Comments on an article on Gerald Green as a smokescreen

Posted on LakersGround.net on 6/27/06.

LakerSailor wrote:
This article is horrible. First of all you can't assume the Lakers weren't high on Green before they made the promise to Bynum. You can't go back on draft promises and so they had to let Green slide on by. Green looked spectacular in the time he had towards the end of the season, throwing down 10X the spectacular dunks that Bynum did. Thirdly, the whole tone is wrong, acting like the whole Green thing was a smokescreen, like Mitch planned it all. What an absolute joke. Mitch is nowhere near that savvy. Green was a top pick by nearly every scout and expert out there, he's just they dropper and steal of that draft..

My recollection is that both Portland and the Lakers wanted to draft high school players last draft. Together, they concocted the rumor that the Lakers were going to trade up with Portland in order to nab Gerald Green. The idea being that if a team was going to try to beat the Lakers to their pick, they would take the wrong guy.

So, based upon my recollection:

• The Lakers weren't high on Green before they made the promise to Bynum
  
• The whole Green thing was a smokescreen
  
• Mitch and John Nash did plan it all
  
• Mitch is that savvy

This season was a lost season for Green. He had an underwhelming summer league, an underwhelming training camp, an underwhelming pres-season, didn't play a minute of NBA ball, got sent down to the NBDL and had an epiphany. Came back to the Celtics with a better attitude and started getting a few minutes around the end of quarters (with the exception of the 2/22 game against Phoenix where GG played 23 minutes and scored 13). Starting 3/29, the Celtics threw in the towel on the season and gave GG double-digit minutes in 10 of the last 11 games. None of the last 11 games were meaningful and they resembled summer league games in terms of the talent playing and the quality of play. I am very doubtful as to whether stats from such games are worthy of scrutiny.

Looking at his stats, two things stand out:
1. He is poor at shooting the 3, even though his jump shot is supposed to be his biggest strength
2. He is a really poor rebounder for someone who is 6'8"
But again, it's hard to put much faith into his stats given how his minutes came about.

So the 20 year old GG couldn't earn significant minutes in meaningful games all season long. Now, it's a question of how strong is his work ethic. He didn't show any work ethic prior to going to the NBDL, having gone from shooting 40% while coming off the bench in summer league games to shooting 40% while coming off the bench in NBDL games. His work ethic was better after he came back, but will his desire to improve fade as the memories of the NBDL fade? Given how poor is work ethic was before, I am pessimistic that he will work hard enough to be able to overcome the rawness to his game.

Followed up by this post on LakersGround.net on 6/27/06.

LakerSailor wrote:
Green is a HS player, same as Bynum.

Green was a 5th year HS player and is 21 months older than Bynum.

LakerSailor wrote:
What meaningful minutes did Bynum get? Bynum would have been better served going to the NBDL IMHO. There he could actually learn some skills instead of riding the pine all day.

I think Bynum had some injury issues in the second half of the season. Also, going to the NBDL would not necessarily had helped much as the Ft. Worth NBDL team didn't play the triangle and didn't have a big man coach like Kareem.

LakerSailor wrote:
The main problem with this article is why bother with some smokescreen if you were planning on drafting A Bomb the whole time? No one in the top 9 had A Bomb even in the discussion so Mitch comes up withthis genius plan to fool everyone into thinking he was going to draft someone else when the guy he really wanted had a 99% chance of being there the whole time? what a colossal waste of time and energy.

From the LA Times blog:

Mitch Kupchak wrote:
Last year we were at ten, and I'd have felt more comfortable if we could have gotten to eight, although we got the player we wanted at ten.

So, Mitch was concerned that Bynum wouldn't last until 10. That's why the smokescreen.

LakerSailor wrote:
That's why this article is beyond horrible and just another example of rah-rah "reporting" and homer revisionism..

How so? The Lakers really did convince most of the draft "experts" that they were going to take Gerald Green. Mitch was successful in deploying his smokescreen and wound up with the player he wanted.

Umm, you seemed to have formed an opinion based upon certain "facts" and aren't adjusting when told that those "facts" weren't correct. And then you are slamming the reporter for "revisionism".