Report: Carlos Boozer is ‘comfortable’ playing center
In a move to gain as much playing time as possible, the newly signed Carlos Boozer has made it know that he would be comfortable playing some center of the Los Angeles Lakers team.
Boozer said he feels comfortable playing either the 4 or the 5; expects to rotate there to maximize court time/effectiveness.
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) July 25, 2014
For Lakers fans this is both good news and bad news.
The good news is that Boozer’s ability to play both the 4 and 5 allows Los Angeles to play more frontcourt bodies. This will allow for more playing time at the power forward–with those minutes being allotted to Julius Randle, Ed Davis and Ryan Kelly.
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The bad news is that Carlos Boozer really doesn’t possess the skillset to be an effective center in the NBA. According to 82games.com, Boozer posted a PER of 15.1 as the center. Unfortunately, he allowed opposing centers to post a PER of 19.6. Outside of spacing the floor (he barely does that), Boozer is undersized and struggles at protecting the rim. Per SportsVU, Boozer allowed defenders to shoot 55.3% at the rim last season (4 FG’s per game). Those aren’t good numbers. In fact, this number would place Boozer amongst the worst rim-defending big men in the NBA.
For comparison in that regard, seldom-used center Robert Sacre allowed opponents to shoot 49.4% at the rim while Jordan Hill allowed 50.6%. Ed Davis, the Lakers pick up, is easily the team’s best rim protector, allowing opponents to shoot 43.3% at the rim as a member of the Memphis Grizzlies in 2013-14.
With the Lakers finally hiring Byron Scott as head coach, one of his first jobs will be to define the roles for each player. Once that is figured out, it’ll be easier to get a grasp on how the Lakers depth chart will look like.