Minute Distribution

[LALifer49]

How do you guys feel about the minute distribution of the team right now? Any changes you want to see?

I'm very happy with our 10 deep lineup, and the low minutes everyone is playing. That said, I'd like to see Randle get up to about 32 mins a night, and Dlo around 30, taking mins from Deng and Clarkson. I think having those 2 and williams as are go to guys is gonna be important for us when we really need someone to take over, and that they are gonna need more floor time to do that, especially Dlo. Dlo needs to get into a rhythm, and by giving him some more time on the court with less long stretches on the bench I think it'd help his game a lot.

[Kilroy]

No... The team is performing better than expected... I don't care who plays what minutes. I like Luke's rotations and his guts with how he deals with players... They all seem happy too... So why should we question it?

[yitur]

I LOVE IT!!! They still need to earn the minutes especially Russell. The thing right now is Luke is showing if you play good and hard you will be in there last 6 minutes. It's up to them to prove they are worthy and because our good team play is resulting in wins they can't complain even if we didn't start to develop great team chemistry. I think Randle playing 32 instead of 28 minutes is not gonna change his developement curve that much so I'm ok with it. Though at times I wished Walton put him in around the 8th minute mark. He is also developing and adjusting so we will see how it is around January-February.

[Vae Victus]

Deng needs more mins. We need to get him out of his rut in order to increase his trade value.

Maybe toss Black some more mins and try to fluff up his trade value too. My ideal scenario with him is to trade him for a decent 2nd, and then slot in Zubac behind Mozgov. Mozgov's mins are a bit light, but i wouldnt bother increasing them for now, let him get his legs under him over the season.

Swaggy P and Lou are in good places. I'd def look to move Swaggy for a 1st if possible at the deadline, unless we renegotiate a decent extension. Lou will stick around as cheap bench depth, or traded for whatever we can get if we're 100% bent on keeping Swaggy. Clarkson's mins need to be cut if he doesnt pick up on D. I'd re-explore the Clarkson at backup PG experiment again.

DLo is fine, he needs the time to develop. Ingram is fine as well even with a few less mins, at least he's maximizing his time on court doing all the little things, his offense will eventually come.

Reduce Randle's mins and either give em to Nance or let Deng be some smallball 4 here and there. if the team goes small with Randle at the 5, i want Deng at the 4. I dont want to overwork Randle too badly and risk injury, it's a development year not a win at all costs year. More mins for Nance is good for development/trade value.

Basically the team needs to also be focused on increasing trade values of certain players concurrently with youth development. Cant dump Mozgov/Deng if we marginalize them and dont give em enough time to play to the best of their ability.

Also under Luke's coaching, i'm MUCH more confident that he can try to figure things out if the FO makes some big changes in personnel and not let the team go into utter crap.

[iamworthy]

Minutes seem fine. These guys will have something left in the tank towards the end of the year if they can all average under 30 minutes.

[TylersLakers]

I personally think we should reduce Black (for the most part) from the rotation and stick to a front court rotation at PF/C of Mosgov/Randle and Nance/Deng.

Other than that, eventually Russell, Ingram and Clarkson's minutes will increase.

Here's what I'd like us to eventually get to.

PG: Russell [32]/ Clarkson [16]/
SG: Young [22]/ Clarkson [10]/ Williams [16]
SF: Ingram [26]/ Deng [18]/ Clarkson [4]
PF: Randle [14]/ Nance [26]/ Deng [8]
C: Mosgov [24]/ Randle [18]/ Black [6]

Also, whenever Deng's in the game, we need to switch up the approach. Run more pick and roll with him, use him off the ball as a spacer, pin downs to get him open, etc.

[LALifer49]

No... The team is performing better than expected... I don't care who plays what minutes. I like Luke's rotations and his guts with how he deals with players... They all seem happy too... So why should we question it?

I like his rotations too, and we are doing a good job as a team. That doesn't mean we can't get better with a few changes here and there, I'm not suggesting anything drastic. Obviously, Walton knows more than we do, but this is a forum, so if I see something I think could help the team, I'll point it out, otherwise our topics would just be "Walton's doing such a good job right?"

I think our 3 best players are Randle, Dlo, and Lou (did not think I'd be saying that b4 the season started lol). Lou is doing just fine in his 6th man role. But I think Dlo needs more minutes because he is a streaky player who needs to find a rhythm, and his stretches on the bench are too long. I think if he took a couple of Clarkson's minutes, there would be a net positive on the team. Randle meanwhile, I see as our best and most consistent player at this point, and he always seems to have an efficient 8 pt 1st qtr then not see the court again for a long time, I think he can make a bigger impact on the team with more minutes.

