Bynum Must Come Off the Bench Upon Return

[semi-sentient]

Opposing PG's have been ripping us up all season long, so last night was nothing new. Drew wouldn't have made that much of a difference. OKC was determined and played at a different level, and that's all there is to it.

[laka4life]

Seriously man? You thought Bynum's absence was the reason we lost this game?

Not THE reason, but you can't tell me Pau looked like anything formidable tonight. Yes, Kobe was not himself, the bench blew, Fisher was Fisher, multiple reasons, but Bynum rapes Collison. That's a fact

[microfib4thewin]

This Bynum groupie is getting ridiculous. Bynum is a good scorer that kills ball movement, and he hasn't done anything else that would warrant he would have changed the game last night. Outside of a few select games, his defense has been as horrible as Pau has, and he's a lazy rebounder who just let the ball go to him. Pau at the very least makes the effort even though he's outmuscled by every other center. People keep saying Pau can be moved and Bynum can completely replace his presence. Really? Pau made the offense elite in the last two years, all Bynum can do is think about scoring once he touches the ball. He will always provide scoring, but it's 50/50 when it comes to improving the team offense because he's incapable against any double team.

For all the things about how Pau is being soft Bynum hasn't been much better, and that's even more inexcusable because Bynum has the body to fight for positions down low, yet is a complete failure when it comes to boxing out. Thank god we still have Odom who cares and can actually rebound.

[laka4life]

Opposing PG's have been ripping us up all season long, so last night was nothing new. Drew wouldn't have made that much of a difference. OKC was determined and played at a different level, and that's all there is to it.

Bynum would've found a way to score more than 11 points on Nick Collison and Jeff Green. That I know for a fact

[laka4life]

This Bynum groupie is getting ridiculous. Bynum is a good scorer that kills ball movement, and he hasn't done anything else that would warrant he would have changed the game last night. Outside of a few select games, his defense has been as horrible as Pau has, and he's a lazy rebounder who just let the ball go to him. Pau at the very least makes the effort even though he's outmuscled by every other center. People keep saying Pau can be moved and Bynum can completely replace his presence. Really? Pau made the offense elite in the last two years, all Bynum can do is think about scoring once he touches the ball. He will always provide scoring, but it's 50/50 when it comes to improving the team offense because he's incapable against any double team.

For all the things about how Pau is being soft Bynum hasn't been much better, and that's even more inexcusable because Bynum has the body to fight for positions down low, yet is a complete failure when it comes to boxing out. Thank god we still have Odom who cares and can actually rebound.

I would argue that Bynum has done a damn good job the past couple of weeks of finding open shooters. Golden State game being one, Phoenix being another.

[KOBE_PAUER]

No.........if he's healthy he starts period. Some of you fall in love with "this is our best lineup" scenario too much. If Pau wasn't so weakly on critical possessions I'd maybe agree somewhat, Bynum protects the basket much better than Pau. In Pau this is a man who barely averages 1 block a game, much less changing shots.

Yes Kobe and Pau have a better sense on the P&R than he does with Drew, but Drew has a better chance of securing the ball on possessions than Pau does. Flat out I'm not trusting Pau when it comes to holding the rock, he's off balance or being knocked around too much for my liking.

This time with Drew is much much different than the previous two seasons, he's basically just waiting for some pain to subside and that's it.

As far as matchups, Pau can't handle either Shaq nor Dwight. Drew pretty much erased Dwight last time we played Orlando. Bottom line is this.......if Pau is going 35-40 plus against either of those two should we get to the Finals............we're screwed period.

Some people didnt see the NBA finals last year, and how Bynum CANT handle against Howard, he fell in foul trouble every single night in a few minutes, plus, Bynum cant dominate on offense against him. Bynum hasnt low post moves or jumpers like Gasol. Howard would dominate him easily on the defensive end.
Bynum never receives double teams, because he isnt an offensive thread like Kobe and Pau. And Thanks god, because he cant pass the ball.

FACT 1- Odom-Gasol played two NBA finals in a row. Bynum helped us nothing.
FACT 2- We are playing the worst bball in the last 3 years, curiously when Bynum plays more minutes.

