5 Things: Lakers go 4-0 in preseason

Well that was fun. The short preseason and training camp were a bona fide success with every Laker of note seeing some floor time. With a few days before the start of the regular season and the Lakers not having many questions in terms of how this team defends or where our points come from there were few surprises. Having said that, THT certainly did turn some heads. Now for the real thing.

1. Best thing about preseason and the Lakers going 4-0? Nobody got hurt. Outside your standard NBA bumps and bruises, ankle turns and such the team got to see what everyone could do without seeing any serious injuries. Shout out to Mikal Bridges who looks like he suffered no ill-effects from his fall last night. Nothing dirty about the play but I have a standing rule of wishing good health on professional athletes, regardless of the team, play hard, compete well and stay healthy. No injuries.
2. Anthony Davis looks ready to bring the rain. That third quarter was a thing of beauty and Davis has been leading with his defense as always. I think that, if LeBron ends up missing a dozen or so games this season due to load management, you will see a stronger and more assertive Anthony Davis as result. I think he could make a big push on both the MVP and DPOY goals, as well. While there is no doubt that LeBron James is the engineer that drives the Laker train there is also no doubt that Davis is the locomotive driving it forward on both ends.
3. The Two-Step career of one Kyle Kuzma. I want to preface all this by first saying I thought Kyle had s pretty good preseason showing. His shot has been smooth, he plays under control and he knows his game. The fact that he and the Lakers couldn’t come to terms on an extension isn’t too surprising to me for a few different reasons. Primarily Kuzma and his agent likely feel like he’s buried in the rotation here in LA. Professional athletes don’t train hours and hours a day, practice, workout some more, watch film and then maybe train some more just to be pegged into a hole that the rest of the world sees them in. they are so good at what they do because they bet on themselves and the ones that don’t usually don’t last. Kyle is betting on himself, either during the season by proving he’s worth more than being a 7-10 million dollar player. Or the following offseason where he will be an unrestricted free agent and will test the market in a summer when a lot of teams will have cash to spend. The true question regarding Kyle is: does he finish the season in purple and gold. My sense is a pretty firm ‘yes’. While you don’t want to use him for nothing you would still have the option of signing and trading him in the summer and recouping some loss that way. For the cap-strapped Lakers it also wouldn’t be the worst thing on Earth if we lost him for nothing, as well.
4. The G-Leaguers getting some burn. With the active roster expanding to the full fifteen every night there will be some interest in which G-leaguers, if any, make the cut. I don’t see any of them sticking with the big club except for maybe, maaaaaayyyyyybeeeeee Cacock. We need some size and Kostas is a major product who will benefit more from getting up snd down in the development league. I think we keep Quinn Cook (non-guaranteed deal) and so my guess is the roster will look something like:
   STARTERS: Schroder, KCP, James, AD, Gasol
   BENCH: Caruo, Kuzma, THT, Harrell, Morris, Matthews, Dudley, Cook, McKinnie, Cacock
   That’s a solid 15 there. There will be nights where we call upon the likes of Kuz and Tucker to take on larger roles and show their leadership qualities. That group may not have the decisive position/responsibility assignments traditionally seen in the NBA (no true back up PG, for instance) and we may lack for quality size after Gasol and AD, but there are a lot of guys who can make plays for others and play big.
5. Speaking of which, welcome to the Lakers Alfonzo McKinnie! Got his Laker debut in last night, grabbed a board and got a foul in. Enjoy being a Laker!

All in all, a fairly meaningless preseason. The highlight of course being Talen doing all he could to make a case for himself in terms of having a role and getting some minutes. I’m excited to se what kind of adjustments he can make going forward. Go lakers.