This is great news. Batman and Robin are reunited! This will allow our offense to have spacing again let alone his ability to set massive screens! It's going to save LA a lot of punishment in the paint.
It's nice, but our problem has not been in the paint. In fact, Meyers and Chris and Thomas have not only filled in nicely they have brought some things we were missing. It will be tricky for Stotts to keep their contributions coming with less PT to go around. Our problem has been Lillard missing roughly 80% of his 3pt shots while insisting on shooting 6-10 of them a game anyway. This is compounded by Blake's weak outside shooting, along with weak shooting from all guards but Wes. Our problem has been weak defense from our guards and some forwards. Maybe Stotts should try to "go big" for awhile rather than play smallball.
The value Lopez adds is the pick setting and two man game with Batum. Also, it moves Kaman to the back up, where he punishes the other backup centers. The timing of the offense is what's most important. Lopez knows our offense better than anyone other than Aldridge, so he know where to be on the offensive rebound
3 pt shooting as been a problem for everyone after Freeland went down. Minus Aldridge I suppose. I'd argue that with Lopez back, he will up the % of all our 3 point shooters with his kick outs after an offensive rebound. Aldridge/Trob get offensive boards but they're looking to go back up and dunk/get to the line. Lopez/Freeland are looking to kick it out first after an offensive rebound. One could argue the best 3 pointers a player can take is off of an offensive rebound after the kick out. That alone will raise the shooting % from three for all of the players that take them. With more kick outs coming. Expect the Blazers to shoot a higher % from three.
