There’s no question Talen deserves to start. I also think the Lakers need him to be a starter to justify paying him $30M and not trading for Kyle Lowry.
Bottom line, THT looked great tonight, especially the 3-6 from deep and team leading 25 points. He will start but he’s not a great fit with Russ unless he continues to shoot the three well.
However, right now, after 3 games, he’s shooting 40% on 6.7 threes per game. He’s also averaging 23.3 ppg, 7.3 rpg, and 2.0 apg, and just 1.3 topg.
If he continues to post numbers anywhere near these numbers, he will continue to start and become untouchable or a monster trading chip come Feb.
Wow. What a downer of a podcast. Voting on whether Vogel or Pelinka should be fired first? Claiming that AD could be planning on leaving the Lakers when his contract is up out of disgust for his coach and teammates? Not very enjoyable. I listened to the LakerFilmRoom podcast afterwards and they were much more optimistic and blamed injuries.
Come on Gerald and Sean. We’ve just played 15 games, 9 without LeBron James. We have multiple key players out with injury. We have an imbalanced roster. We have 11 new players. We are in the middle of trying to change from a 2-big team, which we were all of the last season, to a 1-big team with AD at the five but a serious lack of big wings to defend the three.
This road trip is important but not critical. What this team needs is simply to get healthy. And probably to trade THT and Nunn for a bigger wing 3&D wing to start at the three. The Lakers will slowly and surely get better as the season progresses. Don’t lose faith and start thinking crazy thoughts like AD is going to bolt. That’s school boy crazy.