In the aftermath of center Dwight Howard's departure to the Houston Rockets, the Los Angeles Lakers, who were without a starting center, began to look at their options and went on to sign Chris Kaman to play alongside Pau Gasol.
Kaman was signed to a mini-midlevel exception and will earn roughly $3.1 million. He has a career average of 11.8 points per game, and is nearly shoots 50 percent from the field. During a Summer League game in Las Vegas, Drew Garrison of Silver Screen & Roll asked coach Mike D'Antoni about Kaman/Gasol relationship, and how in envisions it working out.
"He definitely can play high-low with Pau [Gasol]," D'Antoni said. "He can stretch the floor. Both of them can play. They should be pretty good complements to each other," D'Antoni said.
It's understandable that D'Antoni would say such things given the difficulties Howard and Gasol had a season ago. Though Howard was mostly limited offensively last season, and while Kaman is nowhere near the caliber of a player, he does possess a midrange presence that the Lakers lacked with Howard.
Aside from figuring out how the two are going to play, there have be questions to whether Gasol would return to the center position in the Lakers upcoming season. Although they haven't been ideal in the previous season, Gasol, for all purposes, is the ideal center for D'Antoni's perimeter-oriented offense.
According to OC Register's Kevin Ding, Steve Nash believes with Gasol at center the team will have more fluidity and ball movement on the offensive end:
Los Angeles should be excited to watch Gasol/Nash pick-and-roll in the upcoming season, being that Gasol has the ability to finish in the lane, make jumpshots, and is capable of making the right pass out the double team-something Howard demonstrated much difficulties with.
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