He’s had some unfortunate injuries this year and it’s led some in the media to call him inconsistent. But he’s been pretty steady when healthy..especially after getting rid of that mask. He’s one of the few guys we have who plays with energy on both ends night in & night out. Hate to see him get tossed into a trade as some kinda salary filler.

I’m getting the feeling he’s about to take his usual drop-off after a string of impressive games. He was in the process of giving away the GSW game and followed that up with 2 unimpressive outings in blowout losses to HOU & ATL. Might be time to sell high asap.

You can’t give a heart transplant to the entire roster so it’s the only move left to make. If you’re building your identity on defense and the team stops defending then what da hell are we even doing. Outside of JV, nobody’s hustling, nobody’s moving their feet, nobody’s hands are active, nobody’s getting back off of missed shots. Frankly it looks like the team has quit and it says as much about our veteran “leadership” as it does about the coach. Hard for me to see a trade making a whole lotta difference at this point. What a sh!tshow.

Watched that game this morning waiting for the NFL to start. None of the trades we’re talking about will put us in the same category as those dudes. We don’t have the horses and we don’t have the horses to go get the horses we would need. I’m feeling like we’re throwing good money after bad by trying to save this season. Truthfully, it was probably over as soon as we decided to go with this roster.

Then LBJ immediately committed 3 turnovers, missed 4 free throws, hit the side of the backboard with a 3, and got beat a buncha times on defense. And that’s just off the top of my head. Stats look great until you dive in a bit deeper. We only played 8 dudes and you could see the fatigue with LeBron in the 4th. Can’t play him all those minutes AND have him at pg AND have him trying to closeout on 3pt shooters. Gotta pick ur poison at this stage. .

I had friends and family literally ready to physically fight me when I would say that post-trade deadline run last year wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The Denver series was more of a litmus test of where this team actually stacked up among contenders in this league. But the organization believed in the mirage as well and doubled down on it by bringing back the “core” and now wanna act surprised that we’re mired in quicksand. Gotta admit…D.Russell almost had me fooled into trusting him but he’s still the same dude he’s always been and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the source and the cause of the recent news coming from the locker room. Granted, Rui & Vando have been hurt but I don’t wanna hear about that coming from our Head Coach. Spo was visibly irritated when a reporter asked him about injuries after The Heat (with 19 different starting lineups so far) lost to the Clipps the other night before beating us down last game (that culture thing again). AR escapes criticism (a topic for another time & place) but he isn’t playing the same as he finished last year.

So here we sit…a sub .500 team…perhaps in quicksand. Trade? Who knows; can’t get too much worse. New coach? The season is half over; who’s the brilliant mind available to turn this around? We’ve been a revolving door at that spot for far too long now then we wonder why we can’t build continuity, culture, or identity….

It ain’t good……….

Here’s the reason why the excuses don’t fly with me: the oldest dude on the team..hell..the oldest mf’er in the whole damn league…played 37 min and went 34pts, 5 reb, & 8 dimes. While suffering some kinda flu symptoms.

Look, I don’t expect this supporting cast to match his talent or statistical output. But they gotta at least match his intensity & effort. The fact that it only happens about once every 2 or 3 weeks is troubling.

…and this is with both AD & LBJ remarkably healthy and playing at Top 10 levels. The supporting cast just can’t pull their weight on a nightly basis. So now we look to the trade deadline to maybe bail us out again…and that could be a huge problem.

You rarely see a team successfully make wholesale roster changes in Jan/Feb as we did last year but it worked out as we squeaked into the post season and made it to the conference finals. But how impressive was that run? We beat the T-Wolves in the play-in after one of their starters (same guy who tried to give away the game to us last night) lost a fight against a brick wall to take himself out. Then we beat the Grizz without their big man, Ja in the process of sabotaging his career off the court, and Dillon Brooks just acting (and playing) like a fool in general. Then we took out the Dubs who have stated that last year was a shitshow and they never really recovered from Draymond’s assault & battery on Poole. Not to mention both Poole & Klay forgetting how to play the game of basketball during that series. And we all know we didn’t win a game once we faced a real team in the next round.

