5 Things: I Sense A Trend

Guess it’s time to start cranking these out. Not going to sugarcoat it, these 5ers will likely follow the same trend I’m already seeing from the Lakers themselves. Defense needs to be on point nightly, need to value possessions, scoring will be difficult if the player isn’t named LeBron James or Anthony Davis. This was an issue anyone could see coming a mile away if you had any experience simply watching basketball. Evidently Rob is just now discovering the value of shooting on a roster that isn’t in the form of a 35+ year old player. Crazy, I know…

1. Team almost. We almost beat the Clippers. Whee. Didn’t realize we’re giving out participation trophies after the 2nd game of the season now. We didn’t and that’s what the record at the end of the season will reflect. If this was OKC it might be newsworthy. We are not. We have perhaps the greatest player of all time who at 37 going on 38 tied for the game high in minutes played at 37 minutes played (fellow Klutch Kancer, er, Klient Lonnie Walker IV also played 37 minutes, unfortunately). That is what is known as unsustainable and unintelligent. Almost gets you nothing.
2. AD’s latest, greatest injury concern. That didn’t take too long. For those on “AD Injury Watch 2022!” your wait is over. AD took a hard fall after biting on a Kawhi Leonard fake, fell over the self-same player, and landed hard on his already balky back. This after yet another off-season of great work put in, healthiest he’s ever felt, blah blah blah. Here’s another one for Team Almost: Anthony Davis is almost healthy, which means he’s not, which means he’s thinking about it, which means he’s compromised on the court. You saw it in the last 25-30 seconds of the game: AD gets the ball on the three point line with the Lakers down 4 and a wide open three in front of him! His play to win the game was to begin a meandering dribble inside the arc that wasted another 8 or 9 seconds but did result in a tough LW4 floater that changed an 8 for 20 night into 9 for 21! Lakers lose. The dude needs to get outta his head but I don’t see that happening.
3. 1-25. Astounding that three players could create such a futile looking stat. Yet here we are. That we…almost…won the game with that stat as a backdrop should be some kind of accomplishment. Russell Westbrook, Kendrick Nunn and Patrick Beverley built themselves a house, 2 car garage and a shed last night. Here’s a prediction: this won’t be the last time we see something like this from the Lakers until the front office finally waves the white flag and admits ineptitude.
4. Speaking of ineptitude. Remember when we traded Zubac for Beasley and Muscala? Yeah, me too. There is a place in the game for centers who do center things like set good screens, hit shots in the paint and (I know this is crazy because I’m not going to type “shoot threes”) rebound. Zublaca did all that and more last night and was absolutely rock solid for the Clippers last night. Solid like someone you can depend on to cover the paint on defense. Solid like he’s fleet of foot enough to hang with AD on the perimeter. Solid like he had as many blocked shots as our whole team. Sometimes you don’t need flash to get it done. Sometimes you just need solid.
5. The construction of this roster is worse than last season. I find it astounding to type but it is true. At least last season we had skill and talent. This year we have youngish. In all the wrong ways. Reaves looks like he’s trying but still doesn’t have the skills, body mass or foundation to defend the kind of NBA players he’ll get switched onto. JTA can’t shoot. Matt Ryan can’t do much else and even that he ain’t elite at. This is the consequence of two choices and neither is the Westbrook trade: when we let Dennis Schroder 1.0 and Alex Caruso walk for no compensation whatsoever we didn’t just lose players we lost cap placeholders that gave the front office more tools to improve the teams. We’ve got two MLE signings, Beverley and three guys making a combined $130 million dollars. The cap this season is $123. You won’t get good value on a Beverley trade. You won’t get enough back in a Russ trade, although you hopefully break that massive sum up into a t least 2 players. None of those things are happening this calendar year.

Buckle up. I expect we’ll have a lot of almost games. Games where we defend stoutly, take care of the ball, and even make our free throws but it won’t be enough because we have a roster full of NBA cast-offs and after thoughts. That ain’t on Russ. That ain’t on AD and his numerous injuries. That ain’t on The King. That’s on Rob and Jeannie.

Go Lakers.