I've thought Dlo and Randle could use less long stretches on the bench for a while now, but the past game solidified it for me. While our depth and not relying on any one player is a good strength, sometimes you do need a player to bail you out or take over when you're having a hard time scoring, and if this player scores within the system it makes everyone else more deadly too. Dlo is our most naturally gifted scorer, doing what we can to get him in a rhythm will only benefit us. Randle is our only big guy who can create his own shot, which is important for stretches like this 1st half where we couldn't get anything inside.

[Vae Victus]

You dont want to overplay these young guys either. Injury risk, fatigue, and other guys need mins to properly evaluate/fluff their trade value. Best that they go all out when theyre on the court and then have nice long rest periods where they can go in and go full effort again. Until we can actually cash in a vet or 2 via trade (Deng, Young, Lou) for a pick, there's no reason any player should play more than 30 mins a gaime

[LALifer49]

You dont want to overplay these young guys either. Injury risk, fatigue, and other guys need mins to properly evaluate/fluff their trade value. Best that they go all out when theyre on the court and then have nice long rest periods where they can go in and go full effort again. Until we can actually cash in a vet or 2 via trade (Deng, Young, Lou) for a pick, there's no reason any player should play more than 30 mins a gaime

I think this sentiment only emerged because that's how it's working out. To start the season I don't think every1 was insisting we had to play 10 players and no1 could play over 30 mins. There is nothing wrong with 21 year old guys playing a bit over 30 mins a night, a young player should still stay fresh on 30-32 minutes, that is not considered a lot of minutes. Unless as you say, we are trying to highlight people for trades. Though Lou Will and Nick Young are fitting nicely and are on good contracts, so unless we were looking to include them in a package to dump Deng or get a bigger piece I don't really see them being traded right now.

[SlimShady83]

It won't be long until the rest of the league will be saying - well no one is going to average 30 minutes again and you'll all be laughing and say well Luke came up with that one first

[XXBKXX]

Deng needs more mins. We need to get him out of his rut in order to increase his trade value.

Maybe toss Black some more mins and try to fluff up his trade value too. My ideal scenario with him is to trade him for a decent 2nd, and then slot in Zubac behind Mozgov. Mozgov's mins are a bit light, but i wouldnt bother increasing them for now, let him get his legs under him over the season.

Swaggy P and Lou are in good places. I'd def look to move Swaggy for a 1st if possible at the deadline, unless we renegotiate a decent extension. Lou will stick around as cheap bench depth, or traded for whatever we can get if we're 100% bent on keeping Swaggy. Clarkson's mins need to be cut if he doesnt pick up on D. I'd re-explore the Clarkson at backup PG experiment again.

DLo is fine, he needs the time to develop. Ingram is fine as well even with a few less mins, at least he's maximizing his time on court doing all the little things, his offense will eventually come.

Reduce Randle's mins and either give em to Nance or let Deng be some smallball 4 here and there. if the team goes small with Randle at the 5, i want Deng at the 4. I dont want to overwork Randle too badly and risk injury, it's a development year not a win at all costs year. More mins for Nance is good for development/trade value.

Basically the team needs to also be focused on increasing trade values of certain players concurrently with youth development. Cant dump Mozgov/Deng if we marginalize them and dont give em enough time to play to the best of their ability.

Also under Luke's coaching, i'm MUCH more confident that he can try to figure things out if the FO makes some big changes in personnel and not let the team go into utter crap.

I stopped reading after I read the first sentence....



Deng is a bum at this stage of his career. His only trade value will be to make the contracts match when packaged with one of our young guys.

No amount of playing time will entice some idiot GM to offer anything of value for Deng as the main piece in the deal.

[ROballer]

Ok, let's stop the hypocrisy for a second.

The guys who are saying the minute distribution is okay, and Walton is doing a good job will probably be the first dudes who flip the coin when we inevitably lose 4 or 5 games in a row(which will undoubtedly happen), and say Russell and Randle, the team's top 2 players afterall, and two of the four with LEGIT star potential on this roster(Ingram and Zubac being the others) should play more..


Every single young prospect in the league has gotten a boost in their development by playing as much as possible, to see guys saying it's ok for our best players, which happen to be in their development phase playing 25-28 mins a night, especially when we're not gonna make the playoffs(sorry to burst your buble, but this is gonna happen) is mesmerizing to me...

