Tim Reynolds
@ByTimReynolds
Tonight join us on Twitter for a rousing game of “is this the name of a Magic replacement player, the name of a Nets replacement player, the name of a sandwich or the name of a red-nosed reindeer.”

All joking aside, I wonder how long the league can allow this to go on.

I mean what test are they using and what’s the percentage of false positives?

With the way this virus is pummeling the league like an F5 tornado, am afraid we may never have a healthy full 15 man roster on any given day the rest of the season unless drastic measures are taken. This is a whole new animal and seems to have caught just about every team unprepared for the onslaught. Glad to see Monk making it back sooner than expected.

Man, this Covid thing is becoming more and more ugly and frustrating. Damn, we are just beginning to see the team figuring out things, and then all of a sudden we are forced to shuffle the deck. But you are right about Brown and IT getting some run. Let’s see what they can bring to the table.

Anybody who thought this season was going to be the first real post-Covid season has seen their dreams go up in flames.

The unvaccinated have exposed the entire country to another year of Covid with their refusal to get vaccinated, wear masks, or listen to the public health experts and doctors. Unfortunately for many of them, they’re foolishly risking their own lives and others’ for no good reason. And as a result, risking our NBA season.

The NBA is facing a tough decision. Go the hard road and suspend play and setup a bubble, which the players have no more patience for, or allow vaccinated players to play as long as non-symptomatic and not sick. In other words, trust the vaccines to do their jobs and prevent hospitalization or death. Tough decision in today’s polarized public health environment.

More importantly, howeverm, we’re for sure going to have a third straight NBA season who’s eventual winning is going to partly determined by who gets Covid, how bad it is, and when it happens. We’re seeing just the tip of the potential iceberg with five Lakers in Health and Safety Protocols. And just a handful of the 30 NBA teams. Does anybody think we’re going to be able to keep this from getting worse? Although not as severe or lethal, omicron is way more contagious and is going to spread much faster than the other variants.

We had the bubble year, then the makeup year, and now the omicrom year. Three years like none ever in NBA history. Let’s hope the Lakers can win two of those three championships.

I take a completely different view of the trade season than you do, Michael. For me, trades are a unique opportunities to upgrade the team. Free agency used to be the key but today it’s trades. It’s how the Lakers were able to leverage LeBron to force a trade for Anthony Davis. I believe what we’re seeing right now with Russell Westbrook and Ben Simmons is Klutch’s next move.

While you’re more likely to be right that we end up only doing small deals, I do think there are reasons to be optimistic that the Lakers view this season as a critical season that cannot be wasted. While Rob has not made an in-season trade since he took over from Magic, this year may be the exception. Losing last season to injuries and seeing the slow start to this season has made the Lakers panic and looking for a makeover of some kind.

I base that primarily on the fact that the Lakers are willing to explore trading Russell Westbrook. Risking the team chemistry by looking for trades for Russ is a sure sign the Lakers are serious about blowing up the team that LeBron and AD created with that dinner with Russ at LeBron’s home. They may not be successful but I give Rob credit for having the cajones to to think big. Lakers cannot waste a year of LeBron James destiny by going small.

We are in the third Covid colored season.

Man, this Covid19 thing is an impending disaster across all major sports with all the superspreader events that are so commonplace. I hope I am not seeing Bubble 2.0 coming. They might have to bring in Saundee Brown and Jay Huff from the South Bay Lakers. This sucks.

Aloha, Michael,

I’ll take any win as good news right now. We needed to have a second win in a row and LeBron was great. Super to see THT bounce back. Nothing more important than LeBron looking fresh and bouncy.

We need to beat the Mavs, Wolves, and Bulls to go into the game against the Suns with an 18-13 record and 5-game winning streak. That’s a game where we need to make a statement.

“Another disappointing win” is the perfect way to describe this game. Had I watched only the third quarter and not the fourth quarter, I will be pissed off if someone told me the blowout score was cut to 10 in the fourth quarter. As it has been in many games this season, the Lakers seem to play to the score and not the game. They tend go through mental lapses which can be very costly. Remember the 26 point lead against the Tunder that ended up in the loss column?

However, what I am really liking now is the ball movement and not ISO ball. THT having that kind of night defensively with 6 steals is surely a welcome sight. Shooting 3 of 6 from 3 point land made me feel good while hoping for consistency in that regard.

Now, I am finding it uneasy with the short lease Vogel is giving to Ellington. I understand his defensive limitations, as many fans have been alluding to, but he’s one of our best 3 point shooters and finding a way to get him going especially when he’s hot would be a boon to the team.

But at the end of the day and as disappointing as the win was I will take it as Tom pointed out.

This team desperately needs a winning streak to cure them mentally. So, I will take any win any time even though not all wins are equal.

