5 THINGS

Folks who have been around the Lakerholics blog and the LA Times Laker blog of yore may remember a cat named Phred. Phred had a whimsical way of posting and would often conclude his thoughts with “it’s all about the love”. Well, if Phred were here (or lurks in the shadows of the blog-o-sphere) he’d be saying something along the lines of “the love is gone. it’s all about the love”. Because, hooooooooooo-boy, that was one bad game and I’m not as willing to blame this one on tired legs as the last.

1. I know I sound like a broken record buuuuut…defense was A.W.O.L. Again. Whether it was Tyler Hero raining down fire from three, offensive rebounds or just a lack of hustle and vigor there wasn’t much resistance put up by the Lakers last night on the defensive end. As a result we got our asses handed to us by 41 points. This is unacceptable. With Vincent we have, in theory, a better POA guard than we had at any time last season. Vando barely played last season and has yet to suit up in this one (an issue I’ll touch on down below). The combination of Dalton Knecht and D’Angelo Russell is even worse defensively than the Reaves/Russell pairing. In general we’re just not showing much heart on that end of the floor. This is where the season will be defined, if we can’t forge a semi-respectable identity on the defensive end, we will be a bad team. It’s really just that simple.
2. If Dalton ain’t shooting he shouldn’t be starting. This isn’t really on Dalton, either. He’s not calling the plays. He’s not bringing the ball up. He’s not the one dictating the action. So, while it’s obvious he’s been scouted and teams are making an effort to deny him the ball, it’s equally obviosu that his presence in the starting five (and his role in general) is predicated on him taking and making a lot of three pointers. If he can’t add another wrinkle to his game (driving thew ball and scoring in the paint/making a play), set solid screens to free other guys when they aggressively cover him, or up his defensive impact he really doesn’t need to start. Again, this isn’t necessarily on all DK to address, the staff has a lot to ponder as we finish the road trip out.
3. DLO coasting. In some ways I get it. No deal, been picking up his options rather than getting what I’m sure he feels he deserves in free agency. Yada yada yada. The thing is, if DLO wants one of those bigger deals he need to stop coasting. Gone is the aggressive player we saw get PO’d after getting benched by Coach Ham last season. Returned is the passive, aimless, drifting combo guard who is increasingly harder and harder to justify his role. Every single stat on the block is down this season and down in a way that represent career lows: minutes, FGA, FGM, 3 PT FG% (the year he got hurt and missed about half the season is his career worst, technically…by .1%), FTA, FTM, rebounds, and blocks. He’s near his career lows in assists but all the lower years are his 1st 2 years in the league. In a season that should be about him earning that next deal, under a coach that was supposed to unlock his game…this is pathetic. I’m sure the Lakers are shopping him, they’d be fools not too. The problem is he’s really expensive contract filler at this point. A contender doesn’t need him, he’s not a rebuild/culture kind of guy, and so here we are. Basically having to pay to trade the dude, at this point. Better to simply let his money expire and start reshaping the roster through free agency unless we can combine him and couple other players into a decent deal (the opposite of the Westbrook deal, hopefully…)
4. Bench was always going to be an issue, more so with Vando and Hayes out. AD can’t do it all and when Russell, Knecht, and Reaves are the starting front court options you lose so much on defense you dig a hole that we evidently can’t get back out of. Reddish needs to start for one of Russel or Knecht when Reaves gets back. If Reaves is out you either need to start Gabe for Russell or Cam for Dalton. LeBron doesn’t have enough juice to give good effort on defense when we’re asking him to basically carry the offense…which we are. With teams switching to a “deny AD the ball in his favorite spots” defense it’s more on LeBron to initiate and make plays as the opposition is happy to watch us shoot from the outside as a first resort. In general the Lakers strengths start inside and trickle out, we’re not an early shot clock three point shooting team…or at least not a very good one. Once we’ve dug a hole, and with Reaves and Hayes out, the bench can’t beat the other teams bench or really even make it competitive. This is why, even though the starting five with Cam and Reaves had an overall net negative rating, the bench got better with DLO, Knecht and Hayes, for the bench to be competitive at this time you need to start Cam or try a G-Leaguer or consider going bigger and start Koloko and bench Rui. None of these feel like good options that move the team forward, though, they all feel like crappy band aids.
5. Trade our way out of this? In theory? Sure. Wait until the 15th when you can include Max Christie in a deal, package Max, DLO, JHS and whatever other dead weight that makes the money work and hope two unprotected 1st rounders and two 1st round pick swaps gets something meaningful done. In reality, we don’t have much anyone wants other than the unprotected 1st rounders, Reaves and Knecht. I don’t know about you but I rarely see meaningful superstars traded for a couple of first rounders, a couple swaps and detritus. In the Lakers case, at least JHS and DLO are expiring money so, in theory, that represents something of a bonus but, again, the reality of NBA trades doesn’t seem to support this happening. Especially for the Lakers. Nobody wants to provide us the spark that elevates us to the next level or out of mediocrity. So, while I don’t think we can move forward as we want to they way we are, I’m not sure we have enough to swing for a player that is A) available, B) actually helps the team, C) we won’t have to overpay for. I get that the idea of winning the trade vs. getting the player that fits is a thing to navigate, I just don’t trust Rob to navigate it well or intelligently. I also expect him to get fired this summer.

