5 THINGS

I have been saying that before. Having AD and Russ figure out things while LeBron waits is the first step in developing a synergy among the three of them. So LeBron out for some time might help in a big way while it hurts. Chemistry takes different forms to materialize.

The Trailblazer’s game was garbage. Terrible effort on every front, got played off the floor by the better team and the biggest issue is this is happening when we face what are considered to be bottom-feeding teams. The Lakers have an age problem in that we are an old team. Our superstars are old, our role-players are old and all but 1 of the young guys signed over the summer and a rookie are injured. On top of that we are counting on guys who put their bodies through a lot just to feel healthy. As soon as they get dinged up a little, it seems to mean they get dinged up a lot. Pro sports are a younger person’s affair, for the most part, and this ain’t golf or baseball.

1. LeBron’s injury-riddled time in Los Angeles. However you care to quantify this it’s becoming an unavoidable topic of debate: LeBron is getting older and it’s showing in his shot selection and his availability. LA got vintage LeBron, a finely aged player still capable of putting up quality performances. Then came the groin injury and a mostly lost season. 2019 will always be looked at through the lens of LeBron turning back the clock in the playoffs and helping bring banner 17 to the rafters. However, that also has to come with a big “But” in the form of a 3 month break midseason as planet Earth grappled with COVID-19. Then came the following season where LeBron was playing at a high level, again. Until Solomon Hill accidentally took him out with a high ankle sprain. Since his, at times shaky, return from that injury one thing has stood out: LeBron now shoots a lot of threes. Now he’s out with another ankle injury, one that some say could take as long as a month to heal. At 36, with the mileage that body has accumulated, it makes sense for the Lakers to be as cautious as they can afford to be given the impact James’ health has on our title chances.
2. Anthony Davis aka The Man Who Falls Down A Lot. I love AD and the way he plays the game. He really does play in the style of a throwback power forward a la Bob McAdoo but with better range (“Doo” would have been a beast in the modern game, btw). If you listen to Bill & Stu on the Spectrum broadcasts you’ll there’s a running joke about AD hitting the floor and how many times he picks himself up off of it. It will not surprise me if, at some point, we see AD attempt a FG from said floor. The dude is elite, no doubt, but he also gets nicked up easier and quicker than a lot of other elite players. I’m not questioning his heart, the world of pro sport is littered with guys who had the talent and the heart but their bodies simply did not cooperate for them to have the kind of careers many expected. AD, like LeBron, benefitted greatly from the COVID time off when he turned in a playoff performance for the ages. That is not something that will be replicated and so the question facing him now is: can you do it within the confines of a true, 82 game NBA season? I believe he can. I am of the opinion that, if the roster is relatively healthy and LeBron is at something like 80% we can win a 7 game series against any other team, east or west. That will depend, as it always does, on a modicum of luck. But good health, especially to your superstars, is a must for any team that wants to do more than place SHOW.
3. The Russell Westbrook puzzle. I’m not too proud to admit that I might have been wrong. That Mr. Sean Grice and Mr. Gerald Glassford may have been correct when they said that Russ was not a good fit on the Lakers. I still believe they will all figure out some way to make it work, though that way has certainly not yet been discovered. Westbrook had a golden opportunity against Portland to impose his will on the game. Instead he turned in the worst performance I have personally seen from him, ever. Toss in that the bench we normally deploy gave us nada and the route we all yearn to forget went down. It’s almost impossible for me to conceive a world where the Lakers entertain trading Russell Westbrook, it feels like it would take Dame specifically telling Portland “trade me to the Lakers” and that Russ would be the one to swap. We would also have to still be at, or below, .500 for that to happen. I just can’t see that happening…yet. Even I, of the realistic and pragmatic approach (as opposed to those with glasses of rose), really have a hard time seeing what lead the Lakers to such a dismal conclusion to the Russell Westbrook as a Laker saga. But it is starting to take shape in my mind, which is not a good thing. Because if I can kinda see it now then there are people within the Laker organization that saw back in the summer and likely submitted a memo or bent Rob’s ear for a hot minute only to be over-ruled. I still believe that the Lakers, as constructed now, have enough to win a banner. They suffer from Brooklyn-itis right now: too many pieces that have specific needs that really haven’t played together much. If we can cure that, we got a great chance.
4. The rest of the team. It is certainly no secret that, as a result of having three max contracts on the books, the rest of the roster is essentially filler. Composed of a lot of aged vets on minimum deals, Malik Monk on a minimum deal, Nunn for the MLE and THT on his extension with a dash of “hey look at Austin Reaves go!” that’s the Laker bench. This is another area where the age of the roster is an obstacle to overcome, especially in the regular season. All of the guys we play in support roles with either the starting five or off the bench are over 30 except for Monk and Reaves since both THT and Nunn have been out since camp. Carmelo is going to come and go, but like any aged gunslinger he’s only good until the bullets run dry in any one gunfight. Dwight hasn’t been able to recreate his 2.0 Laker magic, DeAndre Jordan looks as washed up as he did at the end of his tenure with the Clippers, Ariza has been hurt and Bazemore and Bradley are decent support, at best. There is no young blood who has the skill and talent to impact the game in a winning way that i available. To be honest, I don’t really see that in him, to begin with. Whatever the impact they can make, we need some of the younger guys to get back competing and see what they can do to help turn this around.
5. All things filter from the top down. Rob built this team. Yes, it was with a nod of acquiescence from AD and LBJ but it was his hand that put it together. It’s now Frank’s team to coach. I wondered before camp if Frank had the gravity and voice in order to bring these disparate identities, skill sets and egos into a cohesive force that could consistently win basketball games. I still have many, many doubts in this regard. It’s not Frank’s fault that he was given a roster of either old guys who have defensive reps or young guys who do not but that is in essence the team he was provided with this season. His rep as a defensive coach has been put to what I would imagine is the biggest test it has faced, yet. The Lakers suffered a pretty significant brain drain on the coaching staff, the team is not built for the style the coach likes to play, and many of the key pieces have yet to play significant minutes with each other. In an of themselves, none of these are enough to sink a team’s season. Taken as a whole and at at the same time and this looks more and more like an iceberg in the ocean…waiting…waiting…

