid with this exact problem.