your guess is as good as ours! LOL!
Morrison has one more season remaining on his current contract and appears to already be at the crossroads in his career
Purple and gold — really not his soul! LOL!
By Daniel Eade
When Adam Morrison dressed for the 2009 NBA Finals there was no purple and gold L.A. Lakers jersey underneath, instead Morrison was wearing a suit as he sat on the bench as an inactive player on the Lakers roster, a place the 3rd pick from the 2006 draft had become all too accustomed with after being traded from the Charlotte Bobcats.
Morrison played eight games as a Laker during his short stint out west, after he was exchanged along with Shannon Brown for Vladimir Radmanovic last February, and never participated in any of the teams playoffs games as the Kobe Bryant led-Lakers stormed their way to the 2009 Championship with a 4-1 series triumph over the Orlando Magic.
Morrison has one more season remaining on his current contract and appears to already be at the crossroads in his career. Looking ahead at the possibility of racking up more DNP-CD’s in LA next season would affect the future value of Morrison’s free-agent status in 2010 by potentially $10,000,000+.
In three years since Michael Jordan used his first pick with the Bobcats organisation to select Morrison, the college scoring freak who averaged 28.1ppg in his final season at Gonzaga has seen his NBA dream slide further and further down into oblivion, handicapped by a serious knee-injury in his second year which kept the small forward out for the whole season.
Los Angeles are in a dilemma over the free-agent status of both Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza, and whether they should re-sign both or let one slip away, possibly without any remuneration, but those two players who clog up a lot of minutes in Morrison’s ideal small forward position are defensive stoppers with giant wingspans and the idea that the Lakers would feel comfortable in simply replacing Morrison, a player not renowned for his defensive prowess, into those extended minutes is utterly absurd.
During his rookie season Morrison did prove that he is capable of scoring in the show, averaging 11.8ppg but shooting at a clip of 38%.
The talent is there from Morrison, glimpses have been shown and unfortunately it hasn’t been on display since his rookie year, which was followed by injury and then a chalk and cheese relationship with Bobcats coach Larry Brown before a lot of sitting and watching in L.A.
Orlando shooting sensation, JJ Redick, who was Morrison’s main rival on the college circuit as a star at Duke University believes that Morrison just needs a bit of patience because it will all work out for him when he spoke after game one of the Finals,
“I think he’s going to be fine. He had a bad injury his second year, he went through a trade this season, so this is kind of his second season.”
Redick continued to say,
“He averaged double figures his (rookie) year. I don’t think you can really judge a guy after two or three years.”
Before Morrison makes a decision, he must speak with Lakers General-Manager Mitch Kupchak and Phil Jackson (or Kurt Rambis, if Rambis is promoted due to Jackson retiring as expected) and find out if he has a future with the team and if the answer is negative, then Morrison should request a trade and move on to a location where he can benefit a team by doing more than waving a towel.
Morrison averaged 1.3ppg while having 5.5 minutes per game in L.A. through his eight appearances, the majority of which came in junk time.
Potential suitors for Morrison’s services are out there but what kind of role those franchises would foresee for Morrison in their colours would greatly variate from team to team.
And with a high-amount of teams set to be lining up for the 2010 free-agent class that could feature the 2009 MVP, LeBron James, as well as Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh and Steve Nash, it is quite possible that a team who is unable to secure one big name, or a team that can sign one top-of-the-class free-agents and also have money left over, might also be willing to throw some cash Morrison’s way.
But if Morrison is to meet with a healthy pay-day then the 2009-10 season will need to be a break-out season for the moustache wearing, 24-year old.
That won’t happen with the Lakers.