I still believe we can overcome all of the above. The question is when more than if. This team was always built with the playoffs in mind, even with Westbrook. While not as much as in the past there is generally more time between games, you’re facing the same team and we got guys who know how to perform under pressure of all kinds. I don’t think too many teams will be trying to position themselves to face the Lakers in the playoffs, so long as we’re relatively healthy. Time, however, is a major factor. We want to be assured of a seeding, not fight for a play in. We want to make what we have work as is, not add more time to what is already a lengthy process of discovering fit, building chemistry and figuring things out. We want the coach we have to do his job right and stick around for awhile because Frank’s a funny guy, helped us win a banner, and if you bring in another coach (even one off the bench) you’re still going to have to re-adjust on the fly. None of that is desirable. So, in the interest of title #18 here’s hoping this group can push through this time of difficulty and figure out a way to win now. Go Lakers.

Michael’s comment about good Russ and bad Russ kind of encapsulates this Lakers team. Good Melo, Bad Melo. Good LeBron, Bad LeBron. Good AD, Bad AD. Good Baze, Bad Baze. Good Reaves, Bad Reaves. Good Vogel, Bad Vogel.

Or maybe it’s just early in the season and players haven’t had a chance to develop rapport or chemistry because of all of the crazy lineups due to injuries and inconsistent play. After all, we did have 11 new players and right now are missing three of our five highest paid players who are out with injuries.

Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct answer.

Well that felt like it was closer than it needed to be. A lot of extraordinary things happened in last night’s game but perhaps the most was the fact that the refs decided to just lose 2 points the Lakers had as a result of their terrible officiating. In the end it didn’t mater (barely) and the Lakers came away with the W. More important to me is that after holding a Houston team to 85 points that exact same team blew up for 116. Defense is still a work in progress.

