coldfish wrote:sco wrote:I really find myself wanting WCj and Kornet to play well enough for Lauri not to find a minute at C this season. Luke give us the same outside shooting and can also bring rim protection.
The analogy to turning Lauri into a physical post player is like adding a trailer-hitch to your Ferrari. Sure, you'll be able to tow that trailer fast, but...
Why would putting Lauri at the C make him a physical post player?
Lauri was fantastic last February but it was basically his only great month of his career and he had to end his season because the exertion was too much for him. Overall, Lauri has been rather mediocre. His game doesn't fit any position. A lot of people seem to want to use him as Ryan Anderson, which would have been fine if it was 2010 but those "tall guys who stand around the arc and don't do much other than shoot 3's" have already been replaced.
Lauri needs to find a niche that allows him to be a consistently effective player. His:
- Struggles against smaller defenders
- Poor help defense
Really limit him.
At this point, I would strongly consider trading him before he asks for a massive contract extension. Right now he is the bad type of tweener. Too slow to be a PF and doesn't have the skills for a C. Hopefully we get Februlauri for most of this season and its all good.
The Bulls are not trading a popular young big who just averaged 21 and 10 per 36
despite struggling much of the season. Come on. Anyway, you don't get traded in the NBA for
inadequate help defense.
Also, we've been over this before - Lauri might not be the greatest help defender in the world, but then again, that's not his job description. He's a scorer and a good one-on-one defender on the perimeter for his size. That's a plus.
The plays that really seem to annoy you help defense fans were usually ones where someone got beat on the perimeter and Lauri happened to be in the general vicinity of the basket, guarding his own man. Yeah, he rarely went in and challenged the driving player at the rim, but
this is the NBA. The player with the ball ALWAYS gets the benefit of the doubt in those situations, particularly when the help defender is an inexperienced young big who's coming in late. WCJ learned that the hard way last season.
I suspect Lauri is more shrewd than most people realize. He knew that if he started helping aggessively in driving situations, he'd collect 4 fouls in no time and was headed to the bench. Meanwhile, we weren't even really trying to win, and he wasn't gonna sacrifice himself for no reason. I'm not necessarily trying to defend that kind of state of mind, but hey, that's what you get in a team culture that has all sorts of problems from the front office down. The kids learned to look after themselves first.