People here is overrating the black hole aka Andy "Shaq2" Bynum, the guy will be exposed again in the play offs.

[Slava]

^ Sigh! Save for a few this board is completely polarized on this issue isn't it?

[laka4life]

No.........if he's healthy he starts period. Some of you fall in love with "this is our best lineup" scenario too much. If Pau wasn't so weakly on critical possessions I'd maybe agree somewhat, Bynum protects the basket much better than Pau. In Pau this is a man who barely averages 1 block a game, much less changing shots.

Yes Kobe and Pau have a better sense on the P&R than he does with Drew, but Drew has a better chance of securing the ball on possessions than Pau does. Flat out I'm not trusting Pau when it comes to holding the rock, he's off balance or being knocked around too much for my liking.

This time with Drew is much much different than the previous two seasons, he's basically just waiting for some pain to subside and that's it.

As far as matchups, Pau can't handle either Shaq nor Dwight. Drew pretty much erased Dwight last time we played Orlando. Bottom line is this.......if Pau is going 35-40 plus against either of those two should we get to the Finals............we're screwed period.

You do realize that Bynum wasn't this year's Bynum last year right? He was hurt. Did you watch him against Dwight in Orlando??? Completely shut his ass down. And oh yeah, btw, how did Odom do against Boston's front line???

Some people didnt see the NBA finals last year, and how Bynum CANT handle against Howard, he fell in foul trouble every single night in a few minutes, plus, Bynum cant dominate on offense against him. Bynum hasnt low post moves or jumpers like Gasol. Howard would dominate him easily on the defensive end.
Bynum never receives double teams, because he isnt an offensive thread like Kobe and Pau. And Thanks god, because he cant pass the ball.

FACT 1- Odom-Gasol played two NBA finals in a row. Bynum helped us nothing.
FACT 2- We are playing the worst bball in the last 3 years, curiously when Bynum plays more minutes.

People here is overrating the black hole aka Andy "Shaq2" Bynum, the guy will be exposed again in the play offs.

I'm a HUGE Odom fan, but we can not rely on the Pau/Odom frontline against the Cavs. THis year is not last year folks. Shaq will be looking for blood in the Finals. Laugh at that all you want. A motivated Shaq is medicine for disaster. We can't have Pau getting in foul trouble early

[laka4life]

^ Sigh! Save for a few this board is completely polarized on this issue isn't it?

This could turn into a Civil War. No doubt

[KOBE_PAUER]

No.........if he's healthy he starts period. Some of you fall in love with "this is our best lineup" scenario too much. If Pau wasn't so weakly on critical possessions I'd maybe agree somewhat, Bynum protects the basket much better than Pau. In Pau this is a man who barely averages 1 block a game, much less changing shots.

Yes Kobe and Pau have a better sense on the P&R than he does with Drew, but Drew has a better chance of securing the ball on possessions than Pau does. Flat out I'm not trusting Pau when it comes to holding the rock, he's off balance or being knocked around too much for my liking.

This time with Drew is much much different than the previous two seasons, he's basically just waiting for some pain to subside and that's it.

As far as matchups, Pau can't handle either Shaq nor Dwight. Drew pretty much erased Dwight last time we played Orlando. Bottom line is this.......if Pau is going 35-40 plus against either of those two should we get to the Finals............we're screwed period.

You do realize that Bynum wasn't this year's Bynum last year right? He was hurt. Did you watch him against Dwight in Orlando??? Completely shut his ass down. And oh yeah, btw, how did Odom do against Boston's front line???

Some people didnt see the NBA finals last year, and how Bynum CANT handle against Howard, he fell in foul trouble every single night in a few minutes, plus, Bynum cant dominate on offense against him. Bynum hasnt low post moves or jumpers like Gasol. Howard would dominate him easily on the defensive end.
Bynum never receives double teams, because he isnt an offensive thread like Kobe and Pau. And Thanks god, because he cant pass the ball.

FACT 1- Odom-Gasol played two NBA finals in a row. Bynum helped us nothing.
FACT 2- We are playing the worst bball in the last 3 years, curiously when Bynum plays more minutes.

People here is overrating the black hole aka Andy "Shaq2" Bynum, the guy will be exposed again in the play offs.

