5 Things: Bucks go off as Lakers implode

We saw what a champion looks like last night. Problem is wears a different uniform and hails from Wisconsin. The Lakers folded early, tried to make a game of it late, but never seriously challenged the Bucks after the first couple minutes of the game. Small issues have ballooned into large ones, issues that were large to start have become colossal and there is plenty of blame to go around. But you know all that already.

1. The Bucks game. Honestly, not one good thing to say. Nobody played the entire game with the right energy or focus required to win in pro sport. It’s unacceptable. Frank lost the team weeks ago, LeBron looks ready to sign elsewhere and AD has no clue what to do because he’s such a nice dude. Nothing is working right now. Reasons: too many to list in five things. We all know what they are, anyhow, they’ve been the same all season long. Just now teams who have something to play for are playing harder than us, young teams looking to prove themselves have played harder than us all season. Nothing is given, it must be taken.
2. The Three Superstar Philosophy. In my opinion it doesn’t work. Not when all three are max salaried players. It’s not like Miami where everyone took less to fit under the cap and Miami had a ton of home-grown talent they could sign over the tax. We lost all of those tools via trade or stupidity. Oh, except future All-Star and current Bust (depending on the day) Talen Horton-Tucker. We kept him. Thank Klutch for that… Three max salaried players simply occupies too many resources to field a proper contender. You sacrifice too much team. Takes a team to win. Since we are too cheap to go deep into the luxury tax we need to build a better team around 2 super stars. You know, like how we did when we won the title?
3. The state of the team. Between the Rambii leaking that Vogel could be replaced, Rob handing the reigns of the franchise over to LeBron and AD and ownership looking cheaper and cheaper it’s time for Jeannie to clean house this summer. Sure, we might make the playin. Heck, if things break right we might even push as high as a 6th seed (we won’t). Regardless it’s become quite plain to me that the principles and standards guiding the Lakers are no in alignment with championship level basketball. James chose us, Klutch forced AD here, the best thing Rob ever did was (build a functioning team around AD and LBJ, for some reason, broken up right after it worked. The Bucks know what they’re doing. We do not.
4. The Fans. Much has been made of the booing of Russ and the team in general. To me that’s as much a symptom of the current reality (where the cost of things ever increases but the money most people make stays the same) as displeasure. The real thing I think fans are booing is energy, or lack thereof. As a team the Lakers energy hasn’t been right al;l season long. That takes a toll on the passionate Laker fan base and it’s showing. So, for my part, I think this has been a slow burn up to this moment and not that all of a sudden the fans are angry. We’ve stunk all season long.
5. How to fix it all? Nobody will like this answer but I say wait until the summer. Don’t double-down on dumb and trade Westbrook for Wall. It fixes nothing, absolutely nothing. It just means you have an expensive, broken down player signed for even longer on an even more untradeable contract. That’s it. Solutions don’t look like that, they don’t increase the length of the problem. They make it go away or resolve it internally. If you can break Russ’s deal into a few players, or someone who’s contract expires this summer now you’re talking about a real solution. Wall is not the answer.

We’ll probably win against Portland since it’s A) on the road and B) Portland. Thursday will pass without any deals being made in my opinion. I don’t even know if I hope I’m wrong to tell the truth. I’d rather ride out what’s left of a bad season, find a deal that actually improves the team, or even somehow convince Russ to accept a buyout or not to pick up his extension than bring a player in just as expensive but who hasn’t played in over a year. I see that as about the worst idea possible, worse than trading for Ben Simmons (which I am still opposed to). We made a mistake, yes. The way we fix that isn’t making a bad trade, again.