Foul smell is apparently starting to leak out within the Los Angeles Lakers following the latest comment of Carlos Boozer about head coach Byron Scott. The All-Star power forward thinks his coach has not been doing anything to improve defense, adding he's just all talk.
Boozer, who was demoted back to the bench after starting for 588 consecutive games, said the Lakers and his former team, the Chicago Bulls, have different approach with regards to defense.
While he and his teammates were ordered by head coach Tom Thibodeau to run their defensive rotation in every practice, Boozer revealed they are receiving more pep talks from Scott rather than doing drills to hone up their defense.
"In Chicago with Thibs, we drilled our defensive rotation every day," Boozer said in a recent press conference via Chats Sports. "Everyday, In the morning at shootaround, practice day - it'd obviously be a lot longer on the practice day. But every day, we drilled it to make sure we know where we were supposed to be at, what we were going to do. In Los Angeles, we talk about it a lot."
Although Boozer might be just expressing his displeasure after seeing his starting job by upstart power forward Ed Davis, the Lakers indeed have not been doing much on the defensive end despite spending most of training camp to improve the weakest spot of their game the past two seasons.
Through the first 21 games of this year's campaign, the Lakers are allowing opponents to score a league worst 110.9 ppg. Many analysts blamed the lack of reliable rim protector and perimeter defender for their losing woes, but there are some who believes that Scott should also be blamed for their struggles because of his lack of initiative to draw defensive plays that would boost up their overall team defense.
Still, Boozer's comment could be a sign that the Lakers are slowly crumbling from within entering the first quarter of the season. At 5-16, the once proud franchise has found itself in the bottom of a very loaded Western Conference.
