Phil finally asked why he doesn't start Lamar

[Chubby Chaser]

Did any of you guys catch this last night after the Portland game? One of the reporters asked Phil, "why didn't you consider starting Lamar in the line-up" To which Phil pompously replied " There are general reasons to why we don't start Lamar." The reporter asked him the reasons. And Phil said, "None of your business" and smirked it off. I don't think we'll ever see the 7 7 7 lineup. I don't understand why he won't at least try it once for a few minutes. Phil experiments with quirky lineups all the time but he seems adamantly opposed to even giving this lineup a look. He tried it once in pre-season for one minute and that was it. Lamar has been good off the bench for us and we've been winning with Luke or Trevor in the starting role. But I would still like to see this lengthy lineup for a few minutes here and there.

[hermes]

i'm telling you, it won't be a surprise if he uses it now

there is a greater plan at work here....

[Danny Darko]

I think it's rotation at the 4 & 5 he's worried about. We tend to concentrate on our 3's situation, but I think there's something to the fact that during our success we have either Odom, Pau, or Drew resting or at full strength to bolster the rotations. If we start all 3, then we have to use not only Josh more, which I'm fine with, but also perhaps Mihm. Having our 2nd unit always feature Pau, Drew, or LO is a good thing.

[TylersLakers]

He's definitely saving it for sometime down the road. Lol.

[Chubby Chaser]

Everyone attributes to much to Phil's "masterplan" thinking. He doesn't really have master plans, nor does he coach with deception. It's not like he doesn't want to start his 7 7 7 lineup because he wants to wait until the playoffs to magically unleash it on our opponents so that they don't see it coming. Phil doesn't coach like that. He's not a deception Belichek type of coach. His style is more of a baseball manager where he deals with maintaining personnel. We're talking about the guy who runs the same out of bounds play every time (whether it's our last shot or in the first quarter) since he was with the Bulls.

[Desiderium]

having 3 7 footers out there will definitely clog the lane..resulting in more jumpshots for kobe and less driving to the paint. plus without farmar, we definitely need odom in the second lineup to dictate how things run.

[crazyeights]

Everyone attributes to much to Phil's "masterplan" thinking. He doesn't really have master plans, nor does he coach with deception. It's not like he doesn't want to start his 7 7 7 lineup because he wants to wait until the playoffs to magically unleash it on our opponents so that they don't see it coming. Phil doesn't coach like that. He's not a deception Belichek type of coach. His style is more of a baseball manager where he deals with maintaining personnel. We're talking about the guy who runs the same out of bounds play every time (whether it's our last shot or in the first quarter) since he was with the Bulls.

So true.

[crazyeights]

having 3 7 footers out there will definitely clog the lane..resulting in more jumpshots for kobe and less driving to the paint. plus without farmar, we definitely need odom in the second lineup to dictate how things run.

I don't know if that's the case. Lamar stands on the perimeter for the most part. Also his three point percentage is up to 35.3% (which is 4th best on the team not counting Gasol).

If keeping the lane unclogged was Phil's priority, why would he play Luke over Vlad, who leads our team with 45.3% at the 3. Luke would make defenders sag off him, making it easier for them to help on defense.

But if Phil starts Luke because of ball movement, I just have a hard time believing that Lamar would make it much more stagnant...isn't he unselfish to a fault? I don't know maybe Lamar is just a bonehead, or maybe Phil realizes our bench disappearing is what lost us the finals.

[Sedale Threatt]

I guess I don't understand the hue and cry to start Lamar. As Danny noted, what exactly is he going to give us that it's worth sacrificing our front-court depth for?

Not to mention that starting is completely and totally overrated -- it's who finishes the game that matters, and right now Ariza is getting virtually every meaningful minute in the fourth at the 3 spot.

[dockingsched]

I think it's rotation at the 4 & 5 he's worried about. We tend to concentrate on our 3's situation, but I think there's something to the fact that during our success we have either Odom, Pau, or Drew resting or at full strength to bolster the rotations. If we start all 3, then we have to use not only Josh more, which I'm fine with, but also perhaps Mihm. Having our 2nd unit always feature Pau, Drew, or LO is a good thing.

perfectly on point. lamar/pau/bynum in the game at pf/c during the entire game is quite the perk.

