kblo247 wrote:john248 wrote:DEEP3CL wrote:This is true to a degree on Elden,he was one of few NBA to improved his scoring average for like his first 7 seasons. Campbell's main problem was having Del Harris as a coach who never tap in on how to utilize Campbell's talent. Campbell had the natural ability to be a consistent 20 point score but was never molded into to by any of his coaches. I saw Elden play in high school seeing as his team was a cross town rival of my high school.
They may be better players, but guards tend to struggle early on for a good chunk of an 82 game season before figuring it out. Lastly it's not about how we've developed players in terms of guards or bigs....that plays to two factors, luck in terms of the player and who the coaches are. I'd say we got Bynum from total project to All Star due to the tutelage of Jabbar and Phil. The only part where we failed is the background portion of figuring out what made Bynum tick. We did a piss poor job of that, because his problems were on the surface we just didn't dig deep enough into his psyche.
C'mon man. I realize you have some attachment to Campbell based on seeing him as a high school kid, but let's not get carried away especially when his career played out. IIRC he was a late 1st round pick which is nice but didn't scream 20 ppg coming out of Clemson. No need to blame all his coaches when he himself could've also gotten better.
To deeps credit, Elden put up numbers without Shaq. It was the way Harris tried to make him a 4 next to Shaq that saw him struggle to all hell and be a throw in with Eddie. Harris didn't even see the benefit of playing Kobe and Eddie together for god knows what reason.
Boy if Phil ever had Nick, Kobe, Eddie, Elden, Shaq, Fish, Fox, and Horry like Harris did

I was actually happy when Jones and Campbell were traded for Glen Rice. It was too bad Rice was such a selfish, complaining prick who didn't know how good he had it with the Lakers. Still though, even with him half-assing it, he was more effective than what Campbell would've been. Then again, you could argue that at least Jones would've still been on the team.
Phil would've never played Campbell next to Shaq for the same reasons why he favored Kukoc more than Rodman come playoff time...to not clog the paint. Campbell was expendable which obviously Jerry West knew when he made that trade for Rice while bringing in Phil the following season. Campbell's offense was ok but not anything special. Even if he had the drive to be great, I don't see him as a 20 ppg guy unless you just force feed the ball to him, so I don't see development as the problem here. What did you project Campbell as or could've been? Someone like prime Duncan or last year's Greg Monroe?
In the end, who cares if Phil had the same roster that Harris did since the Lakers 3 peated as soon as he got here.
Anyways back to the topic on hand. I'm starting to waiver on Okafor. He'd have to be really impressive during his interviews and tell ownership that he's willing to commit to hustling on every play...especially getting back on defense and not being lazy when a play isn't called for him.