So my point is... Russell and Randle need to play 36 mins every single night, since we're not blowing out any team, but also no team is blowing us out. Invaluable experience gaining is shed right out of the water by not playing one or both these guys in close 4th quarter games.

I don't give a **** who's minutes are taking a hit, and neither should Luke.... It's a star driven league, not a kindergarden dumpster **** in which all kids get to play, to not hurt anybody's feelings. And stars play(or guys who have star potential), and play A LOT.

And also, I've seen enough of Tarik Black to honestly say we should give his 10-15 mins a night to Zubac...I'm 100% positive his net worth and impact on this team can't be worse in his 10-15 mins stint than Black's...while also gaining invaluable experience about how the NBA game is played.

If we had Tim Duncan and David Robinson playing together and fighting for the championship, then yes...you take your time, let him learn from them from the bench for 2-3 years.
We have Tarik **** Black playing...we can afford to bench his ass and get this kid who has real LEGIT potential, some burn, c'mon now.

[Michael Lucky]

Russell needs more minutes regardless of how well Young and Lou are playing. He is averaging 21/6 despite shooting poorly on a per 36 minute basis. He's part of the future of the team while the latter two are trade bait. Having said that i do expect those minutes to increase because neither Lou nor Young are going to be able to keep shooting like this all year.

[XXBKXX]

Less minutes for Deng.. more for Ingram. I knew that Deng signing was bad when it happened. But I didn't realize deng has deteriorated THIS much.. hes awful

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[danfantastk32]

Ok, let's stop the hypocrisy for a second.

The guys who are saying the minute distribution is okay, and Walton is doing a good job will probably be the first dudes who flip the coin when we inevitably lose 4 or 5 games in a row(which will undoubtedly happen), and say Russell and Randle, the team's top 2 players afterall, and two of the four with LEGIT star potential on this roster(Ingram and Zubac being the others) should play more..

I certainly agree there will be alot of that. This place was going nuclear about 28 minutes for D-LO last year, and 26.8 (lets just say 27) is awesome now. I would hope everyone remembers where they stand NOW...while things are good. So when it turns bad (the usual ups and downs of a young team) you don't look at Walton like he's some dunce.

That said, you do have to admit that it's going well. You can also argue that how can you tell which car's the best unless you drive em all equally? As a player...I'd like to think I'd be very impressed that Luke has given (almost) everyone an incredibly fair shot. Robinson barely made the team, Calderon we signed to get the 2nd round pick from Chicago, and Artest knows why he's here. A player or two might have a gripe, but on the whole....everyone is getting a chance here to find a spot on the team, find a role, and learn from real experience.

I do think this will eventually have to change, but what if it doesnt? You'll never know right? Russell is at 27 and Randle is at 28 this year. Those aren't TERRIBLE numbers. Boost it up to 32-34, and I dont see a problem at all.

This is a unique time for Luke in that the team has low expectations, and he's on a bit of a honeymoon. This is really the only shot he's gonna get to really give the whole team time, and let the cream do the talking. Already the expectations are growing. You can start to hear "could they squeeze in????" and your seeing posts expecting runs now. All this is good, btw. But if this team does hover around .500 come Jan....your gonna start to see his freedoms tighten up. Fans are gonna expect him to get us to the playoffs. It is what it is. There will always be 2nd guessers, and people for and against....but to his defense, I think he's wisely using an opportunity he has.

This is from a guy, btw, who has said he thought the whole 28-minutes for Russell thing was completely bogus. People disliked Scott. Blamed Scott for what was going on. Had it been 36 minutes, it would have been too much. "He was wearing a rookie down, who was not prepared for those minutes". So coaches can't worry about the fans.

I think we will see cream rise over the course of 40-50 games, and minutes will start to get divvied out accordingly. The fact that nobody was "given" anything will prob go a long way with the guys that ultimately do EARN those minutes, and the ones that don't.

[Landsberger]

Russell needs more minutes regardless of how well Young and Lou are playing. He is averaging 21/6 despite shooting poorly on a per 36 minute basis. He's part of the future of the team while the latter two are trade bait. Having said that i do expect those minutes to increase because neither Lou nor Young are going to be able to keep shooting like this all year.

Russell needs to earn those minutes IMHO. He's not at this point. His defense is beyond bad. That's not something you learn by playing... it's effort and he's not giving it at all on that end.

I for one, am glad he's not being used down the stretch in games. He needs to learn and part of that is understanding poor play on the floor has consequences.

