Tag: Wayne Ellington

Wayne Ellington discusses how the Lakers’ frontcourt defense will help the guards

Newly signed Wayne Ellington is confident in the Los Angeles Lakers’ frontcourt defense.

The Los Angeles Lakers finished last season with the No. 1-ranked defense in the league despite the injuries that accumulated in the second half of the year.

Going into the 2021-22 campaign, the Lakers will not have key pieces to that strong defensive core. Alex Caruso, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Wesley Matthews, to name a few, are no longer on the roster.

The Lakers replaced the defensive-minded guards with scoring-focused ones. Kendrick Nunn and Malik Monk are two young guards that provide a scoring punch but aren’t as skilled on the defensive end.

The same applies to veteran Wayne Ellington, who can light it up from deep but isn’t a defensive nightmare for opponents.

The loss of those guards could hurt Los Angeles’ perimeter defense, but Ellington discussed how the frontcourt defensive prowess of Anthony Davis and Dwight Howard should mitigate those issues, via Mike Trudell of Spectrum SportsNet:

A healthy Davis will always be a force to reckon with anywhere on the court. Even though he averaged 1.6 blocks a game last year, which was a career low, he should bounce back with healthy legs.

Howard isn’t the shot-blocking menace he was with the Orlando Magic, but he’s still adept at altering shots; Howard will have to focus on limiting his fouls in his minutes because he can accumulate them quickly.

Beyond those two, the Lakers have only Marc Gasol at center. He’s reportedly not a lock to return next season, but he averaged 1.1 blocks a game last year despite clearly being less mobile on defense at 36 years old.

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LeBron James responds to age criticisms of new Lakers roster

LeBron James has a message for the critics commenting on the age of the new Los Angeles Lakers roster.

After trading three players in a deal to acquire Russell Westbrook from the Washington Wizards, the Los Angeles Lakers needed to revamp the roster in a major way.

Los Angeles had over 10 free agents entering the market, which made matters more complicated in terms of retaining key pieces to the roster. Alex Caruso was a vital rotational reserve who departed to the Chicago Bulls on a four-year, $37 million deal because the Lakers didn’t want to pay him that.

So far, the Lakers have pursued several win-now veterans on minimum deals to round out the roster in hopes of optimizing the open championship window with LeBron James and Anthony Davis at the helm.

Veterans like Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Wayne Ellington, Trevor Ariza and Kent Bazemore have all joined L.A. to win a title.

But the moves have generated criticism from the NBA world because of the collective age of the majority of the roster.

Westbrook and Bazemore are 32; Ellington is 33; Howard is 35; James, Ariza and Marc Gasol, who confirmed he’ll stay for another season, are 36; Anthony is the most experienced at 37.

James took to his Twitter to respond to those criticisms involving the age of the roster, via SportsCenter:

It’s certainly important to have a balance between veterans and younger players. Davis, 28, checks that box. The Lakers also added Malik Monk (23), Kendrick Nunn (26) and re-signed Talen Horton-Tucker (20) to add to the young talent on the squad.

Los Angeles’ reasoning for signing these veterans is clear: They’re pushing all the chips on the table to win the franchise’s 18th championship with James still leading the way.

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NBA free agency: Projected lineup for Lakers with Russell Westbrook

The Los Angeles Lakers always generate a ton of headlines but this year, that has happened even more as they have added several big names.

The Los Angeles Lakers always generate a ton of headlines, but this year that has happened even more as they have added several big names.

Whether it’s new names like Russell Westbrook or Carmelo Anthony or familiar faces like Trevor Ariza or Dwight Howard returning home, the Lakers are as star-studded as ever. So we wanted to take a look at what their lineup is going to resemble when the season begins.

Note that this depth chart will be inherently incomplete until we know the status of Dennis Schroeder and Talen Horton-Tucker. The Lakers can also spend the $5.9 million taxpayers’ midlevel exception to add more depth, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks. They can potentially retain Wesley Matthews and Markieff Morris as well.

We already know that the roster is old – there are five players who are older than 35 years old and eight players over 32 years old – but for now, here is a better idea of what the depth chart looks like in Los Angeles.

Report: Lakers sign Dwight Howard, Wayne Ellington in free agency

The Los Angeles Lakers are bringing back Dwight Howard at center and adding sharpshooter Wayne Ellington.

The Los Angeles Lakers have added two more free agents who were interested in joining the team again.

