Wish you Laker fans luck, but Pau Gasol, while a great player, is not necessarily going to change things up much for the team this year. It took Andrew Bynum something like four years to finally understand his place on the floor, and while Gasol's learning curve should be much shorter, he may not get there by the end of this year.
JoMal, this is a good point and I tend to feel the same way to an extent. While many here in LA are already handing a title to the Lakers, I'm just excited to see Pau play his first game a Laker uniform tonight and watch the gelling process. I don't expect it to be immediate; however, swapping Kwame for Pau, even if Pau doens't know what a triangle is, is a HUUGE upgrade. It improves our cause this year, and I'm excited about next year and beyond.
I also don't think Bynum is a fair comparison regarding learnding the triangle. Bynum only played like 30 games in high school. He never was a b-ball player and picked it up late in his life. He came in to the league with a big, gangly, young, body and almost zero basketball experience. The vast majority of his learning curve wasn't grasping the triangle, but rather learning the fundamentals of playing b-ball at the highest level in the world. Pau, as a Euro, has solid fundamentals, was playing pro as a teen and won a championship with the Spanish national team. Saying Pau has a significant headstart over Bynum would be an understatement.
On top of that, post players have the easiest role in the triangle. They just have to know which side and where (low or high) to post up. Most of the rotations that create the "triangle" in the offense come from the guards and forwards, particulary the small. Plus, if Shaq could grasp it ...
