5 Things: The state of the Lakers as we close out 2021

With the news that AD is out for a minimum of 4 weeks I thought it worthwhile to look at the overall state of the team rather than rehash the latest loss to the Bulls. In general, this season, like last, is being defined more by who isn’t playing rather than who is. Be it injury, COVID, wanting to be traded or anti-vaxx stances the players that haven’t played this season have garnered as many headlines as the ones who have suited up. All of this has impacted the Lakers in one way or another so let’s dig in. At least 2021 is at an end.

1. The Lakerteers. Russ, AD, and LBJ have played 13 games as a unit and that trend of one or more of them missing will do nothing but continue due to AD’s knee injury. If we’re lucky he’ll be the only one that misses extended time but let’s face it: LeBron has entered a fairly injury-prone era of his career missing several games already due to various, and differing, injuries. Russ has been the most consistent of the three and his play has steadily improved. AD started strong but has really fallen off after lower leg injuries seemed to sap him of his ability to hit the outside shot that made him such a deadly player early in his career. He compensated by scoring inside more but with him being out for 4, or more, weeks what was already a small team got smaller. If LeBron and Russ can both stay on the floor, elevate the role-players to a decent level and share the ball properly I think we’ll stick in the 8-5 range of seeding but if they struggle to blend or the guys brought in to do a specific job don’t get it done we could see a Laker team loaded with HOF, top 75 All Timers, numerous All NBA this or that’s, MVPs, DPOY, ROY and so on have to play in to get to the playoffs.
2. The role-players. There’s no way to sugar coat, the Laker struggle to find the right blend of role-players to slot in around AD and James. Adding Russ only seems to have exacerbated that issue which is just another reason it’s mystifying to me that we let Caruso, who had proven he could fit in on a team like this, walk. Regardless, what we have now is a collection of aged vets and young up and comers with the tilt leaning heavily on the aged-vet side. Gone are the elite role guys we saw in the Bubble like Green, Kuzma, KCP, Caruso, and locker-room stabilizer Jared Dudley. Much has been made out of who has left the building but we really need to figure out how to elevate the guys in it now because help is definitely not on the way. Unless you count G-Leaguers or over-seas vets earning a dime as help. I do not. IT has shown he can still score in addition to showing that he will never be a plus defender on any team in the NBA going forward. His lack of size and steps lost in addition to it never really being a strong aspect of his game means he will struggle. Why we chose IT over James Ennis, a SF, will be yet another mystifying aspect of this season. One that has seen Rob Pelinka consistently choose the older player who requires more of the ball and/or a VERY specific role for said players for them to be most effective. The Laker role-players have struggled a lot this season as they have lacked for exposure as to how our Big Three function which has trickled down to very uneven play across the board.
3. COVID season 2.-uhm…no. The NBA will not be postponing anything unless the Federal government steps in and starts issuing shelter i place edicts or some such. There will be no Bubble playoffs, we will have travel and really the only question is to what degree do the NBPU and the NBA board of governors and owners disagree on vaxx mandates. If we continue to sieve players like we have been and we get what amounts to a replacement league season just without a lockout one has to imagine the topic of mandatory full vaccinations and boosters will at least get floated and looked at. Yes, there will be some hue and cry from the players but ultimately the things that they work for the most: the ability to earn money on the open market, legacies and rings, will win out. Sure, we might lose Kyrie for the season. But the latest tweak to both how replacement players affect the salary cap and the insistence that enough players be signed who can suit up rather than postponing a number of games or shutting down for a short time tells you all you need to know about the League’s stance on another semi-shut down: Hell no.
4. Help on the way? Unlikely. because of injury, COVID, contract rigmarole and poor play in general it’s pretty safe to say the Lakers do not have the assets to swing a big trade that would end up being favorable to them. Frankly, I don’t see a move the Lakers can make won’t amount to essentially admitting this season was a disaster from the start, a PR nightmare I believe the front office is very keen on avoiding. AT this point they have so many baked-in excuses as to why the team has struggled as much as it has (injuries to stars, injuries to young players, injuries to key players, injuries in general, COVID, fake COVID, time needed to gel when no time is available and so on) that it almost makes sense for them to move forward as is and hope for the best. The only tradable contracts are Nunn and THT. Toss in a vet minimum player that couldn’t find a better deal elsewhere to start the season and that’s the package we have to offer. Underwhelming seems a kind term, really. Unless you want to see John Wall or maybe Kemba Walker manning the point you can throw out any and all Russ trades, I don’t care how the trade machine works it out. If Philly was interested it would only be to toss us bad deals in the form of more players added for a Ben Simmons deal and frankly we can’t offer them a pick until almost the next decade unless we involve the draft pick Godfather Sam Presti in OKC. This amounts to gutting the team in mid-January which will also not likely be happening. Is there a team that views Westbrook as the missing piece to a title? Maybe, but it’s a lot more likely that he gets traded this summer if that’s the case when his deal is expiring and the Lakers are over a barrel with cap issues, again. Why help the Lakers now if you know Westbrook can be had this summer as an expiring along with likely coercing Pelinka into tossing in THT anyhow and the 2027 1st rounder when it’s that much closer? SO I don’t see any trade other than something more minor, possibly with the Kings or Pacers, but even those teams can likely get better picks somehow and will covet said asset.
5. Thankfully the western conference is kind of a mess this season. The top 3 spots are locked in between the Warriors, Suns and Jazz. Memphis…without Ja Morant who is back…has started separating themselves from the pack, as well at 19-13. After that it’s a jumble of .500-ish teams with injury or roster issues as bad as ours. SO 5th seems to me to be the highest seeding we can hope for given everything above. TO date our only consistent aspect of the team is it’s inconsistencies. Being slow, small and old is not generally a recipe for success in the NBA and yet that’s the very team we have assembled. That being the case we desperately need Frank and Co. to figure some things out better, especially on defense. We also need lady luck to blow some wind our way on the injury front in the form of a quick recovery for AD, no more COVID games missed, and fewer injuries in general. Also, we need to get Nunn on the floor at some point since he is now the only Laker signed this summer who has yet to play in the regular season.

The Lakers face the Suns, with Book, and I think we’ll be right back at .500 after tonight with a 16-16 record. The Suns are rolling the way the Lakers were after losing to the Celtics way back in ’07 – ’08. Determined. Focused. Good. In all reality we could close out the year on a multi-game losing streak unless we manage to beat Houston or San Antonio. If we kick off 2022 looking up at most of the western conference expect all the hot coaching seat noise, trade rumors and overall malaise around the team to deepen if not get worse. We can do better than that, it’s just nigh-impossible to expect this team to turn the corner given all that ails it at this point.