One more in Atlanta, who is a giant-killer this season so maybe it’s a trap game for them? I dunno. We got one more epic road trip this season and our road record is abysmal. 60 games left on the schedule, 28 road games. We need to nudge that road record back towards .500 and we need to figure out how to respond to losses better. Dropping 2, 3, 4 games in a row isn’t a great habit to build. Need someone to step up or a miracle trade to fall into our laps. Neither feels likely.

Even though it came at inopportune time, this was a loss in the making before the Utah game. 5 games in 7 days, all with travel, and a T’wolves team motivated by recent struggles and an October loss at Crypto and to right the ship after a recent 5 game losing streak. After carrying the team to victory the night before in Salt Lake City the superstar duo of James & Davis needed a team pick me up to make this one competitive. They didn’t get one.

1. 7-30, 0-6 from three. That was the combined scoring output from ADS and LBJ. They did go 6-8 from the stripe. Some of that was the stellar defense the Timberwolves deployed but just as much I blame weary legs, especially in LeBron’s case. None of his jump shots looked good, nothing is smooth and it’s affecting his passing game as he’s not getting to the angle but he makes the pass anyway because his brain is telling him to make the pass. In his last 6 games he’s averaging 5 TO’s/contest. He’s 0-19 on three pointers since Phoenix which has driven his 3pt FG% down to 34.5. AD isn’t as affected but you can tell he’s tyired because he’s been taking a lot more step back mid range jump shots on the road trip. He’s not getting any friendly whistles but you can’t let that dictate how you play. AD and the Lakers are at their best when he’s applying pressure in the paint and delivering body blows.
2. Dalton Knecht and his feast or famine stretch. The last 5 games has seen a lot of variance in Dalton’s contributions. He’s either over 40% from three or under/at 25% for a 32% average. Some of this is simply his home/road splits (50% three point shooter at home, 31.6% on the road) but I think some of it is also that he’s now on the scouting report and there’s a tactic being deployed. They’re forcing him to either shoot an extremely contested shot or put it on the deck and make a play. He’s not getting 4-5 clean catch and shoot attempts/night, he’s getting 2 or 3. Even those are coming with more pressure to perform now that he’s starting, facing the better defenders and coaches are forcing him to tweak his game. He needs to figure out a wrinkle to keep his hot shooting, our winning, and his ROY hopes going.
3. Could have seen more DLO. The last few games have seen Russell begin to emerge from his long summer’s nap and play better. He and Hachimura really carried the Lakers for long stretches to help keep the game in striking distance until midway through the 3rd when it was obvious they weren’t going to be getting any help from anyone else. I’m not saying another 4-5 minutes would have swung the game but when the end was still in question did we really need to see so much Vincent and/or Christie? For all the hype and words spouted over how JJ Reddick was going to help DLO unlock his best self I really haven’t even see it. Reddick has basically done the same thing Coach Ham did: express a modicum of preseason confidence, give him a nebulous role of spacer, and then bench him when he doesn’t carve out anything besides drifting around the three point line.
4. Stick a fork in Gabe Vincent. Dude is done. Followed his best Lakers game up with a really bad effort on both ends highlighted by several silly fouls. We need a lot more from Gabe Vincent and I don’t think he has it in him.
5. Every single Laker who could play did play and all but Cam Reddish (11 minutes) and Gabe Vincent (22 minutes of not doing much) had at least 1 turnover and every starter but DK had at least 2 highlighted by The King’s 6. We gave up 26 points off turnovers, a lot of those showing up in the Fastbreak points stat line (20). Some of this just sloppy play by the players, some of it is tired LBJ and some of it is we’re not really running plays anymore. Not like we did in the first couple weeks. Same goes for what defense we muster these days, the first 6 or so games saw a much more physical Lakers defense that had transition issues but still played hard. Those days are now gone, evidently, as we are soft all over.

