Momma There Goes That Man

We’re just under a month away from the playoffs and the Lakers are still one of the most banged up teams in the NBA. Kobe has his busted finger, Lamar Odom has his busted shoulder, for Bynum it’s his Achilles, Luke Walton’s back is damaged and Shannon Brown has hand problems – yet, they’re still on a six game winning streak and have extended their lead to five games over Denver and 5.5 games over Dallas for the top spot in the Western Conference. With the Lakers gearing for their third road trip of the month, I think it’s time for Phil Jackson to start playing with some of the rotations.

For me, I think the Lakers have too much talent to not have at least three of their top six (Kobe, Gasol, Bynum, Odom, Fish and Artest) on the floor at all times. I also feel that some players have better rhythms on the floor together than others. Remember that short stretch of basketball when both Kobe and Bynum were out with injuries? Do you remember how well Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol played together? How about when Pau Gasol was out to begin the season, remember how well Kobe and Bynum played together? I do. And I think this is something Phil Jackson can take advantage of.

Let’s take a look at the Lakers top seven line-ups in terms of +/-.

1. Fisher-Bryant-Artest-Gasol-Bynum
2. Fisher-Bryant-Artest-Odom-Bynum
3. Fisher-Brown-Artest-Odom-Gasol
4. Farmar-Brown-Bryant-Odom-Gasol
5. Fisher-Bryant-Artest-Odom-Gasol
6. Farmar-Bryant-Artest-Odom-Bynum
7. Fisher-Brown-Bryant-Odom-Bynum
8. Farmar-Bryant-Artest-Odom-Gasol
9. Fisher-Brown-Bryant-Odom-Gasol
10. Farmar-Brown-Artest-Odom-Bynum

The first thing I notice about these top 10 lineups is the fact that not one of them includes the combination of Lamar-Gasol-Bynum. This may be due to the fact that they don’t play many minutes together (just  79.9 minutes on the floor as a trio in 09-10 and have only the 14th best line up in terms of production) but I see it differently – and to me, it has to do with the Gasol-Bynum dynamic.

From the myriad Lakers games that I’ve watched, I’ve come to the easy conclusion that Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol have trouble consistently playing well together. I’m still not quite sure what the reason is yet, but it seems like they play their best basketball when they’re on the floor alone. ‘Drew’s best stretch of basketball this season came during the 15 games to start off the season that Pau was hurt. We can see this trend way back in ’08, when Bynum was playing extremely well before he hurt his knee and Gasol was brought back in.

But then again, the same can be said about Gasol, who stepped in and played brilliantly to fill Bynum’s huge void to help lead the Lakers to the Finals. And again, in the next season when Bynum went down, it was Gasol who elevated his play when the Lakers were able to go on and bring hom the Larry O’ Brien.

Now, don’t think that I’m suggesting that the Lakers should take out Gasol or Bynum’s knee caps with a crow bar, what I’m saying is that they need to take advantage of this trend by making some slight changes in their rotations – which not only will keep their most productive lineups on the floor, but could potentially reduce the minutes of the starters, most notably Kobe’s, who’s age and reoccurring injuries are always a topic of discussion in Lakerland.

[Note: Keep in mind that all of this is assuming that Bynum’s injury is as mild as reported and that he’ll be back at some point in the next couple of weeks.]

How should they do it? It’s simple. PJ likes to play Kobe for the whole first quarter and sit him for the first half of the second quarter while letting Bynum take an early first quarter leave, usually because of early fouls or to prevent early fouls, and bring in Lamar Odom. Instead of just sending Bynum to the bench, why not send both Kobe and Bynum to the bench and bring in Lamar and Sasha Vujacic/Shannon Brown? This keeps an elite lineup in to close out the first quarter, and allows an elite lineup to start the second.

Moving Gasol, Artest and Fisher to the bench to start the second quarter to start a Kobe, Bynum and LO core with some combination of Farmar/Brown/Vujacic/Powell makes the most sense. This gives Kobe the opportunity to take over with another team’s second unit on the floor. He’s shown the propensity to give Bynum the ball when those are the top two on the floor, and creates a lot of easy shots for him. Lamar rebounds much better and is more aggressive when it’s only Bynum or Gasol on the floor with him. Most importantly, they’re not going to be losing leads with an out-of-control second unit on the floor.

There just isn’t any team in the league that has the ability to match up with both an Artest-Odom-Gasol and a Kobe-Odom-Bynum core back-to-back. This will force teams to mix up their rotations and throw them off rhythm, or it will force them to pick their poison and play their reserves against one of these cores. It gives Kobe more rest, and, if it works the way it’s supposed to, it will give all of the starters rest, too.

All statistics used were from 82games.com.