The first player returning is Wayne Ellington, who just played with the Detroit Pistons and was reportedly interested in signing with L.A. a few days before the free-agent market opened.

Dwight Howard is another player returning to the Lakers after playing a pivotal part in the 2020 championship run. Howard, who spent last season with the Philadelphia 76ers, reportedly was ready to return to Los Angeles for the third time in his career.

The Ellington signing was reported by Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports; the Howard move was reported by both Shams Charania of The Athletic and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN at the same exact time:

Ellington made over 42 percent of his threes last season in Detroit on over six attempts a game, providing L.A. with the high-volume 3-point shooting that will pair well alongside LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook.

Howard is still a solid rebounding center who knows his role on the offensive end; he has the ability to play alongside Davis in certain lineups and will bestow the vertical threat L.A. desperately needed last season.

The two join Trevor Ariza as players who have signed with the Lakers, though Alex Caruso is departing to the Chicago Bulls.

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New trade suggestion has Sixers acquiring Wayne Ellington, Lou Williams

A new trade suggestion has the Philadelphia 76ers acquiring Wayne Ellington and Lou Williams.

It is officially trade season in the NBA as the March 25 trade deadline continues to come up quickly. The Philadelphia 76ers will certainly be one of those teams that will be in the mix to fix a few issues that still remain.

They need a bit of a boost of their bench as they are having a tough time creating any consistent offense outside of Shake Milton and they also need another 3-point shooter as well. They can make some moves to try and acquire both needs at the deadline.

A trade suggestion from Bleacher Report has the Sixers being involved in a 3-team deal with the Detroit Pistons and the Los Angeles Clippers. The deal is Philadelphia sends Terrance Ferguson, Mike Scott, and a top-16 protected pick to Detroit and they get Wayne Ellington from the Pistons and Lou Williams from the Clippers. Detroit sends Delon Wright to Los Angeles in their deal.

B/R on the Sixers involvement in this trade:

Enter the Sixers. They need another crunch-time shot creator and more raw three-point volume. Reuniting with Williams and snagging Wayne Ellington gives them both. Philly has the defensive talent to cover up for either veteran and needn’t fret about frittering away a first-round pick that forecasts to land in the bottom five. It gets a little smaller by dealing Mike Scott, but bigs are easier to snap up in smaller trades or on the buyout market.

Ellington is a mostly streaky shooter, but he is shooting 43.3% from deep to begin the season for a rebuilding Pistons team on 6.4 attempts per night. If he can keep that type of production up, it would be a huge addition to the Sixers.

As for Williams, he is obviously known for coming off the bench and putting the ball in the basket. He is another one who would be a huge addition to this team off their bench. The Sixers can’t just rely on Milton and Furkan Korkmaz for the offense in the bench unit.

This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!

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Pistons’ Wayne Ellington responds to Klay Thompson, Draymond Green’s comments on Rodney McGruder

Pistons’ veteran guard Wayne Ellington is the latest to chime in on Draymond Green and Klay Thompson’s comments on Rodney McGruder.

Steph Curry dropped a game-high 28 points in the Golden State Warriors’ 118-91 blowout win over the Detroit Pistons. However, the contest between Detroit and Golden State is making headlines for other reasons.

With the game coming to an end and players clearing the court, Detroit shooting guard Rodney McGruder appeared to exchange a contentious back and forth with Golden State’s bench. During the quarrel, Klay Thompson was playing the role as a sideline reporter. While Thompson waited for Curry to take the mic for a postgame interview, the sharpshooting guard fired a shot at McGruder.

When asked what McGruder was doing while speaking with Golden State’s bench, Thompson answered with, “I don’t know. This dude might be out of the league soon. He’s probably mad about that. Who knows?” After the game, Draymond Green sounded off on McGruder, questioning when the Detroit guard became a “tough guy.”

Via @BleacherReport on Twitter:

On Sunday, Detroit’s Wayne Ellington weighed in on the issue. The veteran shooting guard called Thompson and Green’s remarks about McGruder’s career “unprofessional and definitely no class.” Ellington went on to call Green’s criticism of his teammate “fake tough guy stuff.”

Read Ellington’s full comments via @denewsRodBeard on Twitter:

Although players from each side have traded jabs, the pair of teams won’t match up on the court until next season. The Warriors have swept the season series against the Pistons with two victories.

With both the Warriors and Pistons in action against new opponents on Tuesday, the new rivalry will likely blow over.

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