Ramon Sessions To Start Tonight, Mike Brown Not An SSR Reader

Just a short while ago, Mike Brown let it be known that Ramon Sessions will be the starting point guard tonight as the Los Angeles Lakers tip things off against the Portland Trailblazers. The move hardly comes as a shock; Sessions is clearly the best point guard on the team. Even at his best, Steve Blake just can't bring the same package to the table, and making matters even more clear cut, Blake has been beyond awful in the four games since being promoted to the starting lineup. Blake has played like a man who knows the axe is coming, and the self-fulfilling prophecy has been self-fulfilled.

All of which makes this humble scribe one sad panda. I've been beating the #keepramonsessionsonthebench card harder than anybody, and it has nothing to do with the two players' relative abilities. I won't rehash all the talking points here, but I do believe strongly that Sessions impact on All-NBA caliber players Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol will be less than it was for Troy Murphy and Matt Barnes. If the job of a good point guard is to make your teammates better, well, how much better to Pau, Drew and the Mamba really need to be made? Apparently, Mike Brown is either not convinced or doesn't spend his time scouring the internet looking for random and anonymous basketball analysis. What an idiot ...

Still, there's no denying that Steve Blake's time as a starter was an unmitigated disaster. He might be the happiest person in all this, because by defining his role clearly as the backup, Mike Brown might be providing him with the comfort he needs to perform at his adequate best. He has certainly played better as part of the 2nd unit than he did as a starter.

Whether making Steve Blake feel comfortable ends up a net positive if it causes Sessions' court time to have less impact remains to be seen.