Pearl studying the Lakers
AUBURN | LeBron James, Anthony Davis, the defending NBA champions -- the Los Angeles Lakers are appointment viewing for any NBA fan.
Bruce Pearl is certainly watching, but it's more for professional reasons. He actually sees a little of the Lakers in the Auburn team he’s building for the 2021-22 season.
“Everybody knows that they're better when the big fella (Davis) plays the 5 and LeBron plays the 4,” explained Pearl. “Well, they've got a couple of centers that need to be out there. All of a sudden, they're all playing out of position. They're bigger. What could they be doing better?
“I watch the Lakers really carefully, because we're probably going to be bigger. So, taking advantage of our size and it not being a weakness. Letting it be a strength and a problem for our opponents.”
Pearl will likely put out the biggest team of his nearly 40-year coaching career on the floor this season. The Tigers return 6-foot-11 center Dylan Cardwell, 6-foot-10 center Babatunde Akingbola and 6-foot-8 forward Jaylin Williams, and have added 7-foot-1 North Carolina transfer Walker Kessler and 6-foot-9 high school signee Jabari Smith this summer.
Williams, Kessler and Smith all have 3-point shooting range while Cardwell is developing his outside shooting. Akingbola is more of a rim protector, who is working to improve his offensive game.
“I think the thing is, you look at every team and look at what we have. We're gonna be really big at 4 and 5, bigger than we've ever been,” said Pearl. “We've got really skilled guys at the position. Dylan is really getting skilled. He's really mobile. Walker is really mobile. Stretch is really mobile. Jaylin and Jabari are really skilled. I've got five really good frontline guys. So that's going to be different.”
Kessler is one of five veteran transfers Pearl has brought into the program during the offseason including two point guards and two shooting guards.
Pearl wanted a more veteran team after seeing the success of Arkansas and Alabama in the SEC last season, but with so many new faces knows he needs to put a lot of time and effort into team building this summer.
“We got to get to know each other,” Pearl said. “We had our first meal yesterday down at the lake. We got on the jet skis. We tubed a little bit. I've got a picture of Walker and Stretch on the same tube standing with their hands up. It's the damndest thing you've ever seen in your life.
“So we got to, again, become a family. And then we also went to Children's Harbor yesterday. It was event camp yesterday. So we took some campers out on the lake. It was great to see our players interacting with those young kids who have got some really serious health challenges, and yet you can pick up the smile on their face. So it was good. Those are the kinds of things we're working on this week."