Maybe Mike Brown is connecting with his new Lakers team, and maybe Andrew Bynum is also maturing at the same time. Or maybe Bynum just played so bad the other night against the Thunder that he knew his only post-game move was to admit as much.
After shooting 5 of 15 from the floor through three quarters of the Lakers double overtime win on Sunday against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Bynum sat the entire for the entire fourth. In the meantime, LA erased a 17-point OKC lead, and Andrew went on to then sit each of the following two OT sessions as well. The Lakers went on to win, their All Star Center had nothing to do with it, and afterwards he admitted his benching was well-deserved.
This according to what Bynum told the Los Angeles Times:
“I just played poorly. It’s easily fixable,” Bynum said. “I don’t think I was posting up hard and they were getting in front of me. I wasn’t being aggressive.”
It seems like at one point this season the opportunity Bynum used to make the above comment could’ve been one he’d used to direct frustration towards first year Lakers Coach Mike Brown. While he was playing admittedly awful on Sunday, he still did have 10 points and 8 rebounds through three quarters. He’s also an All Star this year, and has hung monster stat lines on the board recently too, so what I’m saying is he would’ve had some contingent of support if he came out with a why was I benched type response.
That would’ve created more issues for Mike Brown too if he had, and in-turn his Lakers team, so maybe that’s why he didn’t go that route. Because maybe after seeing Ron-Ron blast Harden with that elbow kinda similarly to how he hit Barea last season, the young big man’s growing up a little bit. Which would be certainly encouraging if it is indeed the case.