1. The Legend of the Missing Points. So the refs made a mistake. Cool, it happens. The way they “fixed” that mistake was absurd. To simply remove those points from the board doesn’t fix a damned thing it only penalizes the Lakers in the form of a lost possession for something they didn’t do. This needs to be addressed by the NBA on down the line but at the end of the day it is not a team’s fault, nor should they be essentially punished for, an officiating error. Players don’t get do-overs. Coaches don’t get do-overs. Officials shouldn’t either. A cooler, in-house way of dealing with that would have been to tell coach Silas about the error and let him know there would be some gift free throws coming his way. but to take away the points, and thus the possession which nobody can say how it would have worked out, is just plain wrong. NBA refs have a tough job, agreed, but they still need to do it well and they are not handling much of anything very well at this stage in the season.
2. In reality, those two points shouldn’t have mattered, The Laker defense was by far the uglier issue fromm last night’s win than the blown officiating. We almost let the young Rockets run us off the floor, with some transition buckets off our own made baskets and with some terrible three point close outs. Credit the Rockets for a bevvy of adjustments but also you have to worry about a defense that is still giving up a ton of points. The issue is the bench and centers not named Anthony Davis. However, since the roster is essentially minimum contracts, the onus is on Frank to make it work. The man has his work cut out for him. Getting some guys back in the next couple weeks should help as well as more film sessions but at the end of the day defense is a heart and hustle stat and the Lakers as a team need to show a little more and rely on talent and past accolades a little less.
3. Best game by the trio to date. This game did give us one particularly awesome highlight: solid games by Russ, LBJ and AD. They all scored 27 or more points, as a trio they only turned the ball over 11 times (considering what it’s been in some games this is a vast improvement and one that I hope continues) and chipped in 22 rebounds, 20 assists, 5 steals and 3 blocks (AD handled the blocking all on his own). That is gonna work more often than not to bring home a W. The rest of the team only scored 35 points so the balance between the Trio and The Others is still a work in progress but give me solid games from those 3 every night and we’ll have a chance to win. Nice to see them gelling.
4. The Lakers three point shooting. I’m sure it’s no secret that I don’t have a strong belief in the power of the almighty three in the modern game. It’s an unreliable scoring mechanism unless you have the following: elite shooters at multiple positions, a well-integrated offensive system that enables and maximizes those specific shooters, and the will to let it fly in the face of absurdity. We have had decent three point shooters on this roster for years. Be it Danny Green, Wes Matthews, Wayne Ellington, or whome-ever the Lakers have brought in they, to a man, seem to regress here in LA. That is, in my opinion, because of points 2 and 3. Much was made of the new offense Frank installed but on the court, in reality, I’m not really seeing much of a difference. We come down, guys screen, the ball moves from strong to weak (often with an ill-advised cross court pass) sometimes we dump it into AD at the post, sometimes Russ asks for a screen, sometimes LeBron does LeBron things. Really, to me, it looks very much like the same offense we run which is to say a pedestrian one at best. 5 out sets could be the answer, I suppose, but the team has to commit to running them and they don’t seem to be. But the real issue is point three: let it fly in the face of absurdity. This isn’t just from the coach but it definitely starts there. Mike D’Antoni, I’m sure, talks about defense when he’s coaching. I’m sure he spends just as much, if not more, time talking about how if you see daylight you shoot. That you will never be taken out of the game for missing a three, that there are no bad shots, and he drills that into your head. I don’t think Frank is that kind of coach, at least not on offense. I’m sure he drills defensive terms and conspets in a similar fashion and then, of course, talks about how it would be great to shoot the open shot. But not in the face of absurdity, he wants the quality shots, the good looks and not the “I’M FEELING IT MAN!!!!” shots. In truth there is but one, maybe 2, Lakers who are possessed of the correct shooters mentality and that is Carmello Anthony and maybe (we’ll see) Wayne Ellington. Hence the 6-25 from three because that wasn’t great Rockets defense, just bad shooting on our part and a lot of that comes from within.
5. The Kent Bazemore effect. While I’m not sure that Avery Bradley as a starter is set in stone I feel like Kent Bazemore has etched his name into the Stone of Lakers Starters for the season or until something displaces him. The dude has been beyond solid on D, takes and makes the shots that are created for him and flat out plays the game the way you want to see when sharing the court with multiple HOFers. I don’t think Kent has had a single “Wow, look at Bazemroe go off!” but rather has been the model of stability and even-keeled contributions. That low level of variance in his play is a huge factor in my wanting him to stay a starter. Melo has all the tools and all the credentials but a lot of his impact relies solely on his shot falling. That can’t be counted on every night. Bradley has a lot of the tools but is on the small side and we have a PG in Westbrook and a need for a better-defending playmaker off the bench to keep Rondo on ice until the playoffs. Monk is just too inconsistent on both ends. I’ll be surprised if Frank sticks with AD at the 5 but we’ll see soon enough, still i think it likely that both the matchup provided by Houston and the injury to Dwight are what’s pressed Vogel to this point, I suppose the only thing we can collectively hope for is that he likes what he sees so much that he lets it roll for a few games. Bottom line for me is, even when Nunn and THT and Ellington come back (and eventually Ariza but I’m thinking we want to keep him on little bit of ice until the playoffs, as well), I think we need Kent on the floor to start games. Maybe someone comes on like gangbusters and changes this equation but nothing I saw in camp, which was admittedly limited because of injuries, makes me think his fit isn’t nigh perfect for the style of basketball we want to play.

