The Lakers are a team forever on, at a minimum, low heat. Even the dudes who wipe the sweat off the court are under a microscope when you’re a part of the Lakers organization. So the heat will only get hotter for this team as they come home after a fairly disastrous road trip. All but gone are the good vibes from the 3-0 start and replacing them are injury concerns and mediocre effort from guys we expect more out of. The Lakers trudge home 4-4, 10th in the west, and with a lot more questions than answers.
- Laker defense blows. At 28th in the NBA with a 118.8 defensive rating the only way to describe the Lakers defense is dreadful. That’s a whole 4 points worse than we finished last season under Coach Ham. With the same team one would expect at least some form of continuity on that end but that doesn’t seem to be the case. We’re not getting back, we played physically for all of 3 games, and then just started letting the other team get into the paint and bully us on the glass. Our defensive rebounding has taken a 3.7% step back, as well. Whatever the coaches are trying to do isn’t working and I don’t think a trade or Vando coming back is enough. The team needs to either fix the physicality issue or change it’s coverage schemes because the blueprint to beat us is pretty simple: play fast. We’re in the bottom five for most measurable defensive metrics. That’s just not anywhere near good enough.
- The offense looks solid through 8 games and I expect it to improve slightly in efficiency. This isn’t the area where the lakers are struggling. Our offense is currently the 8th best. Continuity on this end hasn’t been a huge problem, we’re scoring smart and we’re scoring well. We just can’t get a stop anymore. The only area that could stand to get cleaned up a little are the turnovers where we’re probably trying to force things too much or short cut the play in favor of a riskier cross court pass.
- Leave Knecht on the bench. I knew as soon as I saw Rui out this would pave the way for a poor decision: starting Dalton Knecht. The dude is playing pretty well off the bench and has a nice role he’s already carved out. Give him the time to get better at that and start a guy like Cam to infuse the starting lineup with the correct kind of juice. Cam played really well in his minutes and happens to be playing for his NBA life. He was a spark plug for us last season and Coach Reddick has been pining for one of those energy guys while simultaneously ignoring the one he has that’s healthy and ready to play.
- Enough with this 9 man rotation. Both the coaches and the players need more time. You’re not doing yourself a single favor by essentially benching 1/5th of your roster so you can play who you think are the 9 best. You’re 4-4 with no clear path back to consistently winning, the first month of the regular season is glorified training camp where the games matter, this is still an apropos time to be discovering combinations that work and a rotation doesn’t have to be set in November. It needs to have an idea of what it is by 2025, it needs to be comfortable with one another by January and if it’s not working it needs to be changed as best it can via trade in February. Lastly, there are 4…maybe 5…total players who deserve to be in a 9 man rotation. The rest are role players so use this time now to figure out which ones augment those intelligent 2 man pairings based off LeBron/Reaves and AD/DLO.
- Letting the wrong players leave. Under Rob Pelinka, and numerous coaches, we’ve let the wrong players leave the organization far too often. I’m not talking about how we draft, although prior to Knecht that, too, left a lot to be desired, but rather what we do with the players we actually have and why we choose to let some of them walk for no reason. Alex Caruso left so we could keep THT who has almost bottomed out of the league while Caruso plays a meaningful role in OKC. Instead of Scottie Pippen Jr. we somehow still have Maxwell Lewis on the roster and after watching Scottie dissect us on defense it’s hard for me to understand why. The kid just plays hard and plays right. What does Lewis even do well in the G League? This disturbing trend has resulted in a severe talent drain of affordable players that a team like the Lakers can’t afford to keep getting wrong.
Got another one tomorrow on my birthday. Which seems to always get ruined by an election or a bad Lakers game. The shitty election already happened so here’s hoping at least the Lakers win against the injury ravaged 76ers… Yay 50.
Nice Post Jamie, I never am optimistic when AD is out. I knew defense would be a problem. What was weird was it really wasn’t the stars that killed us. It was Pippin as you mention, that rookie wells, I think he hit 5 3’s And Jay Huff, another South Bay Laker alum. I liked him then and he is more like the back up 5 we need now. But it boiled down to shooting, which I thought would be the case. We missed a ton of open 3’s. We were 15 for 48 while they were 17 for 34. That was basically the difference. Austin and Dlo were a combine 4 for 18 and Dalton was 1 for 7. This year reminds me of last year at the beginning of the season when we lost games because we couldn’t hit open shots. We have to be better. I agree on Cam, he has been a bright spot. He started well last year to before a series of injuries seemed to derail his game. Hopefully he stays healthy. By the way my birthday is Saturday. We are almost birthday bro’s.😊
Me either, and it was nice to see Koloko get some run. Looks rusty but that’s expected.
What’s concerning, if not all that surprising given that we ran it back, is that we’re losing games the same way we did last season. Which means, in a lot of ways, it ain’t the coach but the personnel that’s the true issue. I think that we’re seeing that play out now.
Rebounding continues to be the Achilles Heel and you can add in transition defense and a lack of paint protection now, too. Part of it is a lack of talented size, some of it is we need a 40 year old on the floor to score enough points to win, and some of it is either a bad scheme or the players not fully executing the scheme (my personal jury is still out and waiting 20 or so games on that one).
The step forward we all hoped/needed one of Reaves/DLO/Hachimura or Christie to take hasn’t really materialized, at least not anything consistent. That’s not a knock on anyone but rathe the sobering reality of a team that had it’s two best players on the floor for the majority of the games last season and ended up in the Playin all the same. That indicates someone other than AD or LeBron needs to become a bigger factor.
Last year our starting unit was 21-8 down the stretch with a 110 defensive rating. The biggest difference is we were shooting a great percentage and not turning the ball over much. That has killed our transition defense. We also had Prince and Dinnwedie coming of the bench in stead of Christie and Dalton. Both were good defenders and Prince was shooting the 3 like we hoped Dalton would. I really do think we will be better when Vando and Wood come back. After that Dalton or Christie really have improve.
It’s quite a coincidence that Jamie and Michael are almost birthday bros. Tom’s birthday is exactly one month away – December 7th. I am going to wish you both great birthdays filled with serenity.
Wow, great post, Jamie!
Regarding your point about Dalton and the need to start Cam for some much-needed energy in the lineup, I absolutely agree! Cam has shown his value on the court, especially since he’s playing for his NBA life. He really was a spark plug for us last season, and it feels like Coach Reddick is overlooking this healthy, energetic guy in favor of others. You’re spot on about Cam. In fact, he is the only player with a positive +/- in the last two games.
The last five games highlight our current struggle: the lack of a strong bench. Remember when we prided ourselves on the depth of our roster? We called them the “bench mob” for a reason!
Just the other day, I expressed my frustration over not keeping Jay Huff and Scotie Pippen Jr. Why in the world are we hanging on to Maxwell Lewis and JHS? It feels like we’re gifting talent to the Grizzlies, who are now proving us wrong with those players. Collin Castleton has just been added to that list after moving from the Lakers. This early in the season, I really don’t think we should be locked into that 9-man rotation you mentioned. We need to rethink our strategy! Great post; keep the conversation going!