5 THINGS

The Lakers are a team forever on, at a minimum, low heat. Even the dudes who wipe the sweat off the court are under a microscope when you’re a part of the Lakers organization. So the heat will only get hotter for this team as they come home after a fairly disastrous road trip. All but gone are the good vibes from the 3-0 start and replacing them are injury concerns and mediocre effort from guys we expect more out of. The Lakers trudge home 4-4, 10th in the west, and with a lot more questions than answers.

1. Laker defense blows. At 28th in the NBA with a 118.8 defensive rating the only way to describe the Lakers defense is dreadful. That’s a whole 4 points worse than we finished last season under Coach Ham. With the same team one would expect at least some form of continuity on that end but that doesn’t seem to be the case. We’re not getting back, we played physically for all of 3 games, and then just started letting the other team get into the paint and bully us on the glass. Our defensive rebounding has taken a 3.7% step back, as well. Whatever the coaches are trying to do isn’t working and I don’t think a trade or Vando coming back is enough. The team needs to either fix the physicality issue or change it’s coverage schemes because the blueprint to beat us is pretty simple: play fast. We’re in the bottom five for most measurable defensive metrics. That’s just not anywhere near good enough.
2. The offense looks solid through 8 games and I expect it to improve slightly in efficiency. This isn’t the area where the lakers are struggling. Our offense is currently the 8th best. Continuity on this end hasn’t been a huge problem, we’re scoring smart and we’re scoring well. We just can’t get a stop anymore. The only area that could stand to get cleaned up a little are the turnovers where we’re probably trying to force things too much or short cut the play in favor of a riskier cross court pass.
3. Leave Knecht on the bench. I knew as soon as I saw Rui out this would pave the way for a poor decision: starting Dalton Knecht. The dude is playing pretty well off the bench and has a nice role he’s already carved out. Give him the time to get better at that and start a guy like Cam to infuse the starting lineup with the correct kind of juice. Cam played really well in his minutes and happens to be playing for his NBA life. He was a spark plug for us last season and Coach Reddick has been pining for one of those energy guys while simultaneously ignoring the one he has that’s healthy and ready to play.
4. Enough with this 9 man rotation. Both the coaches and the players need more time. You’re not doing yourself a single favor by essentially benching 1/5th of your roster so you can play who you think are the 9 best. You’re 4-4 with no clear path back to consistently winning, the first month of the regular season is glorified training camp where the games matter, this is still an apropos time to be discovering combinations that work and a rotation doesn’t have to be set in November. It needs to have an idea of what it is by 2025, it needs to be comfortable with one another by January and if it’s not working it needs to be changed as best it can via trade in February. Lastly, there are 4…maybe 5…total players who deserve to be in a 9 man rotation. The rest are role players so use this time now to figure out which ones augment those intelligent 2 man pairings based off LeBron/Reaves and AD/DLO.
5. Letting the wrong players leave. Under Rob Pelinka, and numerous coaches, we’ve let the wrong players leave the organization far too often. I’m not talking about how we draft, although prior to Knecht that, too, left a lot to be desired, but rather what we do with the players we actually have and why we choose to let some of them walk for no reason. Alex Caruso left so we could keep THT who has almost bottomed out of the league while Caruso plays a meaningful role in OKC. Instead of Scottie Pippen Jr. we somehow still have Maxwell Lewis on the roster and after watching Scottie dissect us on defense it’s hard for me to understand why. The kid just plays hard and plays right. What does Lewis even do well in the G League? This disturbing trend has resulted in a severe talent drain of affordable players that a team like the Lakers can’t afford to keep getting wrong.

Got another one tomorrow on my birthday. Which seems to always get ruined by an election or a bad Lakers game. The shitty election already happened so here’s hoping at least the Lakers win against the injury ravaged 76ers… Yay 50.

Nothing to learn from this other than how to move on from a bad loss. The Phoenix game, even though we coughed up a late lead, felt competitive. This game never did as the Cavs got what they wanted, when they wanted, and how they wanted it. There was not much resistance offered from the Lakers even though we got down big early, again, and had shown that steady approach to coming back works. Whether it’s some guys still finding their legs, the early and lengthy road trip or just that the Cavs are that much better we never really were in this game after the first few minutes.

