Lakers Looking to Move Up?
Rodger Bohn
Contrary to published reports, Brandon Roy will not be working out only for teams selecting in the top five of this year’s Draft, as members of his camp had stated earlier. DraftExpress learned this week that Roy has already worked out for the Los Angeles Lakers, and will be in New Orleans sometime in the near future.
With no first round pick in this year’s Draft, many might wonder why a top-10 prospect in Brandon Roy was willing to work out for the Lakers this past week. DraftExpress has been told by numerous sources on the West coast over the past few weeks that the Lakers are exploring the option of moving up, and are interested in both Marcus Williams of UConn and Brandon Roy of Washington. Roy joined Brazilian Marcus Vinicius Vieira De Souza (Marquinhos), UCLA’s Aaron Afflalo and Rice’s Morris Almond in the four man workout.
A source who was at the workout with the Lakers broke it down into great detail for DraftExpress, stating that it was the team concept and elements of the Triangle offense that the Lakers were mostly looking at. “The L.A. workout was all about trying to see how players understood the basketball concepts of spacing, use of pick and roll, of pin downs, back screens….seeing which players knew when to curl, when to flare. Which players knew how to set up a down screen. All that kind of stuff.”
The players then went into a one on one series, where it was basically a draw across the board. Our source told us that it was a bit of a “wrestling match” and that “nobody really stood out in the one on one drills.”
From there, the four joined Craig Hodges to run some of the concepts of the triangle offense and the pinch post. The source describes the drills: “When they started playing two on two and pinch post, none of these kids ran pinch post because of their lack of height. In the college game, there weren’t too many schools running pinch post for 6’5, 6’6 kids. Basically when you get the ball in the high post, and out of that, you run back screens and play a three man game with the other two on the weak side. Craig Hodges was the third man in the game. They would pass the ball back to Hodges and run ball screens and back cuts, creating a triangle.”
In this drill, Marquinhos reportedly looked very good. There were some notable factors however, as the source stated that Marquinhos had an immediate advantage due to the fact that this was most likely the first time the three college players would had never have run anything like this in college. Marquinhos was reportedly familiar with the Triangle due to the fact that his team ran it in Brazil.
Here are the individual player breakdowns based on what our NBA source told us:
Brandon Roy:
Roy reportedly had just a decent workout for a player who most consider a lock to be picked in the top 10. He did extremely well on the vertical leap test, hitting 41 inches off of one step. The source went on to rave about the Washington star’s jumpshot, stating “His jumpshot is really pretty. Its great looking, he’s got a high and quick release, and it’s really effective. His pull-up is exactly the same. He doesn’t fade and he has great control. The whole thing is pretty.” Roy also measured out at 6’6 in shoes, and is apparently a bit longer than he looks, coming in with a 6’9 wingspan. Shooting and leaping aside, everything else seemed to be pretty average for Brandon. He didn’t stand out in the one on one drills, and seemed to struggle grasping the triangle offense.
Marcus Vinicius Vieira De Souza (Marquinhos):
Marquinhos measured out very well at 6’10 with shoes, with a 6’11 ½ wingspan and a 34 inch vertical jump. He shot the ball well from the outside and looked good in the two on two portion of the drill. The source was pretty clear that Marquinhos really showed in the two on two drills that he was the best fit for the triangle offense due to his size and skill package.
Morris Almond:
Almond mentioned numerous times that he had one more year left, leading one to believe that he was surely going back to Rice. He reportedly had a very different looking jump shot, and it was clear that he hadn’t had the coaching that the other three had received, and also is still adapting to the higher level of competition he is seeing in these workouts. Morris was praised for being a great kid with an excellent head on his shoulders, and should be fine after another year of polish in the NCAA.
Arron Afflalo:
Our source was least impressed with Afflalo of the four by far, stating he was “a bit of a joke”. He mentioned that although the UCLA sophomore looked fairly quick in the drills and was quite knowledgeable, he was still a pretty average player in terms of NBA potential. He was also unimpressed by his shot, stating “I didn’t like his shot, and I didn’t like his release. He didn’t really have much of a pull-up jumper and could really only shoot from a stand still.”
