semi-sentient wrote:Last year they were the 3rd worst defensive team in the league, and the absolute worst defensive rebounding team in the league.
Lin is already a huge defensive upgrade over Marshall and Nash (and I mean huge). He's not elite, but even being average gives the Lakers a big boost. It helps their interior defense, and it definitely helps their transition defense.
Kobe will be no worse than Meeks who has always been a horrendous defender.
Next, Boozer had the 2nd best DRB% among power forwards last season, and Hill is no worse than Noah. Lin and Kobe (at this stage) are no worse than average rebounders at their position, with Wes probably being slightly below average.
In terms of interior defense, Hill is MUCH better at protecting the rim and helping out than Gasol, and despite Boozer not being a great defender he's certainly no worse than Ryan Kelly (or an undersized Johnson). Hill also does a much better job than Gasol in terms of getting back on defense.
D'Antoni is gone, and despite the Cavs poor defense the past few seasons I feel that Scott has a bit more to work with, especially since the Lakers should have a more efficient offense than the Cavs which should help limit transition opportunities.
All things considered it's pretty hard not to see them improving defensively, especially if Kobe can manage to play even average defense.
PS: Lakers still have their best player, unless we're calling Gasol better than Kobe now. Boozer isn't really much of a downgrade considering he's more suited to play the 4 than Gasol. Meeks sucks. He put up decent stats on a garbage team and nothing more. While he tries defensively he still stinks (he's an atrocious rebounder and has terrible instincts) and he can't dribble/create to save his own life. Lin is a much better player than Meeks, so losing him isn't a big deal.
That's the optimistic way of looking at it, however the team last year though horrible generally had a clear effective offensive system (relative to their talent level anyway.) , the fear is that Scott who's never been much of an offensive coach tries to force a offensive system that doesn't make sense for the personnel involved.
He's mentioned a lot about the Princeton offense, which the Laker's current personnel is in way / shape or form capable of running evenly modestly effectively, if they still had Pau then maybe that could work, but they don't.
As many observer have mused, the current Laker roster might actually make more sense with MDA still being the coach. I really have NO idea how the Laker's offense will look this year, they have better offensive players on paper, but the fit is really weird, especially if they actually insist on playing Carlos Boozer.
I'd actually think they might have more success if they run some bizzaro lineup like Lin / Kobe / Kelly / Davis / Hill (or swap with Randle.) , like if they go with that lineup a lot I can see them maybe get close to 40 win, Davis has actually had tremendous PnR roll numbers last year, so him with Lin would be really scary, couple that with Kelly and Randle's ability to play well in space, this should work out reasonably well, and you can save Kobe more as a safety valve option so he won't have to go all out for 40 min .
Defensively it's a lost cause anyway, might as well play the most effective offensive lineup, even if it means you literally have no one to match up against small forwards, who cares, Wes Johnson aint stopping those small forwards either, just run like 48 min zone and make the other team beat you from 3.
There's so many moving parts to this team right now, Scott would probably have the best chance of success this year by keeping things as simple as possible. instead of trying a complicated offense set that has never worked without a 4 + high iq good passing / dribbling players on the floor
My RealGM account is old enough to drink. 
