As hopeless as the Lakers’ playoff chances are next season, Mitch Kupchak really didn’t do all that badly in free agency this offseason. Roy Hibbert isn’t as washed up as everyone thinks he is. Lou Williams was a cheap pickup, especially considering the rising cap, and the Lakers should have no problem trading him for a second, or potentially first rounder when the trade deadline approaches to a team in need of a scoring punch. And Brandon Bass is a nice player to fill the void inside left by Ed Davis. But with all the guards on the Lakers’ roster — Clarkson, Williams, Jabari Brown, D’Angelo Russell, Nick Young — coach Byron Scott has expressed that he wants Kobe at small forward, and sometimes even at power forward.
Check out what he said to David Aldridge of NBA.com.
“The one thing that we wanted to do and accomplish through this draft and through free agency was to try and be a little more versatile, have some versatility. So I think (Clarkson, Russell, Williams) can definitely do that. Kobe can play one, two and three. There’s no doubt in my mind. And there’s some games. against some teams, where he’ll probably play four. With his tenaciousness, the way he guards people and when his mind is set, if I say ‘Kobe, you’ve got him,’ he takes that as a challenge. You know how he is. He’ll compete.”
The thing with Kobe is, you could probably ask him to catch a bullet with his teeth, and he’d think he could do it. East teams get away with playing small all the time, but Kobe would get wrecked against Western Conference teams that play beasts like Anthony Davis, Blake Griffin, and LaMarcus Aldridge at the four.
