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.
AD and Ham were disappointing
AD has heavily regressed as an offensive player since we won the chip. Before you could just throw the ball to him down low and he could score at a high rate, because he could beat bigs with his speed or his face up mid range jumper. He never really had post moves at all
But he lost his mid range jumper and he’s much slower now. Not to mention he could actually shoot threes before on a decent amount of attempts, now he doesn’t shoot them at all
I said this before the season started.
Definitely. If we had a CP3/Mike Conley kinda vet maybe we’d see more action for AD.
Westbrook was good at that as well to be honest. He could drive into the paint and find AD for the dump off.
DLO and AD should be a perfect tandem
Nah, the perfect tandem is a PG that can stay in front of his man and feed Davis regularly in deep position with at least a couple of lobs every single game.
I liked Pat Beverly
They are letting Austin Reaves handle the ball instead of Dlo. Which is a problem for AD.
I feel the minutes AD shares with LeBron can be staggered to give him more minutes with D’Lo for the first 3 quarters. That way both LeBron and AD plus D’Lo can do damage. AR should not see a minute with AD, I genuinely get annoyed at how many times the team doesn’t pass to AD when he has a mismatch or when he has a good position under the rim with the defender on his back.
Problem is Ham gave everybody the greenlight. AR, Prince, Reddish, Rui, as good as they are, take too many shot attempts. AD should be averaging 18-24 shot attempts per game.
I mean you say this but when they gamine AD the ball and he bricks a fade away midrange it’s not exactly inspiring . Also I hate that he fades I swear he misses that skways : when he has space n goes straight up it looks better
If DAL had a scheme at all, it was to disallow AD from getting going. They swarmed him with almost every touch. DAL knew points in the pain is their biggest weakness. That made kickouts critical and we shot poorly. Still, this was the 3rd game in 4 nights. Some of the team had dead legs. Also, if we hadn’t missed something like 6 layups in the first quarter, we’d all be singing a tune. Personally, I love this squad and it’s not even anywhere at full strength yet.
This is my main problem with this team, we don’t have someone to setup our superstar.
Need another 2020 rondo
Exactly it is ice and fire the difference. It was a shame Brick couldn’t play defense and was out of control late in the games, because he was still a damn good passer in transition
AD also clearly has gone away from any scoring outside of the paint. His offense is significantly more limited as a 5 and he’s borderline hesitant to take jumpshots that aren’t free throws.
I do agree that we do not do a good enough job of getting him the ball on his off nights, but LeBron is clearly a better scorer and should be our #1 option.