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dcash4 wrote:bench REALLY needs pau gasol. he's a 1st option for them. i don't think the benchers play well with kobe since they want the ball in their hands too.

Phil Jackson benches the bench mob

Things have gone from bad to worse for the Lakers Bench Mob. Just how bad are things? Things are so bad that Phil Jackson benched the bench last night in their game with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

It was the first night of back-to-back road games. Normally you would expect the reserves to see a good number minutes in that first game to give the starters a breather.

But would you believe it if I told you that four of the five Lakers starters put in 43 minutes or more?

The facts are Kobe Bryant played 46 minutes, Lamar Odom 43 minutes, Ron Artest 47 minutes and Andrew Bynum 49 minutes.

The only Laker starter not to log in more than 49 minutes was 35-year-old point guard Derek Fisher. He was on the court for 35 minutes.

That’s a lot of basketball!

The entire bench put in only six points, four by Josh Powell and two by Sasha Vujacic, and a total of five rebounds.

dcash4 wrote:bench REALLY needs pau gasol. he's a 1st option for them. i don't think the benchers play well with kobe since they want the ball in their hands too.

j-far wrote:You asked for it!

semi-sentient wrote:I know I'm going to get slammed for this, and maybe that's justified, but what about getting Iverson from the Grizzlies for Farmar? It's a shame that I would ever say that, but our bench is absolutely atrocious and come playoff time our starters are going to be worn out from playing heavy minutes. I don't think having Odom coming off the bench is going to make much of a difference either. He doesn't exactly give us the consistent scoring that we need.

I'm probably one of the biggest AI haters that there is, but something tells me that he wouldn't be doing all this bitching if he was actually on a contending team (and I can't believe he was dumb enough to think the Grizz would contend). AI, as much as I hate his style, would provide us with some much needed offense off the bench and can be a real asset if he can get his attitude in check. If things don't work out then it doesn't matter because we can just let him go anyway. I'd gladly take 10-12 PTS on ~44% shooting off the bench. We've never had that -- even when our bench was playing well.

Thoughts?

semi-sentient wrote:True, and I can't even believe I would suggest that because I've railed hard on Iverson over the years, but that's how bad our bench is. I'm searching for other options but I'm drawing a bunch of blanks. We need some capable, consistent scorers coming off the bench so hopefully we can do something with Farmar/Morrison via trade.