5 Things: Early Season Observations

After getting run out of their own building by the Sacramento Kings (the score was closer than the game ever was if you watched it) there are a few things that I think have become clear. While deeper, longer and larger than the first incarnation of last season’s team the Lakers are still faced with a myriad of basic roster construction issues. While there was early hope for the new 5 out set the Lakers debuted this season it’s also safe to say that this, too, comes with several flaws that start with the personnel who are executing it on the floor. Lastly the coach has, again, come under intense scrutiny as every loss creates a magnifying glass fit to fry an ant hill. Sitting at .500 (6-6; 5-1 at home and 1-5 on the road) there are enough games in the can to start to talk about the emerging patterns both positive and negative. Let’s dig in.

1. How is the overall team performing? Stop me if you’ve heard this one before but injuries to key players have managed to obfuscate the actual potential of this team. Of those injured players it’s pretty easy to see that the lakers are missing Jarred vanderbilt’s energy and hustle on both ends but especially so on defense. The Vandolorian may not put up big scoring numbers but he shows up big on all the impact stats, things that the vet minimum signees haven’t really been able to replicate, at least not as consistently as we saw Vando do in the regular season and on into the playoffs. Also MIA for more games than not was splashy free agent signee Gabe Vincent. With these two out as much as they’ve been (Vando out since early in camp and Gabe has only played in 4 games this season) a lot of the playmaking duty has fallen on the shoulders of young Austin Reaves and D’Angelo Russell when LeBron is out or playing tired. In general the lack of hustle-focused players has led to a pattern of first quarter deficits, terrible defensive rebounding, and 50/50 balls generally not going our way. Sometimes you gotta make your own luck.
2. Didn’t we improve our three point shooting a lot? In what is now a mockery of an annual rite of passage the Lakers accomplished the following: signed some decent looking shooters over the summer, crowed about how we improved our three point shooting, and then proceeded to stink it up by shooting a league worst in just about every three point metric until our game against Memphis in which we tied the franchise record for makes while hardly missing a shot. That game, however, was the aberration as the lakers reverted to type against the Kings and returned to the brick yard. I’ve thought about this a lot and, in a lot of ways, it comes to down to the Lakers as an organization not embracing the three point shot as weapon to install into game plans and plays. The best shooters get plays run for them, screens set where the guy will take his shot in rhythm. We don’t do that, we throw it to dudes willy-nilly and pray for rain to fall. This is a consistent pattern back beyond even Frank Vogel and into Kobe’s last years with the team. Until we embrace getting guys their shots this will continue to be a weak link, hopefully not this weak all season but certainly not a strength.
3. Longer, larger…and slower. Much hype was bestowed upon the Lakers for all the size they brought in. 3 centers, retained Rui Hachimura, even signed a two way center. That ended up leaving a glaring hole at the guard position where a lot of hope continues to rest on Max Christie and Austin Reaves’ young and un-proven shoulders. As it turns out this is becoming a major problem as teams are out quicking our big line ups and our lack of penetration to the rim means we’re not really able to properly collapse the defense. This is turn has affected our shooting across the board. If the Lakers do make a trade it cannot be for another forward/center. It absolutely has to be for guard and preferably a quick one that can also defend at a decent clip. Since those are the most in-demand players across the Association that feels unlikely to happen unless fortune truly smiles down upon the purple and gold.
4. More diamonds in the rough. As has become the annual tradition for the Lakers, they signed two quality players to bargain vet minimum deals with those players hoping to capitalize on the Laker power of “Come Here and Revive Your Career!”. This season features Christian Wood and Cam Reddish. Both have had their ups and downs already with Wood looking like he’s really pressing in the last few games whereas Cam has found a comfort zone I don’t think I’ve ever seen him play in. Both have contributed to wins and both have not shown up in games we probably coulda/shoulda/woulda won with our better players, had they been available. As it is, if i were a betting man I’d wager that the players whose minutes suffer the most when Vincent and Vando return are Taurean Prince (not doing much of anything, reallly) and Christian Wood (not defending or rebounding well for a 7 footer and slow of foot when we need to get quicker). Cam could still maybe close games alongside LeBron, AD and one of Vando, Reaves, Hachimura or Russell if he’s got it going on both ends like he’s shown he can. Both players need to find a level of sustainability in their games, however, as the variance can be a killer.
5. LeBron passing the torch to…LeBron?!?! As many of the preseason plot points have fallen by the way sie (our depth isn’t what we thought it was, our shooting is incredibly worse than last season, Darvin Ham will takes his hands out of his pockets more) the one over-arching storyline the lakers pushed was that AD was FINALLY going to take “the torch” from LeBron. The King said as much on media day (“It’s AD’s team”) and yet, 12 game sin, it’s clear that the Lakers cannot compete when LeBron sits. For all the hype surrounding the “Running it Back” guys they still can’t sustain winning habits without the gravity on the court created by LeBron’s mere presence. While not a huge problem now this will become a major issue in the playoffs and there’s really only one player that can alter this: Anthony Davis. Problem there is the dude is simply wired to defer that responsibility to other players. Even in NOLA he ended up deferring to Boogie Cousins until the latter tore his Achilles. I love the Run It back Guys, they’re plucky and they fight hard. But pluck ain’t enough to sustain winning and our record shows it in every way.

Need to keep feasting on teams we should feast on. Another trend is that the Lakers are generally struggling against playoff caliber teams and fattening up n the sucky ones. That’s fine while we find our identity and work out the rotation while getting guys back but at some point we need to string some quality wins against some quality opponents.