Lakers’ Dwight Howard will start with Clippers on Friday, Frank Vogel says they will just play a traditional big game

DeAndre Jordan get out and Dwight Howard is in like Los Angeles Lakers‘center begins, at least for now. Lakers coach Frank Vogel told reporters Thursday that Howard will start the game against Los Angeles Clippers on Friday, and that, in the future, they will have only one center in the rotation. (This does not include Anthony Davis, who is one of the best big boys in the league but always likes to play next to another big guy.)

“Trying to play both of those guys for a few minutes, doesn’t really feel easy to get along with,” says Vogel. per Silver Screen and Roll’s Harrison Feigen, “so we’ve decided to just use one of them unless it’s obvious that we’re stuck or have some other problem. And that’s DeAndre a bit. I decided in the middle of the first quarter of the year. last game that I wanted to see what Dwight can do and that’s Dwight for the rest of that game, and I plan to start the game against Dwight tomorrow against the Clippers, and it’s going to be a situation. situations where we’re just actually tracking on a future game-by-match basis, but with the intention of only assigning those key minutes to one player, not two. Whether that’s DeAndre or Dwight.”

Jordan was in the starting lineup for Tuesday’s game against Sacramento Kings, but Vogel pulled him after only four minutes. Howard, who didn’t play at all in the previous match against Detroit Pistons, finished scoring 35 minutes and finished with 12 points, 13 rebounds, two blocks and two steals. Before that, Howard had played no more than 23 minutes in a game this season.

Unless you have an unhealthy obsession with counter-attacking defense, it’s hard to make the case that Jordan should have stayed in the starting five games. In the off-season, the Lakers have scored a monstrous 96.6 points per 100 possessions with him on the field, and when combined with Avery Bradley, who started late in the game before injuring their thumb in recent days, they only scored 91.8 out of 100, a truly horrifying number. Howard was a similar type of player, and started him in danger of putting another team in the prize money in the first half of the first quarter, but Los Angeles played well in his minutes.

Other Lakers news: Vogel says Bradley won’t need surgery on his thumb and if he does play on Friday he will have to wear a brace, The Athletic’s Bill Oram reports. Trevor Ariza, who is yet to make his season debut, practiced for the first time on Thursday, but only participated in its contactless portion.

Los Angeles is 12-11 in season. It ranks 23rd in attack stats, 19th in defense, and 23rd in difference, per Cleaning The Glass. LeBron James only played in 11 games and already just removed from the league’s health and safety protocols after two negative PCR tests.