Drew Gooden..............LOLLLLLL

[Gerald3Wallace]

A. Im so glad we didnt pick him up.

why? hes better than any backup big we have..yes..including fan favorite powell..i like powell also but if theres any way we can imporove at a position im all for it.

C. Why do certain players that really dont have to much to offer skip on signing with the Lakers even if they are contenders.
not much to offer? the guy was a 13 and 9 player before he signed with the spurs..so he does have something to offer.

D. Would Gooden offer anything if he did play for the Lakers.
yes, another big who can rebound, hustles, and he plays tough...something most of our bigs are lacking

E. Did the Lakers make a strong attempt to obtain Gooden, and if they did would he get any P.T and if he did which player would suffer.
gooden said publicly that the lakers tried to get him..it was between us and the spurs..and i believe it would be powell that would suffer the most..just like how ronny was losing ALL his minutes when pau came over

So I cameup with F. None of the above.
You know why? Cause Phil is a great coach and he has build teams around chemistry, and he felt adding certain players like Marbury, Smith, Gooden would destroy that Chemistry, and I think he is right..

since when was joe smith or gooden chemistry killers????? and do u have an article where phil adressed this himself?

[DEEP3CL]

how do you expect someone to instantly contribute without building trust, understanding of both their roles within the systems they play

when we do fill out our playoff roster, would any of you expect that 15th man to instantly contribute?

First off these guys were picked up by teams that needed them to fill areas they were deficient in. Two most teams ( with the exception of the Lakers) run pretty much the same sets the terminology is just different. So if you were questioning my stance on these guys being non factors.......your reaching for something that's not there. I've watched ball long enough to know they won'tbe factors at all.

[Dr Aki]

gooden's stat line against the lakers read 2 pts/4 rb/1 to in 4 minutes with like 10 days of being with the spurs before playing for the first time against the lakers

during his 4 minutes, yes i agree that he was practically invisible apart from his shiny head

he may have been handpicked for his ability to spread the floor and score with the midrange J, but how do you expect the guy to instantly gel with his new team-mates, run to the right spots, shoot at the right time?

gooden hasnt ever exactly been lauded as an intelligent player bright enough to seemlessly blend into any system (unlike gasol, which still baffles me how he instantly began contributing so efficiently), but to ignore popovich's ability to get the best out of his role players is flat out inexcusable

to instantly dismiss him and whatever influence he may bring (whilst inevitably true) without sufficient evidence to the contrary displays shortsightedness

heck, in his second game against houston he put up a very respectable 13/4 performance in 15 minutes

its still too early to declare gooden a bust for the spurs using a 1 game sample size against the lakers

[DEEP3CL]

I'm not saying Gooden will be a bust for the Spurs, fact is and you can't deny this.......they would've never pick this guy up when they were the arrogant, nose stuck in the air Spurs. He'll give them the spacing on the floor that they want, but plainly put even with him on the Spurs I still don't fear them period.

[Dr Aki]

ive always pegged the spurs as humble and hard-working

of course they picked gooden up to fill a need, why else would they do it if they didnt need him?? to keep him away from the lakers?

they obviously know how to stretch the lakers defense, its pretty obvious that theyre using a shooting big man to pull either one or both of the lakers big men out of the paint (especially with bynum coming back)

and yes, they still have no real counter to lamar odom, but lamar is relatively inconsistent for stretches, if theyre using bonner and gooden to spread the floor and if theyre hitting their outside shots, then we might have a problem of whether to semi-double duncan down low.

the spurs are still fully capable of causing the lakers more headaches than how you portray them, we might inevitably win because HCA easily pushes it to our favour, but this spurs team is capable of pushing the lakers to 7 games

[hermes]

why do some people hate on every player that doesnt sign with us?

what about the ones that DO sign with us, where's the love for luke, sasha, (vlad) and farmar?

[Mamba Venom]

Yhe Lakers TRIED to get Gooden so yes he has something to offer SA