[Dazzling Dunks and Basketball BloopersParticipant]

With the acquisition of Drummond, the lakers now have 3 centers on the roster who are all accomplished players in the league and probably envisioned themselves having a role come playoff time. While having 3 capable bigs on the roster isn’t a bad thing in the regular season, there just aren’t going to be enough mins to go around for all these guys to have roles come playoff time. Especially considering the fact that all of these guys really need to play strictly at the center position to be effective and you really can’t play them together.
Assuming Davis and lebron are both fully healthy, the lakers will go to smaller lineups more with Davis at the 5, just as they did last season when Dwight Howard and McGee both seeing their roles diminished and out of the lineup for stretches in the playoffs. Both Howard and McGee knew their roles and were willing to sacrifice without making waves. Gasol might not necessarily be happy about it, but as a veteran who already has a ring you have to assume he would at least be professional about be taken out of the rotation. But you have to wonder how either one of Drummond or Harrell would react to possibly being taken out of the rotation, considering both are in their primes.
It will be interesting to see how Vogel manages the rotation and whether it leads to internal friction. Part of the thing that made last years laker team so cohesive was how well everyone understood their role on the team. Not getting quite the same vibe this year.

[sniperParticipant]

I think Vogel has really underused Harrell, who is one of the most efficient offensive players in the NBA. He is unstoppable as the roll guy in the pick & roll and gets at least a couple buckets per game just off of hustle and energy. I understand he can’t play with Drummond because of spacing, but once AD gets back he should be getting close to 30 minutes.

Gasol looks pretty immobile these days, but he is a 7-footer who can shoot. If we’ve learned anything over the last ten years, it’s that you maximize LeBron’s talents by surrounding him with shooters. AD doesn’t want to play “center,” whatever that means, so when LeBron comes back I would start Gasol to maximize spacing/shooting. Whenever LeBron sits Harrell should play, and the Schroeder/Harrell or Caruso/Harrell pick & roll should be their go-to play on offense (unless AD draws a mismatch).
Drummond is a weird player. He’s unbelievably good at one thing … rebounding. He’s not bad at protecting the rim. But he kills your offense and is no better — maybe worse — than Gasol when he has to switch onto perimeter players. I see Drummond as a guy who can take a 20-win team to 30 wins, or a 30-win team to 40 wins. But I think that deep into the playoffs he will prove to be less useful than Gasol — and Gasol will be questionable.

[Author]

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