3 things the New Orleans Pelicans can learn from the Los Angeles Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers are giving the New Orleans Pelicans a potential blueprint for a title.
I really hate the Lakers, so it is tough for me to say that there are some things the New Orleans Pelicans can learn from them.
The first one is always try to sign LeBron James! Boom, make me a GM.
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Just kidding, but obviously, LeBron is the medicine that makes everything better and if he weren’t on the Lakers they wouldn’t even be in the playoffs.
Barring a radical cloning experiment, the Pelicans are not getting their own LeBron, but there are still some things they can learn from watching the Lakers in the NBA Finals.
Forget Small Ball, Go Big!
All of the talk over the last five years is how the league is trending smaller, how post players are dinosaurs and anyone who can’t shoot 3-point shots is an irrelevant relic from an extinct era.
As a fan of traditional centering, I am actually happy that the Lakers zagged when everyone else zigged.
They were the first team to really commit to LeBron as a point guard and have surrounded him with 7-foot shot blockers and a bunch of forwards.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Alex Caruso and Rajon Rondo are the only three “real” guards who play for the Lakers and they still manage to score plenty of points, get out in transition and hit enough 3-point shots.
Pelicans’ fans have mostly talked about the Pels going small, using Zion Williamson as a center and surrounding him with shooters and playmakers, but is that really the move?
Zion is a dominant offensive rebounder and if you put him next to a big center, the Pelicans could own the paint the same way the Lakers do now.
If the Lakers have taught us anything, it’s that rules and fads don’t apply when you have a generational superstar who can play anywhere. The Western Conference is filled with huge teams that often bullied the smaller Pelicans.
Instead of diving further into small ball, the Pels could go bigger, grab a few 7-footers and play lineups with Zion at the three and Brandon Ingram at shooting guard.
The Lakers were 2nd in the league in points in the paint and near the bottom in 3-point shooting, yet here they are in the Finals.
My point is that it is not inevitable that the Pels go small, nor is it the only way to win in the modern NBA.