Los Angeles Lakers Rosters, Statistics, Records, News, and More!
Game Recaps
LAKER ROSTER: Matt Barnes
09.20.10
When reading about Matt Barnes, you often find the terms “defense”, “toughness”, and “outside shooting”. He describes himself as a football player playing basketball. After playing at UCLA, he was drafted by Memphis in a pick from Orlando, then his rights were traded to Cleveland. I don’t find that at all confusing. Really. The Lakers will be his 8th team in his 8th season in the pros. This 6’7″ 30 year old small forward will primarily serve as back-up to Ron Artest, although he could also get some spot minutes at shooting guard. Like the signing of Theo Ratliff, Matt Barnes will be able to provide some defense off the bench. Barnes averaged 9 points and 5.5 rebounds in 81 games last year. He was arrested September 8th on charges of felony domestic violence and for preventing his fiancee Gloria Govan from talking to 911 operators. He posted a $50,000 bail and was released. Govan made a statement a few days after his arrest saying that the charges are false. Sacramento County prosecutors will decide October 18 whether they will press charges. It is possible that the league or team may decide to suspend him for a couple of games, even if no charges are filed. Although that would make me question the presumption of innocence that is supposedly the foundation of our legal system. Fortunately, the Lakers have experience dealing with legal troubles during the season, and should be able to maintain focus. And small forward is a position where the Lakers have depth. Barnes said all the right things in his press conference, that he was happy to be with the Lakers and it was a dream come true. He is hungry for a championship and will contribute coming off the bench in whatever capacity the team says is necessary. Having veterans on the time still looking for their first ring is a good safeguard against complacency setting in. I consider this free agent acquisition a major upgrade, and one of the reasons the bench is much better than it was last season. Lakers Three-Peat!
LAKER ROSTER: Theo Ratliff
09.18.10
Theo Ratliff, a 6’10” center, replaces DJ Mbenga as the back-up to the back-up. Some of my friends didn’t particularly like Mbenga, who played on average 7 minutes per game, scoring 2 points, grabbing 2 rebounds while shooting 47% from the field in 49 games. Last season, Ratliff averaged 16 minutes per game, scoring 3.5 points, grabbing 3 rebounds while shooting 46% in the same number of games. Had the Lakers kept Mbenga, the advantage would have been that he is only 30 and knows the triangle offense, his teammates and the coaches. Ratliff is 37 and playing for his 9th team in his 16th year as a pro, after 4 years of college ball in Wyoming. The guy has been traded for Jerry Stackhouse, Dikembe Mutombo, Rasheed Wallace and Kevin Garnett as part of multiple-player packages over his career. The Laker bench was weak last season, either due to injuries or personnel (Hello, Adam Morrison!), and did a poor job of maintaining leads, let alone increasing them. Ratliff is renowned as being a shot blocker, which may stop opposing players from driving to the rim as frequently and easily as they did last season while the bench was on the floor. With 1,963 blocks, Ratliff ranks 18th in NBA history for career blocks. He needs to realize it’s not important for him to be taking a lot of shots when he comes in. It’s defense and rebounding that wins championships, so focus on those two areas. An improved bench will allow the Laker starters to have more rest over the grind that is the NBA regular season. Given their veteran status, this is an important component in the Laker’s bid to three-peat. Because Magic Johnson was Ratliff’s boyhood idol, that makes him A-OK in my book.
