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It's no real secret the league these days is more perimeter oriented than ever before. Whether it's due to players becoming better perimeter shooters or an overall lack of skilled post players I'm not really sure why the game has gone this route.

Last year the Lakers had two dominant big men in Pau and Bynum and for whatever reason we weren't consistently able to punish smaller teams the way we should have been able to. We'd work hard for a basket and they'd fly back down the court making us pay for being slow.

Fast forward to this year. Out with Big Daddy Bynum and in with the much quicker, much more agile Dwight Howard. If Pau has anything left to give, and I think he does, the Dwight and Pau frontcourt just might be the best in history even if only for a season or two when Pau begins to slow.

How is having that dominant of a front court going to change the game? Is it possible we'll force teams to play such large lineups against us they'll no longer be able to run us out of the gym? Can you imagine being the coach of another team and trying to figure out how exactly you're going to defend against a lineup of Nash, Pau, Kobe, Dwight and Ron Ron?? Short of hoping and praying they Lakers age gets the better of them I don't see how one really prepares to play against a lineup that perfectly matched. If Kobe and Nash were in their respective primes it would probably be the greatest offensive team ever assembled.

So my point to this post. Will this Lakers team cause the rest of the league to alter their lineups in and effort to slow the Lakers or are teams still going to focus on a more perimeter oriented style of play.

With Dwight the Lakers should be able to go big or small. Take Pau out, let Dwight anchor the middle, move Ron Ron to pf, move Kobe to sf, and bring Meeks in to play sg.

Or the Lakers can go with Pau, Dwight, Ron Ron, Nash and Kobe and just pound the heck out of teams down low.

Will teams be forced to go away from smaller, more perimeter oriented, offenses in an effort to keep up with the Lakers???

Dwight makes us much more mobile... It's not going to be the same as with Bynum.

But that said, our weaknesses are the same as ever defensively... We will have trouble with speedy guards, and teams with deep (multidimensional) perimeter games...

I think Duhon's defense is under-rated so I hope he can help shore up our Guard D... Hopefully MWP's new found agility and weight loss, can help us guard bigger SF scorers... And I think Dwight's lateral quickness and shot blocking timing will keep even the speediest perimeter cutters from killing us like they had been...

I think we'll be better at it, but I think we'll still have a problem with certain players on the perimeter and I think that's how teams will try to exploit us.

as far as making teams pay with our size the answer is quite easy, making kobe check his ego and we should be good

Our perimeter D should be 100% better this year and here's why. We'll no longer have two of the slowest bigs in the game on the court at the same time and if Pau's lack of speed is hurting us we can sub him out and put in Antawn Jamison.

The last two years we'd see the ball whipping around the perimeter only to land in a wide open shooter's hands and we'd have to hold our breath while hoping the wide open 3 didn't go in. With Dwight being able to single-handedly guard the rim this is a problem that should be GREATLY reduced this upcoming season.

stunnar0b wrote:as far as making teams pay with our size the answer is quite easy, making kobe check his ego and we should be good

If Kobe wants to win and ensure Dwight wants to remain a Laker long after this season Kobe will play nice and share...

It's quite possible Dwight could extend Kobe's playing career two or three years.

We all know how much Kobe likes to win and will be out on the court as many minutes as it takes each night to get the W. If Dwight is good enough it's possible Kobe's minutes could be cut down to 30 per game and he might possibly not have to play back to back nights. This could easily help extend his career another two or three years. I'm down with that!

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Good thread AcecardZ, truthfully the reason the league is so perimeter oriented now is because the lack of quality bigs coming from the college ranks. Which that problem stems from the high school ranks. Until the pattern can be retraced and fixed, we'll continue to have 6'10 guys hanging on the the perimeter. I watch 50-60 high school games per year and I can truthfully tell you this is where the problem starts.

Coaches don't even run offense's that predicated on getting the ball in the post. That's the problem. Then you look at the college game and it's an identical twin, the last time I seen college programs running interior stuff was in the late 80's. I was glued to the TV on Saturday's just for the big men matchups.

Sadly this style of play has filtered it's way to the NBA, can't blame the coaches.....they have devise schemes with what they have. This is why Howard and Bynum are considered the best two bigs in the league, they're the only ones who even have some sort of post up skills.

All that said we're still an interior team, with several players that can post up from Howard to Kobe to Ron to Pau and Jordan. Then Antwan has a good turn and face game too. Like AcecardZ said maybe we inflict our style on opponents and force the game in our favor at all times due to matchups. If we stick to our strength we'll win a lot of games.

So the shift in focus from and interior game to a perimeter game was caused by a shorter high school and college 3-point line.

Believe it or not it makes a ton of sense. Statistically speaking long 2 point shots are the worst in basketball and most coaches know this so they don't take them anymore. Instead they instruct players to take a step or two back and shoot the 3-pointer which even if shot 10-15% lower percentage than the long two pointer still yields a better overall result because you get 3 points per basket instead of 2.

Also, lol zone defense! Shaq's gone. No reason to continue allowing teams to play zone D. The rule should be switched back.

The reason perimeter offense is the way to go is because high school/college big men tend not to develop back to the basket skills. Coaches typically reason "he's big, we can pencil him in at center even if he has no skills". So we end up with guys like Hasheem Thabeet drafted second.