I'm a HUGE Odom fan, but we can not rely on the Pau/Odom frontline against the Cavs. THis year is not last year folks. Shaq will be looking for blood in the Finals. Laugh at that all you want. A motivated Shaq is medicine for disaster. We can't have Pau getting in foul trouble early

First of all, the Cavs arent in the finals already, same for LA. Shaq isnt better than Howard today, and we did a great job on Dwight last year. We cannot compete in strenght and toughness, but they cant stop Odom and Gasol lenght and versatility. If we play our bball we are the best team in the competition. We should play our bball and forget the rest. Starting Bynum and Gasol only bring us problems on offense, and foul trouble on defense. The defense we played against the Spurs is the proof. Team defense, every single top big man against Bynum will kill him in the post-season. Same for Gasol if he is playing soft. But Odom-Gasol rules, they focusing on defense are a better combo, and they focusing on offense make better his teammates.

[Mamba Venom]

Same as last year

Bynum was a play-off virgin last year

This year Bynum starts Odom kills the second unit

[Speedlot]

I rather us develop Bynum. It's arguable that Odom may be indeed better for us in the starting line-up than bynum is. *NOTE ARGUABLE*. In reality though if we manage Bynum to develop into a CONSISTENT 20-10-3 type of player we will be set for a very long time. We don't "get better" with starting odom. No one really "improves". We play better perhaps. But in the long long run(not this year) we are better if Bynum becomes our Franchise player. Kobe's Prime is fading. Bynum needs to develop, or we'll just be mediocre in years to come when our guys get older.

[Danny Darko]

Question-

Kobe retires, leaves, whatver, he's gone.

Let's say we have an opportunity to build around only one player (Pau/Andrew) the other is needed to fetch a backcourt player of note.

Who do you build around? Is this the same as your general feeling above?

[Sedale Threatt]

You have to go with Andrew, just like we had to go with Kobe when it became a question of him or Shaq. Pau's going to be in his early 30s, Andrew's going to be in his late 20s. It's a simple issue of age.

That said, we're going to look a lot like the Minnesota Timberwolves at that point -- Andrew (Al Jefferson) putting up nice numbers while the team really struggles in the standings.

Andrew's going to be a very good player in this league for a long, long time. If we're able to build the team back up and he's a part of that, great.

But as much as he's developed, and as young as he still is, I haven't seen anything to suggest he's going to be a legit franchise player, the kind of guy you can build a championship team around, who dominates entire playoff series.

To be fair, there are only four or five of those guys in the league at any given point. But finding another one is going to be what it will boil down to post Kobe.

[Mindflayer]

For all of you that think Bynum needs to come off the bench when he gets back: do you think that now after watching Gasol play matador defense this road trip?

[Anklebreaker702]

For all of you that think Bynum needs to come off the bench when he gets back: do you think that now after watching Gasol play matador defense this road trip?

They won't answer this until Bynum comes back & has a bad game or does something they don't like, then you'll hear from them.

[picc]

The bench needs scoring the most. Drew is more of a scorer than Odom is. Odom and Pau play better together. I say bring him off the bench.

[semi-sentient]

The bench needs scoring the most. Drew is more of a scorer than Odom is. Odom and Pau play better together. I say bring him off the bench.

Thank you.

Everyone wants to bitch and whine about the bench but hardly anyone can offer a solution, and since Bynum is such a force defensively, he can help out there as well. Does anyone seriously believe that Odom solves our bench problems? He produces considerably less when he's with the 2nd unit, so at the end of the day the bench still sucks. Pau, for whatever reason, doesn't appear to play well with the 2nd unit either. That's probably because he's too passive. You can't rely on those other scrubs to do anything, so that's why I like Bynum. He's not going to give up the ball and look to score aggressively every time he touches it. And against 2nd string (or tired down starters)? He'll rape.

The problem with this board is that everyone is busy taking things personal and not using their heads. There are problems with Pau and Bynum playing together that have been evident all season (among other things). These same problems will crop up in the playoffs, as will our bench issues. It's probably too late to do anything about it, but I'm going to be the first one talking about "told you so" when we fail, and we will.