Overall he's shooting below 40% after he shot just above it last year. He's looking more like a volume scorer/one way player than anything else right now. His lack of quickness and issues with ball handling are also exposed this year in our new offense. He's looking like a 2 guard in this scheme more and more.

[Michael Lucky]

Russell needs more minutes regardless of how well Young and Lou are playing. He is averaging 21/6 despite shooting poorly on a per 36 minute basis. He's part of the future of the team while the latter two are trade bait. Having said that i do expect those minutes to increase because neither Lou nor Young are going to be able to keep shooting like this all year.

Russell needs to earn those minutes IMHO. He's not at this point. His defense is beyond bad. That's not something you learn by playing... it's effort and he's not giving it at all on that end.

I for one, am glad he's not being used down the stretch in games. He needs to learn and part of that is understanding poor play on the floor has consequences.

Overall he's shooting below 40% after he shot just above it last year. He's looking more like a volume scorer/one way player than anything else right now. His lack of quickness and issues with ball handling are also exposed this year in our new offense. He's looking like a 2 guard in this scheme more and more.

You can harp on his defense as much as you want but it's not like any of the other guards are really justifying their minutes by playing much better on that end themselves. I'm also not interested in following Byron Scott's school of thought. He isn't competing against all star caliber players on the perimeter for minutes but with career back up guards. The priority is to develop our future young core, that is done through experience on the court and we all know that both Nick and Lou will be gone by the end of the year.

[Landsberger]

Russell needs more minutes regardless of how well Young and Lou are playing. He is averaging 21/6 despite shooting poorly on a per 36 minute basis. He's part of the future of the team while the latter two are trade bait. Having said that i do expect those minutes to increase because neither Lou nor Young are going to be able to keep shooting like this all year.

Russell needs to earn those minutes IMHO. He's not at this point. His defense is beyond bad. That's not something you learn by playing... it's effort and he's not giving it at all on that end.

I for one, am glad he's not being used down the stretch in games. He needs to learn and part of that is understanding poor play on the floor has consequences.

Overall he's shooting below 40% after he shot just above it last year. He's looking more like a volume scorer/one way player than anything else right now. His lack of quickness and issues with ball handling are also exposed this year in our new offense. He's looking like a 2 guard in this scheme more and more.

You can harp on his defense as much as you want but it's not like any of the other guards are really justifying their minutes by playing much better on that end themselves. I'm also not interested in following Byron Scott's school of thought. He isn't competing against all star caliber players on the perimeter for minutes but with career back up guards. The priority is to develop our future young core, that is done through experience on the court and we all know that both Nick and Lou will be gone by the end of the year.

I agree with developing the young guys.... 100%. What you see with Russell is a complete lack of effort on top of very poor technique. His effort on offense when he's not got the ball in his hands is horrible as well. Effort is not the product of playing time. Because of that I have no problem with Luke sitting him down the stretch.

[ArC_man]

I think there could be some slight tweaks but the season is young so it's hard to argue with the current results. Young's averaging 27 MPG, that won't keep up and D'Lo/JC will get more minutes. If Deng continues to suck (let's hope not), Ingram will start absorbing his minutes. We should expect the young players to organically gain more minutes through better play as the season develops. Also we're playing at an incredible pace (and we're also trying on defense) which is bound to be more taxing than if we were playing at a league average pace.

[Landsberger]

Looking at our individual stats you can see the impact of the new offense on a number of our players. Clarkson is shooting over 50%, Randle is shooting much better, Lou is even Young is near a career high. This is due to getting easy shots, shots in the paint and transition scoring. Only Russell and the SF duo are not shooting well... or improved. My thoughts are that Russell is more exposed in this offense and is taking more difficult shots and that Deng is hurt and Ingram needs to adjust.

Russell needs to find ways to take his shots closer and less contested. Right now he's the only one of our young guys not taking a step forward in terms of taking advantage of the new offense.

Defensively we've looked below average most of the season. The D at the point has been the worst part. If we can get that fixed we could truly surprise and make a significant jump.

I think the minutes are working out as they should. Until Russell and Clarkson fix their defensive issues I think bench time down the stretch is appropriate.

One interesting thing I saw when looking at our schedule was that in none of our games so far this year has any Laker been the high scorer. Only a couple times did we have the leading rebounder and once did we have the leading assist player. This is a sign of a balanced team. This is good for a low level playoff team but we could use the Alpha closer type of player to push us higher. Rarely if ever do you win consistently with true balance in the NBA. Is that Alpha guy on the team now? I don't see him. If we can get him without destroying the balance elsewhere we could make a serious jump in the next year or two.