Lake Show Life
Fansided

Lakers: How LA Can Help Roy Hibbert Return to Form

Just three seasons ago, Lakers center, Roy Hibbert, was regarded as one of the best rim protectors in the league

Drafted in 2008, current Lakers’ big man Roy Hibbert is an outlier in the modern NBA. Unlike most, Hibbert completed four years of college before making the jump to the pros.

With that in mind, it was not long ago that Roy Hibbert was an NBA All Star who, alongside Paul George and David West, led the Indiana Pacers to the best record in the Eastern Conference. Heck, the league even had to reopen the rule book to justify Hibbert’s style of defense, dubbed the verticality rule.

So the question must be asked, what is responsible for Hibbert’s fall from grace?

Though the cop out answer is that the league truly has embraced the idea of “small-ball,” with the Golden State Warriors being the prime example, this doesn’t excuse Hibbert’s recent ineffectiveness. For example, Andrew Bogut is a seven footer who has adapted to the ever changing NBA and is as productive as ever.

More from Lake Show Life

Again, using Bogut as an example, one of the reasons he is so effective is, not only that he properly rotates on defense, but more so that he can rely on his teammates to rotate over behind him without fear.

With hardly any players capable of defending the perimeter, the same cannot be said about Lakers’ center Roy Hibbert who is consistently forced to over help with little, if any, help defense coming from behind.

When Hibbert was at his best, he was surrounded by hard nosed perimeter defenders in Paul George, Lance Stephenson and George Hill, and had veteran interior presence with David West. These players sold out for each other each and every night between the 2012-2014 seasons leading them to the best defensive ranking in the league in back to back years.

During the 2012-2013 playoffs Hibbert averaged 17.0 points and 9.9 rebounds a game but only 9.3 and 5.5 the following year. Hibbert’s struggles may very well have been due to personal issues, but they also line up with the rise, and later fall, of Paul George and Lance Stephenson.

Hibbert hit rock bottom in the 2013-2014 playoffs where he had two games with zero points and zero rebounds, and has still yet to return to form.

Though Hibbert’s struggles began to end the 2014 regular season and carried over into the playoffs, it wasn’t until Paul George went down with injury that he was truly exposed.

Prior to George and Stephenson’s explosions onto the scene, Hibbert’s role was relatively stable. But when he ultimately took a backseat to allow PG13 to rise, and did so even more for Lance Stephenson the following year, the role that made him so great was destroyed.

When required to step back into a leadership role, during the Pacers’ 2013 slump or even after George’s injury, Hibbert obviously couldn’t take the stress of his constantly changing role.

At his best, he was solely required to anchor the defense, clean up the boards, and get easy dunks and layups, not be expected to lead the team.

Fast forward to the present, many Angelinos thought that Hibbert could be the solution to their big man problems, specifically with rim protection, but that hasn’t been the case.

More from Lakers News

Though Hibbert is partially at fault, the other culprit is his teammates who constantly put him in awful positions on the defensive end of the floor.

The Lakers can assist Hibbert in two ways: first, by giving him a definitive role as the defensive anchor of every unit he is featured in, and second, by surrounding him with willing defenders.

Though there are plenty of valid reasons to begin playing Anthony Brown, a lesser touched on topic is the fact that developing him could also help bring Hibbert back to form.

The best players in the league didn’t get better by solely watching others do so on a nightly basis, or from playing in the D-League, they got better by being thrown into the fire with the hopes that they’d come out on the other side more finished than ever.

Just look at Jimmy Butler or Kawhi Leonard. Both represent the prototypical 3-and-D player that every coach would love to have but it wasn’t until their usage rating went up significantly, especially in Butler’s case, that they began to thrive.

Further, though the Lakers three building blocks — D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson and Julius Randle — are all known for their offensive abilities, they all have the potential to be formidable defenders in this league. What Russell lacks in athleticism he makes up for in length and IQ, vice versa for Clarkson and Randle.

Another player who the Lakers have seemingly forgot about is second year man Tarik Black, who would be a perfect candidate to fill the David West role for Hibbert.

Winning games was never a top priority and the simple fact of the matter is, developing the Lakers’ youth will have more positive resonating results than just surface wins.

Hibbert’s offensive woes are another story entirely, but the Lakers didn’t sign him for offense, so that’s irrelevant.

Next: Kobe Bryant Leads NBA All Star Voting at First Return

Though it’s doubtful Hibbert is ever an All-Star again, the Lakers would be doing him, and their franchise a huge favor by developing their young players with the key concept of defense at the forefront of their mind.

Home/Lakers News