Injuries Allow Mike D’Antoni To Open Up Offense

December 14, 2012; Washington, DC, USA; Los Angeles Lakers small forward Metta World Peace (15) talks with Lakers head coach Mike D

Mike D’Antoni is struggling as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. That and this just in too…Notre Dame has no business playing in BCS bowl games.

Some things are beyond obvious.

Then there are other things that just aren’t as familiar even though they can be clearly seen.

On the surface it would appear as if the Lakers’ already wretched season has officially been put on ice what with the injuries to Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol and Jordan Hill. The three Laker bigs are all going to miss the Texas road swing and will likely be out of action for at least a week.

So all is lost, right?

Well…yes…it is. But that doesn’t mean these injures are the end of the Lakers as we know it.

With regards to D’Antoni’s many struggles, one of the biggest reasons why the coach’s philosophy has been such a bad fit for the franchise relates to the type of talent on the roster. D’Antoni’s defensive deficiencies were well known. However it’s been his inability to create a cohesive offensive that involves low post players such as Howard and Gasol that has really made this process much more painful than necessary.

Well, what do you know?

No big men means no more of that D’Antoni approach to shoving square pegs into round holes. While the Lakers will no doubt be done in by a lack of an interior presence there is now an opportunity for D’Antoni to run a more pure form of his European system.

There is already talk of Metta World Peace seeing time at center which means D’Antoni will utilize increasingly smaller lineups thus spreading the floor even more much like what he did in Phoenix when Boris Diaw was forced into a similar role.

Now I’m not so sure that positive results, also known as wins, will follow. However if D’Antoni wanted a chance to show the world what his offense was really meant to look like in Los Angeles it’s now or never. Of course it’s far too late but hey, what else can we do but see this thing through?