2. Involving Pau Gasol in the offense
Trying to put this in better terms than what is obvious yields no real success. Pau needs more touches. He also needs to convert on these touches. In the first 15 games where the Lakers were winners of 13, Pau was the talk of the league. His forward play was unrivaled by anyone at his position. Since those days however, Pau has taken a back seat in both the media and statistical views.
In a Western Conference deep with talented forwards, Gasol has to regain his voice and return to his dominant form. Coupled with the first thing the Lakers need to get done, there has to exist a balance between producing at top capacity and playing too many minutes as he was often asked to do early on in the season.
In the Lakers 25 wins, Pau shot 53% from the field while accumulating 20 points a game. In their 11 losses, Pau’s percentage dips to 48% and his point total to 15. At this point, Andrew Bynum hasn’t played significant minutes to argue that he is taking shots from Pau, although when he returns to true form this may be the case. In some more of the Lakers’ ugly losses, trends appear that would lead all fans to agree Pau needs more looks.
In the December opening battle with Houston, Pau played 39 minutes but only managed to get 8 shots. He made only 2 of those shots and accrued a meager 8 points during the course of the game. Games like this destroy the balance that the Lakers need, and shouldn’t happen with so much talent available on the court. In the Spurs game, there was more of the same story: 34 minutes, 9 points on 8 shots.
Teams like San Antonio or Boston who also have reliable forward play salivate when the Lakers play these kinds of games because it represents their chance to steal the spotlight. When the Lakers go away from the triangle offense and rely more isolations and guard play, they get burned; they’ve shown us plenty examples already, being only January.
While it is undeniable that Pau deserves to be a more center part of the offense, it is up to him to be more aggressive. Fans have seen all too many games already where Pau shies away from being physical and tries to rely more on his finesse. Few forwards are as good as Gasol when their backs are towards the basket, and the Lakers have to exploit that if they expect to dominate the conference again.