My sentiments exactly. After we win 6, 7, 10 games in a row I’ll be inclined to crow about the corner turned. Now? Notsomuch.

Very good write up. This team has to say no to ISO ball and yes to ball movement ( Golden State Warriors come to mind ). Design plays for those deemed good 3 point shooters. And that means less 3 point shots by the big 3 and more for the other 2 gaurds starting. Focus on boxing out, grab the the rebounds and stop full court passes unless deemed safe. Don’t be shooting low percentage shots when there is no one under the basket to rebound the miss. And please, no turnovers, and go on a winning streak to minimize the stress of losing every other day.

” Out Hustled Yet Again”. That’s exactly how we lost the game. This is on all the players not named LeBron and has nothing to do with chemistry. No effort at all.

Just cannot turn the ball over so dang much!

Thru 3rd Q we have 19 TO’s! Memphis no Morant and we getting thumped, just crazy.

5 more turnovers in the 3rd

Those long pass aheads are the lowest percentage play and Lebron can’t help himself. What the hell does he think will happen by chucking it forward to Carmelo under the basket? This is just a poorly constructed roster, couple of aging stars not able to impact an outcome, another guy who should be peaking that’s regressed instead, and a bunch of mismatched pieces also underperforming. Mediocre (at best) coaching isn’t helping either. At least they got the bubble bowl.

There’s a pattern that requires trust and patience from a coaching staff that putting 3-point shooters on the court and running plays for them will eventually lead to opening up lanes for our superstars to attack the rim.

You’ve convinced me that we don’t need volume 3-point shooting from our superstars. We need that from our high percentage shooters like Monk, Melo, and Wayne.

Aloha, Michael,

Great post that touched on many issues in which I’m 100% in agreement with you.

The Lakers in their own way are trying to transform their team. They realized last season that they were not going to be able to repeat their success in the bubble for multiple reasons, including that the path to the championship was going to be harder and the good defense/poor offense role players they had would not be good enough post-Covid. In fact, you could argue they knew that right after winning the title in 2020 because they went out and traded defense for offense with Schroder and Harrell, just like they did this summer.

So you’re dead right about the Lakers having an identity crisis and a big part of that is the head coach’s conflict with where the front office wants to take this team. Rather than keep working on how to make AD at the five work despite the lack of size available at the three, Frank reverts back to two bigs, a concept that cannot work with a LeBron, AD, and Russ Big Three. And he appears to be committed to continuing to ignore the lack of spacing out of stubbornness and ignorance. Trying to say AB was critical because of his effort was weak. As was the sudden ghosting of DJ 3 minutes into the game. Signs of a coach not knowing what to do but acting strangely under pressure.

Frank Vogel has a chance to evolve and be the coach this team needs but he’s going to have to change his stripes some and show he can adapt, something that’s not been his strength. With Russ, the Lakers have no choice but to play AD at the five. Until Frank accepts this, everything the Lakers do will be just wasting time and not building any habits or playing the way you’re going to have to win another championship. Lakers are swamped with dissonance right now. System vs. Personnel might better be described as small ball and analytics vs. coach’s bias and resume.

The way the Lakers have evolved, meaning the trade for Russ or as Jamie puts it ‘that damn dinner,’ the Lakers have committed to embracing an analytics driven small ball style of play. They don’t have a choice after trading for Russ. It’s now clear to me why the Lakers only gave Frank the one-year extension. It was not because they didn’t think he was a good or potentially great coach. It’s because there was a good chance he might not be the ‘right’ coach for a Lakers team looking to modernize.

Whenever I read Michael’s posts of recent one thing becomes clear that I have always agreed with: a shooter is only going to be good if you involve him in the offense. You can’t bring in a shooter and expect him to be any good if you don’t get him touches or get him into a rhythm. That is a problem we have been having the past few years and has become a stigma. I have noticed that in numerous games this season and Michael’s point reflects my thoughts. Thanks for the post, Michael.

Been saying the Vogel offense does not account for what a guy likes to do on offense other than whatever stars are on the squad. The offense is let LeBron or Russ create, dump it into AD, Melo bail us out. That’s it. There is no: run these screens to free Ellington to shoot from the spot he rarely misses from, or let Monk be the dominant ball-handler with LBJ as a decoy or a lot of things i think we could tweak on offense and that is because LBJ and to a lesser degree Russ probably don’t want to do that. They’re stubborn and have ultimate faith in themselves which is both why they are superstars and why this situation becomes more and more untenable.

What we’re all really asking is for LeBron, Russ and AD to not be themselves and allow the role guys to be more dominant. I, for one, can understand why there would be push-back from every angle. Ownership because of the money paid to the big 3, the players because they’ve trained their whole lives to be this thing that they are, and so on.