Recently enshrined Hall of Famer Ray Allen gave his two cents on LeBron James' move to the Los Angeles Lakers and darted his take on his former teammate's style of play with this new roster surrounding him.
The long-known sharpshooter and 3-point king played with James for two seasons, as members of the Miami Heat, a team that boasted a completely different cast than the newly-assembled Lakers.
Via Ryne Nelson of SLAM Online:
“Yeah, a lot is going to contend on those older players and how they ingratiate themselves to this new mix,” said Ray Allen as a guest of The Dan Patrick Show. “Even LeBron has to reinvent himself”
Patrick would interject — “what kind of player do you think he'll be?”
“It’s difficult to say because you know how he’s been for us and what we’ve seen over years past,” Allen noted. “When I played with him, he had a lot around him that could do different things, so he didn’t always have to carry the weight.
Cleveland, it was a little different. He needed more shooters around him.”
“(With the Lakers), he doesn’t have that many shooters around him, so how are they going to fit in? [Lance] Stephenson and [Rajon] Rondo both need the ball in their hands.
“Is he going to give up more of that responsibility? Is he going to become somewhat of a spot-up shooter at the same time? Are those guys going to become shot-up shooters? It’s going to be interesting to watch.”
LeBron James is now surrounded by a completely different roster, but everywhere he's gone, he's demanded shooters and playmakers around him to ease the load — for the exception of Miami, where he already had two hand-picked playmates in Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, getting shooters to follow him to Miami almost effortlessly.
Stephenson has been working on his shooting this offseason, which should bode well for his playing time if he starts getting shots to go down, but besides him, there is less than a handful of reliable shooters in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Kyle Kuzma, and Michael Beasley — likely forcing LeBron to adapt to a different play style in order to make the most of the talent around him.
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