Two more games to go on the road trip of which we are 2-3 and we’ve lost 3 of our last 10. The younger guys need to pick it up more than a little because I don’t think there’s another gear either AD or LBJ can find, they’re maxed out for the regular season. Staff needs to really re-think whatever defensive scheme they think we’re running: it isn’t working at all. Don’t change these two things and watch us continue our long, slow slide into mediocrity. Guys who think they deserve more of a role need to start proving it and not just by hitting a three every game or so, they need to defend and play at a hard, high level.

The world of sport is funny, so much is made of nuanced stats and metrics. Graphs and formulas for how you can win populate blogs and websites. “Experts” blab on and on about how analytics has changed sports forever. I don’t buy it. Why? Because when you look at who won and how it usually comes down to something basic that didn’t get done. A foundational aspect of winning that came up short. In the case of the lakers last night it was 2 things: rebounds (or lack of them) and missing free throws in the clutch. Simple.

1. Give credit where credit is due. The physicality and tenacity the Orlando Magic play at gave the Lakers fits all night long. Much whiny and moaning to the refs who let a rough, and consistent, game play out over the course of the evening. The Magic get up into you. They drape, they get handsy and we never adjusted or played up to it. Look no further than the rebound category to see where the threads of the win began to unravel. The Magic pulled down 12 more boards than we did (48-36) and grabbed 6 more offensive rebounds (15). While that led to only 15 second chance points it helped stymie or fastbreak and allowed Orlando to win the possession battle on the road.
2. Off game for the offense. The ball movement and flow last night was decidedly lacking. We average nearly 27 assists/game and last night, even though we got 21 dimes, the normal flow we’ve become accustomed to was AWOL. A lot of this was due to the physical pressure applied by Orlando. But it also had to do with guys like DLO passing up open shots in favor of relocating and then forcing up a bad shot, instead. The Lakers offense is predicated on player movement and when it’s flowing it works great. Too much standing around last night led to a stagnant flow and helped contribute to the loss.
3. Missing free throws. Look…it’s gonna happen and it happens to every team. There will always be a handful of games you look back on every season and say “should, woulda, coulda”. This and the Phoenix game top my list currently. Both were games where we had cont5rol and simply let it slip through our fingers. Missing 4 out of 6 free throws down the stretch, along with not forcing Wagner off the three point line, are the main culprits in this one. Wipe slate, move on.
4. Should have gone with Cam over DLO down the stretch. Called a big game for Russell last night…that is still MIA. Dude hasn’t scored 20 points in a game this season. I know he’s distributing the ball OK, had 6 dimes last night, but he’s a net negative defender and that’s not going to change. When he passes up open threes, like he did last night, it makes him playing really hard to justify. Cam was doing a better job than Reaves who inexplicably seemed to get matched up on Wagner a lot in the second half. When Wagner got hot and we finally went back to Reddish in the waning minutes it was too little too late. Bad decision by JJ on this one, I understand the desire to see DLO get on track but the west is to tight to let one guy beat us. Not sure why we didn’t put AD on him, either. Curious choices and some of that has to do with the switching scheme which my personal jury is still out on. It works when we’re physical like the Magic were but when you play willowy it opens up wide open threes and driving lanes.
5. Offense is not the problem. In a game where, even without good ball movement, you shoot 50.6% from the field and 41.9% from three while keeping the turnovers reasonable you ought to win. The free throws (65.4%) were a big part but the defense just isn’t rising to the occasion. We play good D in bursts but it doesn’t seem to be as much of a focus as it will eventually need to be. Our physicality comes and goes, we don’t rebound well, and our transition D continues to be a major weakness. If this doesn’t get addressed soon it will only become a larger issue.

While we’re still in the “too early to form a concrete opinion” stage of the season, there are some trends in the Lakers play we can identify and analyze. Ball movement, offensive flow: good. Defensive intensity and rebounding: mediocre, especially on the break where it gets downright bad. Let’s take a look at some of the ways the Lakers could maybe start to improve on the solid early-season foundation they’ve put down.