1. The Lakers defense ain’t great. We’re giving up 50.8 points in the paint per game so far. That’s, in part, being fueled by our league worst transition defense which gives up 21.2 ppg (the only team in the Association to give up more than 20). Our transition defense is non-existent. In specific, switching everything (or 1-4 when AD’s man happens to be in the paint) every time is both predictable and easily exploitable, as we’ve now seen with our own eyes against quality opponents. The seams it creates are letting guys get to the rim and score. That leads to softer switches that offer more room and then guys shoot the three over us. The physicality we saw in the first 3 games didn’t make the road trip, as can be seen by the vast free throw disparity last night in which Cleveland shot well from everywhere (57.7% overall, 41.5% from three) while only getting to the line 8 times compared to our 33. When you win the free throw battle by that much, one generally expects a W. If we stick with switching 1-4 we need to stay attached better to both players (screener and ball handler) and I’ll take an uptick in fouls called if that’s what it takes. Laying back off the screens like a bunch of softies is just creating quality shots for the other team and isn’t working at all. This was, and remains, my biggest concern with Reddick as a head coach, and so I’m curious to see what changes. If anything does.
2. Lakers back court needs to be better. Mainly DLo but Reaves needs to be in attack mode at all times, too. Reaves should be in the conversation of “whose team” this is almost as much as AD because he’s more of an initiator of the offense. Shooting the ball a measly 6 (Reaves) and 7 (Russell) times, respectively, means there isn’t enough pressure being applied; although in D’Angelo’s case he did get to the line 7 times when his 3 ball wasn’t (still) falling. There’s not a great option to turn to after those 2 guys so they need to get it done night in and night out a lot better and consistently than they’ve done so far. They look good in wins, bad in losses and as they go so, too, does the Lakers fortunes.
3. Bronny got his first NBA hoop. Yay.
4. The Lakers bench needs to do more. Like…a lot more. The Net Rating for the Lakers bench is -4.7 and would be a lot worse without Dalton Knecht. This difference isn’t because they’re letting the other team score at will, the Lakers bench has the 6th best defensive rating in the league. We’re middle of the pack in scoring the rock but lead the league in pace (the bench, not the team overall). It may be worth exploring the idea of slowing it down a bit since we’re killing it in transition, anyhow. At any rate our myopic scoring output is a huge issue as we move further into the season. I expect Knecht to hit the rookie wall at some point (they all do) and other than him nobody is scoring effectively yet. Vando getting minutes over Christie and Hayes could help alleviate that but that isn’t the current reality. Somebody besides Knecht needs to contribute and if you move him to the starting 5 I worry the bench will fall utterly off a cliff.
5. Good news! It’s still early and the road trip is still salvageable. Win in Toronto. That needs to be the focus. Don’t worry about anything else but executing and getting the W in Canada and then focus on Detroit followed by voting (VOTE!) and then Memphis. Just focus on taking care of the business in front of you. All the history is out of the way now, the team has shown it’s good enough to compete at a high level when fully engaged on a physical level, so make that the priority. If you’re competing at a high level, playing as hard and focused as you can, then good things usually generate themselves. Don’t let the losing define the road trip or when you come back it’ll be harder to find that home mojo, again, and no team worth it’s salt is only good at home. Need to be able to win on the road and win consistently. You also don’t want to tumble down the standings early, we’ve all seen how that affects the late season race to getting favorable playoff placement and it’s not fun. We’re still a top 6 team, just need to go out and play lie one, again.

It can be easy to look too far ahead in life. To project into the future may may or may not occur. In the case of being a fan of the Lakers it’s almost easier to look back and see all that could have gone better, or in some cases, worse. When it comes to the start of the 2024-25 season I have, thus far, resisted the urge to define what this Lakers team will look like and prioritize. Too many variables left unaccounted for over the summer. Sure, we brought back the same roster, but folks tend to forget that Vincent and Vando barely played, Rui wasn’t available for the first month or so with a calf strain and then again for a couple weeks when he had the nasal fracture. The piling on Darvin Ham started early and didn’t really let up due both to his roster indecisiveness and some curios in-game choices that led to losses. New coaching blood was brought in, along with a couple rookies, and so everyone seemed to expect a sort of repeat from last season. That narrative ignores a lot of facts and when those are taken into account it’s not as surprising we’re not having de ja vu this season but getting a fresher, more exciting outcome.