LAKER ROSTER: Sasha Vujacic
09.17.10
This 26 year old, 6’7″ shooting guard from Slovenia may actually be the luckiest man on earth. He will have a salary of almost $5.5 million this season, has 2 championships on his resume, and lives in sunny Southern California. I wonder if his super-hot athlete girlfriend enjoys St. Tropez as much as he does and calls him “The Machine”. Right now, life must seem pretty rosy for Sasha. And to give him proper credit, he did hit two clutch free throws in Game 7 of the finals. Because he is in the final year of his contract, you have to believe this could and probably will change. My perception is he’s fallen out of favor with the coach. His minutes played went down from 1293 to 575. His games played went down from 80 to 67. His minutes per game went down from 16.2 to 8.6. With a shooting percentage of 40% from the field, including 31% behind the 3-point line last season, you could understand the dissatisfaction with his production. His average of 3 points per game does not seem irreplaceable. It would really help the Lakers in their quest for a three-peat for Sasha to regain his shooting form from a few years back. No matter how well he plays as the back-up to the back-ups in the guard position, I can’t see him getting a similar contract after this season. In fact, much like Carmelo Anthony in Denver, if Sasha is still with the Lakers when the playoffs roll around, I will be much surprised. I think if the opportunity presents itself, the Lakers will trade him to some team looking to reduce salary for the following season. And if that doesn’t happen, he will either return at a reduced rate, or look to sign on with some other team. Europe is another possibility.
LAKER ROSTER: Luke Walton
09.16.10
Let me start off by saying that a healthy Luke Walton is a productive Luke Walton. He has good fundamentals, whether from his time at Arizona or being schooled by his father and brothers. He is the type of player that works well in the designs of the triangle offense because he has a pass the ball, team first mentality that is really the basis of the triangle. Move the ball continuously until you have a high percentage shot. I hadn’t realized, until starting to work on this, that he had the fewest games played and lowest point total for the Lakers last season. He was also next to last in minutes played (Hello, Adam Morrison!) The Lakers have many options at the small forward position. Ron Artest will be the starter, and Matt Barnes (hopefully), Lamar Odom, Devin Ebanks and Kobe could all play minutes as needed. Given that Luke is 30 and has averaged approximately 60 games a season over his 7 year career, it’s probably a good thing for the Lakers to have choices. Luke stated that his focus during the off-season was to get his back stronger and healthier, and he work with a strengthening coach, a back specialist, a yoga teacher and a pilates instructor. So ideally he will be in top form at the beginning of the season. I don’t think he was too happy about being limited to 29 games last year due to his back problems. I expect that should he have health or injury issues this season and miss half a season again, he will decide he’s played enough, made enough money, and has as many rings as Pops (1 of 3 father/son combos). Rumor has it that he was considering retirement already, and like Yao Ming, if he can’t stay healthy, then he’ll be gone. For more on Luke’s summer, visit Lakers.com
http://my.lakers.com/blogs/2010/09/03/luke-walton-summer-update/
LAKER ROSTER: The Rookies
09.14.10
As rookies, Devin Ebanks and Derrick Caracter can count on spending a lot of time at the end of the bench during the regular season, if they’re not shipped off to the Developmental League. In either case, you can view the presence of the rookies as addition by subtraction, as they won’t have to do much of anything to match the output of Josh Powell and Adam Morrison. Plus the combined salaries are considerably lower. And they are young. Ebanks, a 6’9″ 215 lb small forward from West Virginia, is only 20. Caracter, a 6’9″ 265 lb power forward from Texas-El Paso, is 22. As second round draft picks, no one should suffer from super high expectations here. I would only expect to see them playing in the preseason and games that are routs (one way or the other). My hope is that they work hard in practice, learn the offense, and realize that their role, coming off the bench, is to preserve and build on any lead that the starters create. Last season It seemed to me the bench was keen on jacking up long distance shots when they didn’t turn the ball over, and letting the opposition drive to the basket without offering much resistance. In short, perfo
rming poorly both offensively and defensively.
Ebanks has been compared to Trevor Ariza, and if he’s as good defensively, that works for me. The Lakers are a little thin at the power forward position, so I believe Caracter will have more opportunities for playing time. There have been some comparisons to Shaq, as far as commitment to conditioning anyway. His contract has incentives for him not to balloon up in weight.
The Lakers are one of the more veteran teams, so I like having a little youth as well. Management was sufficiently impressed with their potential to sign them to contracts, so here’s hoping they contribute in some fashion to the Three-peat.
It’s a long season, so having players that the coach has enough faith in to play during the season, thereby allowing the starters to rest, is critically important.
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