[TonyMontana]

Waitttttttttttttt.
I think he did answer it, RIGHT?
He said L.O doesnt want to start, he said he feel better coming off the bench since he (L.O) feels that he is the anchor of the bench and he loves his role coming off the bench.
Right?
Or was I imaginaing this when I was eating my special brownies I got from this girl that I met on new years eve, cause she said they were special, I dont know why since I passed out right after I ate them..................lollll

[semi-sentient]

I think Odom is fine where he's at, but I would give him a few more minutes here and there. Like ST said, at the end of the day these guys are getting minutes when it matters most, so I wouldn't particularly change much. About the only thing I would change right now is putting Radmanovic back in with the starting unit so that we can get off to a good start on offense, which typically translates to more effort on defense as things start clicking.

[lakersfanatic]

Waitttttttttttttt.
I think he did answer it, RIGHT?
He said L.O doesnt want to start, he said he feel better coming off the bench since he (L.O) feels that he is the anchor of the bench and he loves his role coming off the bench.
Right?
Or was I imaginaing this when I was eating my special brownies I got from this girl that I met on new years eve, cause she said they were special, I dont know why since I passed out right after I ate them..................lollll

I think that part was for Ariza because i heard something about that as well right after he was asked about LO. Uhm.. can i have some of them brownies as well? lol

[TommyTheCat]

Not to mention that starting is completely and totally overrated -- it's who finishes the game that matters, and right now Ariza is getting virtually every meaningful minute in the fourth at the 3 spot.

i'm liking ariza getting good minutes. his energy usually carries over to his teammates on the floor.

and i'd also like one of those brownies............unless tony's talking about a scat episode

[Anklebreaker702]

Phil being Phil. I think he knows everyone wants too see it so he's going to wait even longer

[kobesfan]

I thought Phil was talking about why not start Radman:

Jackson declined to say why he picked Ariza over Radmanovic, who started the season's first 20 games before yielding to Walton.

"Just for internal reasons it was probably better," Jackson said.

"Internal meaning what?" a reporter asked.

"None of your business," Jackson said.



http://www.dailynews.com/lakers/ci_11369589

[VIPER8382]

I am still hearing the same ridiculous arguments against this that I heard when I started a post on this.

Odom is too valuable running the second unit:
Lamar has run the second unit for quite a while as a Laker, but every other year he has also started. He can still run the 2nd unit even though he is a starter. It is quite simple, he has done it before.

It is too valuable having Lamar complete our 4/5 trio allowing two of Gasol/Bynum/Odom to be on the floor at all times:
Once again Odom starting at SF doesn't prevent this. Odom would have to log an extra 12 minutes a game just to get to his career average of mpg. That would be 12 mpg he could play at SF without giving up his 26 mpg at PF. Add to that the fact that for Odom to even get that 26 mpg he is getting now that about 5 mpg Bynum could get aren't happening because they can't lower Odom's mpg anymore without him becoming a problem. Putting Bynum on the court an extra 5 mpg would allow Odom to play 5 more mpg at SF. So putting Odom up to his career Laker average of mpg, and giving Bynum the extra 5 mpg he deserves you now have Odom able to cover 17 mpg at SF. That leaves 31 mpg left to cover at SF, and I believe Ariza can cover that with no trouble at all. So there you have it the 4/5 trio is intact, and we only have to play Odom and Ariza at SF.

The exceptions
1. Blowouts- Our starters will get more rest in the blowouts (which I believe will happen more because of the extra minutes for Bynum and Odom earlier). This helps my plan as it will actually bring Odom's actual mpg average down to 35 or so, Bynum's down to 31 or so, and actually lower Gasol's mpg a little bit from where it is now to 36 or so. The extra blowouts (if they happen) would also allow Bryant and Fisher to get more rest also which is another good thing.

2. Bynum foul trouble- Bynum already gets in foul trouble from time to time, and adding more minutes early in the game will add to this problem a little. My answer is simple to this, these are the times we will need Walton or Vlad. In these cases Odom will have to abandon playing any SF (once Bynum falls into foul trouble) and Vlad or Walton will have to grab the SF minutes that Ariza can't play.

[tayzer]

Dude y do u guys always ask this question, they already tried playing LO at the three. There's not enough shooters, so the oppossing team would just clog the lane and Kobe and Fisher can't penetate and would be force to shoot the outside jumper, this leads to LO taking the outside jumper as well, which he normally misses.

The ball movement would totally suck because you can't drive and kick the ball to the shooters when there's is only Fisher.

[DS1]

wait until the lineup of kobe, vlad, lamar, pau, and andrew strolls onto the court.

6'6'' - 6'10'', 6'10'', 7'0', 7'1''

[tayzer]

Vlad doesn't start because he is a fouling machine. He makes some of the most bozo fouls.