3 Ways Derrick Rose could help the Los Angeles Lakers
An extra scoring punch
Once again, looking at your weaknesses, finding said weaknesses, and addressing them.
While the Los Angeles Lakers had Anthony Davis and LeBron James finish 12th and 14th respectively in scoring this season, it was very evident that the Lakers role players did not exactly provide much of a scoring output on a nightly basis. Something that going into the new league year, should be considered a rather large concern.
Fans of the purple and gold cannot expect LeBron James to be MVP LeBron James next season, his job is to get the Lakers to the playoffs, and once in the playoffs, it’s his job to step his game up to 100%.
Ideally, LeBron would coast at around 70% next season, potentially not play in back to backs and allow Anthony Davis to take the reigns during the regular season so Bron can save himself for a playoff run.
If the Lakers keep virtually the same roster they currently have, it is going to make it difficult for LeBron to take rests throughout the season.
Adding Derrick Rose potentially alleviates some of that problem for the purple and gold next season.
Some may say that Derrick Rose only scored 18PPG as the number one option for the Detroit Pistons over the last two season but with Andre Drummond on the roster for most of the last two years and with Blake Griffin being fully fit for the 2018-19 season and only managing to play 18 games last season, Rose has definitely not been consistently the focal point for the team.
With Griffin averaging 24.5 PPG in 2018-19 and Andre Drummond averaging nearly 18PPG over the last two seasons for the Pistons, it is fair to say that the scoring load has been shared quite evenly in Detroit.
To an extent, this should be great news for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Rose is still able to remain consistent scoring-wise while sharing the ball with two ball-dominant big men.
If Rose can average 18PPG for the Los Angeles Lakers next season, that takes a lot of pressure off of LeBron James’ shoulders to ball out every single night.
This could be a huge deal for the Lakers come playoff time.