1. Getting buckets. As of this post the Lakers are the #4 ranked offense based on overall offensive rating. In the NBA, “offensive rating” refers to a statistic that measures how many points a team scores per 100 possessions, essentially representing their offensive efficiency over the course of a game; a higher offensive rating indicates a more potent offense. The shot profile is balanced, we’re #11 in Assist % (which is pretty solid considering we have 2 elite iso players in AD and LeBron), and we’re improving our assist to turnover ratio by the game (we currently sit at #5) which means we’re maximizing our possessions by not coughing it up but still using the pass effectively, and we’re not addicted to three point shooting nor are we treating it like a toxic asset. We’re #8 in points in the paint which we should be considering that our 2 best players rely on paint points. We’re #9 in scoring in transition. We’re right in my personal sweet spot for three point FGAs at 33.6 and improving on our accuracy from the beginning of the season at 37.4% (making 12.6). In short, when we lose, offense isn’t the problem.
2. Getting stops. This isn’t quite as rosy of a picture but the good thing is some of this is very fixable. Our net defensive rating (how many points we give up/100 possessions) is bad, we’re 25th in the league and that’s with AD playing at a high level. Most of that stat was based on the first iteration of the starting five which included D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves in the back court. I’d be curious to see what that number looks like with another 5-10 games of Cam Reddish starting in DLO’s place. Swapping Cam for DLO in the starting five has brought balance to both the bench and starting units, balance we sorely need if we want to get to at least middle of the pack defensively. Cam has been ultra solid on D and taken the open shots that come his way on offense without pressing. Early on, when we were a top 5 or so turnover team, we were giving up a lot more fastbreak points and points off of turnovers. We’ve cleaned up the points of TO’s…but we’re second to last in giving up points on the break. In some ways that’s a little more worrisome as it means teams are just running at us and we’re not adjusting very well off of makes or misses. The good thing is we can work on that as a team and get better on getting back. LeBron will not be a part of that effort and, based on his age and usage, this may be the biggest concern for the regular season. Come playoff time, when the game slows down, I expect this to matter a little less. Depending on matchups.
3. The Knecht Effect. After starting the first 8 or 9 games slowly DK4 has come on like gangbusters and is shooting lights out (last night was awesome against the Jazz). Inserting him into the starting 5 along with Cam has led to some of our best basketball and really opens up the door to a debate about if Rui should go back to starting once he’s available. I think the sample size is too small, it’s early in the season and DK hasn’t really been scouted, yet, so there’s still a lot of unknown factors but it’s certainly a conversation worth having. Starting DK (a rookie) would normally come with some defensive ability questions but, while he won’t be in any kind of NBA All Defense convos he can hold his own because he moves his feet rather than reaches. That in and of itself is huge. Add that a willingness to crash the glass at least as much as Rui does and you have a pretty nice problem for the coaches to unravel. I think that DK is probably the better shooter in that his release is quicker and he’s not shy about putting it up but both are efficient and you get a better iso/post player in Hachimura. Ideally a 2nd unit of Hachimura and DLO would be the way to go as that opens up a lot of options to run through both those guys whose overall skill sets are wasted a little bit as starters with our current roster composition. Both DLO and Rui can get their own shots in a variety of ways, strengths that augment the team more if Cam (or possibly Vando when he’s ready) and DK4 can serve as role-players in the starting five. The fact that Dalton has made this into a conversation is awesome.
4. The factor that affects everything and every team: injuries. With Wood, Hayes, Rui and Vando out one would expect the lakers to be at a disadvantage. Instead we’ve gone on a 6 game winning streak since our disastrous road trip. Getting those guys back is important and will ultimately make the Lakers better. Since they’re out it’s opened the door for more playing time and a starting spot for Cam and DK4 which has been a revelation on both ends of the court for the reasons above and also opened up some PT for Koloko. I like his energy and he competes well but there’s no denying this guy is both raw and rusty. I don’t need him to shoot threes, either, get good at the three things you need to be good at: rim protection, rebounding and screening. Do those well and you open a lot of doors for the team and us to feel more confident about potentially trading Hayes at some point. Other than that it’s been nice to see LBJ playing in every game so far and to see AD managing his five falls/game and eye injury well.
5. Wish the Emirates Cup was a little later in the season. We’re undefeated in Cup games dating back to it’s inception. Need more of ’em lol.