Pau Gasol or Mike D’Antoni: Somebody Has Got To Go

Nov 20, 2012; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike D

Some things are painfully obvious. The Lakers are anything but a title contender and likely won’t even be in the postseason. That has become crystal clear.

Something else that you can bet on with a great deal of certainty is that either Pau Gasol or Mike D’Antoni will be gone either in the near future or after this disappointing season has concluded.

So long as D’Antoni is in Los Angeles Gasol will never have a role he’s comfortable in. This too is painfully obvious.

D’Antoni had no clue what to do with Gasol once he took the job, routinely asking the low-post All-Star to stand 20+ feet from the hoop. With Pau out of action for five games due to a concussion D’Antoni inserted seldom used Earl Clark into the starting five with some impressive results following. Clark is clearly a better fit so as of now Gasol is a sixth man.

Problem is Pau Gasol has no desire to walk the trail blazed by Lamar Odom. Gasol never has been and has no intentions of ever becoming a sixth man. At the moment D’Antoni hasn’t committed to just what will happen next in this soap opera but stay tuned.

At this point there is no reason to believe Gasol and D’Antoni will ever click. The offensive system is in no way suited to capitalize on what Gasol does best. The simple logic is that one of these two will have to be removed and with the amount of money the Lakers have sunk into lackluster coaches I’m guessing it’s Gasol that will be gone.

Pau’s problems with this system were inherent even before Coach No D Antoni took the helm. Nearly half way through the season and Gasol’s production has dipped to their lowest levels since he’s been a Laker. That hasn’t helped his trade value as teams haven’t been as proactive in contacting the Lakers lately.

Of course all of this could have been avoided had Jim Buss done a little thinking before drunk dialing D’Antoni at midnight on a Sunday. But that is a moot point now. As of now all we can do is take a page from the D’Antoni book by throwing our hands up in disgust while watching this mess unfold.