It’s funny to me how much blame has been laid at the feet of the new starting five which has played 18 total NBA game minutes…spread out over two games…and has a positive net rating of 1.6. The coach is even blaming them so we can now add that to his ever-growing list of excuses and deflections when the simple fact of the matter is it’s a lot of factors.
I think they went with five out sets early on because they wanted to activate the best version of DLo possible. My theory is that they envisioned him being able to take a good chunk of scoring and playmaking off LBJ’s shoulders. It’s not happening. Demoting Reaves made sense, he and DLo’s skills are duplicative. Now they’re doubling down in dumb by bringing them both off the bench and relegating their 3rd highest paid player to an after-thought which is decidedly not the best way to activate the best version of him. To Russell’s credit he’s handling it like a pro.
Whats become plain as day to me is that the 5 out sets are not working as hoped. We lack the shooter’s to make it effective and a downhill guard (other than LeBron whom we’re trying to save himself from) who can generate a collapse that creates a positive offense. This isn’t lineup based, it’s coaching.
Luckily there’s still one guy they can still try coming off the bench and you can’t really hurt his trade value: Taurean Prince. His MPG are high (31/game) but his impact is low. Swap he and either Reaves or DLo as the “shooting guard”.
Another thing we have yet to see once is the starting five that jump started us last season: Russell, Reaves, Vando, LBJ and AD. The issue with that lineup being we no longer have a back up PG or shooting guard, not really. Sure we can slot Cam into a backup SG role but it’s not his natural fit.
Since we lost Vincent and Christie has proved too under-developed and JHS is out/ineffective we have a glaring need for another guard who can impact the game.
Those aren’t lineup issues, Those are coaching and GM deficiencies and we all said as much before camp. We all posted/commented that we were weak in the guard dept. and over compensated with too many bugs for the sake of AD’s…whatever. This can still be fixed but it requires the right people (the coach and the GM) to recognize the root of the problem: themselves.
The Lakers world is a giant mess and LakerTom and Jamie Sweet seem to be agreeing on almost everything. That could be a major red flag for everybody. LOL.
Every summer we see a group of new Lakers and hope for the best but usually end up with exactly what we have now: some great, questionable, and terrible additions.
Reddish has been a huge positive to me. Grudgingly, I now include Prince in same regard. Disappointments include Wood, Hayes, Christie, and to some extent Reaves and Rui.
Part of it is just players being players and some of it is Pelinka and Ham making right or wrong decisions on personnel.
The bad news is some of it should have been avoidable.
The good news is that all of it is fixable.