2 wins against a team we ought to beat. Good enough to keep me pleased if not ecstatic or willing to declare this team anything but one that is slowly improving. if we can improve while we win, so much the better . Seeing the Trio thrive the way they did last night was awesome, more of that please but with better contributions from the bench. Go Lakers.

Before anyone tells me about how the Rockets are in rebuilding mode I’m gonna say it doesn’t matter. That’s an NBA team with potential All Stars, solid young pieces and a good coach. They are, in short, an NBA team. Just as the loss to OKC was an indictment against the veteran team, keeping the pressure on a young team shows the kind of poise one should expect from this version of the Lakers. In what is quickly becoming an improbable theme: Carmelo Anthony led the way.

1. Settling for the team you are or becoming the team you are destined to be? In some ways this was a game that was going to define the early-season Lakers. Lose and suddenly you can’t say the loss to OKC was a fluke but rather the beginning of a trend. Win and you can start to build some early season momentum, which has certainly been lacking up to this point. I doubt anyone expected the Lakers to come into this contest at .500 and needing to prove that they can beat a team like Houston with defense and not just watching the points crank upwards and hoping we end the game with more. But in many ways this game was as must-win of an early season as there could be for a team loaded with banner aspirations and with the caliber of talent and vets. The Lakers did right by their expectations and themselves with perhaps their most complete defensive effort to date by holding Houston to a mere 85 points.
2. Adjusting to the new rules and how the refs and each crew interprets them. It’s far too easy to lay the blame of a bad game or bad stretch at the feet of the referees, it’s why I really go out of my way to explicitly not do that. But this getting absurd. I’m fairly certain this is the 7th straight game where we haven’t shot anywhere near the number of free throws as the opposition and it’s not because we’re a jump-shooting team. Nor are we a team populated with drifters, leg-kickers, sideways jumpers or any of the other clues the league is trying to crack down and limit. So…what gives? LeBron gets hit across the head on a layup? Nothing. Ad gets hit on his way into the paint and across the arms on his shots? Nothing. Russ gets mugged driving the ball? Nothing. This one of those things that one would imagine would balance out over time but it’s definitely affected more than one game in this young season and it’s hard to see how it’s based on reputations.
3. AD started at the 5! Likely this was due to the injury to Dwight Howard (stiff neck) but it still happened and it definitely helped set a more intense defensive tone early and made it easier to keep that vibe going through out. Adding Avery Bradley to that starting group helped as well in that it gave the team a legit ball hawk to start the game off. I really hope Frank sticks with this line up moving forward. It takes pressure off of Russ and LeBron to make every play happen, gives us plus defenders in the paint and the perimeter and AB can score when called upon. Add in Bazemore or Ariza (when he’s healthy) and that’s a solid defensive line up that can also score in a variety of ways. It just sets us up to play the brand of basketball we want to see from the jump and, unless the play of Dwight or DeAndre warrants it, I don’t see why we should go back.
4. Valuing possessions. One really easy way to keep the lid on a young team is to value the ball and make the most of every possession. With only 14 turnovers the Lakers did just that which is good because it seemed like every time we coughed the rock up Houston went down and scored to the tune of 32 points off of turnovers which helped get them back into the game. The Lakers used their own defense to force 27 turnovers and stymie the run of the Rockets even if we couldn’t pull away like one would like to see.
5. Carmelo Anthony 6th man of the year. Let it begin now: Melo should definitely be in the running for the 6th man of the year award if he continues to play at this level. For the season AD is leading the way with 179 points, Russ is behind him at 128 and LeBron and Melo are neck and neck with 119 and 117, respectively. This is the 2nd time Anthony has led the team in scoring off the bench and often in fewer than 30 minutes. He’s shooting a blistering 52.2% from three and 50% flat from the floor. He’s playing decent D for Melo and he’s fitting in perfectly. He also blocked 4 shots tying a career high. While it’s likely Carmelo cools off eventually and has a down game or stretch of games it is quite enjoyable watching him hoop. Love Melo as a Laker and I’m just gonna keep right on saying that.

Lakers should win on Tuesday but they have to beware of the trap-like nature of this game: we just beat the Rockets, they’re young and scrappy and we still have a lot of room for improvement. Shave off some of that room by coming out and dominating the Rockets for a full 48 and win going away. Go Lakers.