1. The emergence of Anthony Davis. It’s not often you see a player take a step forward this late in their career. I can honestly say I have never seen AD this dominant, confident and forceful in his play. Nothing tangible has changed much; looking at his shot chart it’s the same batch of AD type shots he’s always taken. What’s changed is both his demeanor (pissed off and hungry for respect he feels is lacking) and the team’s focus on getting him the ball early and not just on post ups. If you watch the best all around centers (Jokic and Sabonis) they get the ball above the free throw line out to the three point line and make reads off of that. They function in spots Kobe used to operate from and then, when he had the perfect Robin to his Bat Man in Pau Gasol, he ceded those spots to the Big Spaniard in favor of letting him generate easy offense in the half court. That never meant the iso game went away, it was simply relied upon a lot less and the team benefitted from it instantly. So, too, has this change elevated the laker offense as a whole. Gone are the muddy possessions where two or three players are operating out of the elbows, the corner and the arc three point line. That allowed the defense to load up on AD more and cut off driving lanes. These sets, to me, look vaguely like old triangle sets. AD at the elbow up to the three point line, a single shooter stationed down in the corner and another player moving through space creating the angled set of the same name: a triangle. I’ll get more into this idea down yonder but this kind of action has allowed AD to score, make a play for others and elevate the entire team in the doing.
2. LeBron still LeBron. I kinda started to wonder…was this what he was going to look like all season? Under 20 ppg, decent impact, solid all around play, but markedly less impact than hoped for but we were winning so who cares? Cue Saturday night and a dominant 4th quarter run that put the Lakers firmly in the driver’s seat to close out the win. It’s good to know that the ultimate safety valve can still dial it up when needed. I also liked his post game comments about not needing to do that all game because we’re a team. It’s that camaraderie that we’ll need more of when the games get harder, possibly as soon as tonight on the road, to help weather storms and bumpy patches.
3. Using the rookie right. Dalton Knecht is being used in the exact right way. He’s playing about 7-8 minutes/half and not generally in crunch time moments allowing him to both build up stamina (and hopefully avoid a rookie wall later in the season) and build up his confidence at the same time, although watching him play makes me think he doesn’t really lack for confidence. Still I’d rather see him continue in this way with a really specific role for the young man and let him grow into his talent rather than trying to rush things along because he’s had a nice stretch of play. Being the microwave scorer off the bench while playing a steady game in this role is the perfect way to incubate a rookie who you don’t necessarily need to rely on consistently just yet.
4. The struggles of Max Christie. It’s not that he’s playing poorly, he’s making the right play in front of him, for the most part, and not forcing anything. It’s just that he won’t have a role when Vando comes back which will hopefully be before Thanksgiving. Max is too light to guard the bigger NBA players he often gets switched onto in our defensive schemes, isn’t aggressive enough (or frankly good enough) to be a microwave scorer, and generally looks like he’s topped out his skill set and talent at this point out there. Yes, I know we gave him a big deal early in free agency (and have often wondered why) but when Jarred returns there won’t be a role for him and even Hayes’ minutes could suffer a bit based on matchups. On the upcoming road trip I see two games where Max’s minutes will probably go to Bronny: in Cleveland for a Father/Son homecoming of sorts and maybe in Detroit if Max continues to have a willowy impact. Bronny could also see some action on the back-to-back in Toronto and let Vincent rest a game on the bench. Back to Max, he needs to find a higher level of aggression. I don’t need him to be the next Lou Williams but his presence needs to be felt and too often it simply is not.
5. Coach Reddick pushing the right buttons so far. The honeymoon continues and the wins keep coming so what’s not to like? The rotations, mainly due to good health this season so far, have looked better. The biggest add has been off ball activity from our guards and wings from the corner spots. The defense has showed us some different looks and it will be interesting to see what ole Vando has/gets when he comes back. But, for me, the overall movement on offense and quick decisions we’re seeing are what’s setting Coach Reddick apart from his predecessor. As illustrated above, we’re seeing some triangle 101 type action to create movement and flow. This opens up backdoor cuts, defensive indecision which allows for quick scores, and a general “share the wealth” vibe which behooves great basketball. A lot fewer iso sets is always welcome, in my opinion. Not forcing threes because it’s 2024 and there’s only one way that everyone thinks basketball need be played now is always welcome. Enabling guys like Reaves and AD to make plays for others so the burden shifts away from LeBron having to do everything or relying on DLo to go off. This style of hoops has opened up Rui and Reave’s games a lot and here’s hoping this is the new status quo.

