I believe that he can be a great contribution to the team with more minutes. Even though he plays more as the season winds down i think he could have played on the level of season, and lakers should develop him alogn with Vujajic. Slave got an okay shot, but for most part he lack some experience in NBA games. Last year he has played good when Malone and Shaq were injured, showing that he can step up, whenever he stepps on the floor he seems to contribute to the team. But still he doesnt play long minutes, i think he can be quite a player of the bench for LA, and they should spend some time the rest of the season giving him playing minutes and time to develop.
I thought Slava's best chance to develop would be this season. He started off injured, and when he finally did get a chance to perform he blew it. This is his 5th year in the league, and Slava has not progressed much from when he was a rookie. He still cannot defend and he's not consistently aggressive on the glass. His best move is to catch and shoot, but at his size he should be banging inside and using post moves to score. He lost all of his playing time to Brian Cook this year, he must not be doing enough in practice to earn minutes. The Lakers have been hurting all year in the frontcourt, so I really have to wonder what Slava is doing wrong to not contribute more for the Lakers.
I love slava...i love his attitude, he doesnt remember missing a shot and i think thats good for a big man, he plays hard, just not a good defender. He can stretch the defense if he played some solid minutes once in a while because he can hit a 20 ft jumper, not many bigs respect that.
Honestly, I can't stand Slava. He is trash. He shoots, shoots, shoots. That is it, he never passes. He hurts us more than he helps us, why do we need two shooting PF's (we already have Cook), we need to get rid of Slava.