We're still the same defensive team that we were last year regardless of who starts, but our drop off in offensive efficiency is pretty significant, and that's taking into to account that we've actually improved over the past few weeks (we were middle of the pack for most of the season).

Anyway, having Bynum come off the bench does not solve our Derek Fisher problem, but that problem wasn't solved even when Bynum was starting so who cares? It doesn't solve our outside shooting woes either, but again, at least we have a consistent post threat and don't have to rely on our guys debating on whether we start to run the offense through Pau or Bynum.

[semi-sentient]

For all of you that think Bynum needs to come off the bench when he gets back: do you think that now after watching Gasol play matador defense this road trip?

Oh goodness.

Against the Spurs, Gasol completely shut down Duncan and held him to 6 points. That was stellar defense and if you think Bynum can do better then I suggest you go back and rewatch our last game in San Antonio where Duncan got what he wanted against him. Yeah Bynum can score more easily on Duncan than Gasol can, but what does that matter when getting outplayed?

We lost to the Thunder because we could not contain Westbrook and Durant, and that is NOT Gasol's fault nor would Bynum have made much of a difference. Westbrook had one layup in that game, and most of his shots were from mid-range or pull up 6-foot jumpers (off screens), so that's goes squarely on Fisher's inability to defend his man or even make things difficult on him offensively. I'm not going to sit there and say that Gasol shouldn't have come out on some of those shots, but Bynum rarely comes out of his comfort zone to challenge shots either. Durant is just a tough cover and that's pretty much expected of him. Of course the other part of that was that both Kobe (especially) and Gasol were nowhere to be found on offense, so it's kind of silly to complain about defense when we were unable to score.

Gasol dominated the rockets on both ends, so no point in even talking about that. Scola did torch Odom's ass though, but that's pretty much the norm.

We lost to the Hornets because we couldn't hit any of our open shots and they did. How about our bench being outscored 42-12, and being outshot 71% to 29%? You don't think Bynum would have come in handy against their 2nd unit? Pau gave us what we needed offensively and played adequate defense, but when guys are hitting shots left and right as well as being sent to the line (which we do a lot of) then we don't give ourselves much opportunity to win.

Against the Hawks, well, are we really going to blame Gasol for Maurice Evans and Joe Johnson outplaying Kobe/Artest and their bench once again destroying ours (48-22, 60% to 41%)? I don't even care about what Farmar did because he got most of his when it didn't much matter. Now there were stretches were Gasol was getting out-hustled by Zaza Pachulia, but again, our inability to cover their shooters and allow so much penetration is what killed us. Fisher is not the only one out there allowing penetration either. Kobe and Artest are just as responsible. Our team defense SUCKED, and our inability to get rebounds or box out is why they had so many points in the paint. We were constantly scrambling (just like we always do) and that results in a lot of open looks for their perimeter players or being out of position for a rebound.

We are a good defensive team, but we have never been great with this roster, and we never will be because we just lack the smarts and overall toughness to become as good as the Celtics and Spurs of past seasons. I accepted that last season and so my primary concern is seeing our offense function at its full potential, which it is most certainly not. Injuries, poor shooting, etc. are all contributing factors, but I do think we fix part of the problem by limiting the time that Gasol and Bynum are on the floor together. Both play better when they are the primary post option, so what sense does it make to have them both on the floor, particularly when we already know that Odom doesn't give us much off the bench?

Anyway, I think we become stronger if we allow Bynum to dominate off the bench. I think he is our best post player as far as scoring is concerned, and since we don't have any scoring from our reserves he seems like what we need at the moment. We don't have to worry about him passing the ball back out or killing the offense since the offense is already dead in the 2nd unit, so I'd promote him scoring every single time down the floor.

[microfib4thewin]

Against the Hawks, well, are we really going to blame Gasol for Maurice Evans and Joe Johnson outplaying Kobe/Artest and their bench once again destroying ours (48-22, 60% to 41%)?

Wait, isn't the Hawks supposed to be run by a coach who is just as terrible at running offensive plays as Mike Brown? I always believed it's an imbalanced roster that is making us a weaker team than last year, but it really seems like there is a huge mental cloud going on everyone's head if a bench that consists of Crawford and a bunch of nobodies can score on us at 60% shooting.