Next up, a 5 game roadie starts tonight in Phoenix who likely would like to whup us pretty good. Great test of all the principles outlined above and here’s hoping we keep the good times rolling.

Lotta “First” boxes checked last night. Bronny James and his pop shared the floor to check his first game and the first time a father/son duo shared the floor together. Dalton Knecht netted his first bucket(s). Coach Reddick got his first win. The Lakers won their first game. Only first left un-checked was Bronny scoring his first bucket, as well. After all that hullaballoo it would have been easy to lose the game, like so many historic moment games have gone of late, but after going back to the tried and true formula for recent Laker wins we pulled out the W and started the season right.

1. No answer for AD. This must be the new way forward. There can’t be any disappearing acts this season if AD wants the respect that has recently proved elusive, and for the Lakers to reach their goals this is the way Anthony Davis needs to play night in and night out. 11-23 from the floor, (1-3 from three point land) to go with 16 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 blocks and a steal. There are few defenders that can hang with Davis and when he asserts himself it’s an entirely different looking Lakers team. AD creates shots and space in a manner that goes against the modern NBA grain: from the inside out. By dominating inside Davis creates shots for his perimeter guys and cutters. If he can average 5+ assists per game along with everything else he will be in the MVP conversation and rightly so.
2. The Glue Man. If AD is a force of nature, Austin Reaves is the bond that makes everything look smooth. His all around effort and performance helped make this a rebounding neutral game (one where, for a time, we were dominant on the glass (until the effort of the T’Wolves up ticked after halftime). Like most of the team his three ball proved elusive but it didn’t deter him from being aggressive on the glass and in getting into the heart of the defense to make plays or shots. Nothing, except maybe the rebounds, jumps off the stat sheet but if you watched the games you saw a player applying pressure on the defense, contesting shots and aggressively hunting the rebound. That’s what we need out of Austin Reaves on the daily.
3. The Rui Hachimura Power Game. It feels like a cosmic event, only seen once every few weeks or even months. But so far during the NBA 2024-25 season the power game of Rui Hachimura has been used every single game. Last night it was on full display and here’s hoping it’s around to stay. Gone were the willowy step back fade aways. Instead we saw player seeking contact and going up through it using both speed and power to get closer to the basket. Even on his jump shots I thought he was better about going straight up and into the shot rather than drifting back or to one side or the other. This, like Reaves, is the version of the player we need to see the most consistently. If he plays like this and averages close to 20 ppg on decent efficiency he’ll be in line for a most improved player award.
4. The “new” Laker identity. Again, t’was but one single game. Still, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the Lakers won this game the way they won so many games the last 2 seasons regardless of the coach: power over style or volume. The Lakers interior game was stellar leading to a +32 point discrepancy in points in the paint. The free throw line battle was also a place we won, albeit by a single point, but the aggressiveness and pressure we apply by playing with force and attacking the basket is an advantage this team has that few do in the modern game. When the three ball was obviously not falling did we refuse to adapt and just keep chucking up bad shots? No, we pressed further into the defense and found guys around the rim and dominated the paint. Like we need to. As I’ve said, there is no correct answer to thew question of how many ______’s should we shoot? The number of any kind of shot attempts taken is inconsequential if winning is the objective. The answer will be different every night. What was heartening to see, for me anyhow, was that we didn’t try to re-forge an identity in one game. That we shot 5-30 from distance shows me that some guys aren’t consistent enough to make the three pointer the uber weapon some insist we must embrace beyond reason. That we pivoted away and went inside also showed me that both coach and player are adaptable and will seek to find what works beyond the outer politics of the game. As it should be.
5. Rookie Watch 2025! They played. Knecht looked like he did in preseason: steady, albeit slow to react on defense. Bronny, too, in his whopping 3 minutes of game action in that he played hard if mostly ineffectually (nice offensive rebound though). Still, it was nice to get the side show over with and they can both move on to improving their games. In general I don’t see much of a role for Bronny that Reddish can’t do better and Knecht may ultimately lose minutes to Vando once he returns and if he can score ably enough. That’s OK, they’re both young and we can maybe slide Knecht into Max Christie’s minutes since he still looks a long way from ready for prime time. Either way, they’re both development projects, like Koloko will be should he ever get cleared, this season and my hope is they can slide into the roster slots and roles vacated next summer by Reddish and Wood. Knecht may prove to be further along than that but it’s early and he’s not going to get the minutes he can see down in the G League. A riddle for the staff to ponder, assuredly.