But there were encouraging signs….right? D-Lo played great down the stretch (even though he was benched by the end). Vando was a crowd favorite, high-energy defender & rebounder we’d been looking for (even though he was benched by the end). Rui & AR were keepers who excelled in the post season and they were only gonna improve in 23-24 (that hasn’t happened). Max dominated the Summer League (that ain’t real basketball yall).

I just get the feeling that the entire organization is thinking they can flip the switch again. Remains to be seen but things laid out almost perfectly for us at the end of last year & the playoffs and it’s hard to bank on that happening in 2 consecutive years.

Happy New Year….

This is what you’re supposed to do as a 12pt home favorite with a coupla days rest against a team that hasn’t won a game in damn near 3 weeks. Whipping up on these lottery teams is one of the few things we’ve been pretty consistent at this season. Unfortunately, we won’t be facing any of them once mid-April rolls around…..

When we took a look at the schedule from Thanksgiving to the end of the year, we kinda knew this was the position we would be in. We’re actually a lil bit better than I thought; going 7-9 so far. We could possibly go 2-1 to close out 2023. Basically, we’re a .500 team…nothing more nothing less.

Now for the month of January….with the exception of a 2 hour flight to Utah, we don’t even play outside of Staples til the 27th. This is the time when the FO will truly have to evaluate what we’re working with and how to proceed. No travel, lots of home time, & practice opportunities.

The good thing is that from the 4th seed on down, nobody is gonna run away & hide. DEN, MIN, & OKC probably have the top 3 on lock but everything else is up for grabs. We’re already starting to see some teams implementing a lil load management. If we play a few games better than .500 then we’ll be right there in the mix. Rob has shown a tendency to keep his powder dry & not panic in this situation and wait for the right deal to come along. I think we still have time to let Jan. play itself out and see what the landscape looks like.

YES!!!
That was what I’ve been looking for! We came out with some playoff intensity from the tipoff and the Suns weren’t ready for it. That type of defensive effort will win alotta games even when the 3’s ain’t dropping. Finally took down a team with an elite guard..holding Book to a pretty pedestrian game by his high standards.

This Pels game will be interesting. Saw them for the 1st time Monday and came away impressed. Went into that SacTown craziness and pulled out the win with some high-energy defense and a super aggressive Brandon Igram. We’re slightly favored and it could be a close one. Lebron wants this; as his 40 minute performance proved on Tues….and that’s always gonna be hard to beat.

Los Angeles Lakers guard Gabe Vincent has been dealing with left knee effusion, forcing him to miss all but the first four games of the regular season.
He was supposed to be re-evaluated this week and although that hasn’t happened yet, Darvin Ham provided a positive update on Vincent before Saturday’s game against the Houston Rockets.

“He’s progressing along. Not as of yet, but he’s progressing really, really good,” Ham said.

Ham would also go on to reveal what Vincent has been able to do so far in his rehab.

“He’s been running on an [anti-gravity treadmill]. He’s doing some just conditioning, obviously in that regard, some normal weight-lifting stuff, shooting shots. But that’s it.”

This is good news for the Lakers, who have been extremely shorthanded through the first quarter of the regular season. Even though Vincent is progressing though, it likely will still be some time before he is able to return as the organization will want to ensure he’s 100% healthy to not risk further injury.

Vincent was the Lakers’ big signing of the offseason, using their non-taxpayer mid-level exception to pry him away from the Miami Heat to replace Dennis Schroder as their lead guard off the bench.

So far though, the Lakers have not been able to reap the benefits of that signing as Vincent missed time in the preseason with lower back soreness. After playing in the first four games of the regular season, Vincent went down with the knee issue and has been out ever since.

In addition to Vincent, the Lakers have also been without key pieces like Jarred Vanderbilt, Rui Hachimura and Cam Reddish for long stretches so far this season. Because of that, LeBron James recently admitted that he has no clue who the Lakers are as a team yet despite being 11-9 through their first 20 games. Those three were all able to return on Saturday though, which was good to see.

In Vincent’s absence, guys like D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves and Max Christie have picked up the slack at the guard position with rookie Jalen Hood-Schifino even getting some time lately. What the Lakers have been missing though is a point of attack defender that can knock down timely shots, which is exactly what Vincent was signed to provide.

A lot of fans have been frustrated with how long it is taking injured players like Vincent to get back, especially when the team loses games they are capable of winning.

Ham recently emphasized that they will not rush back any players though, sticking with the process they have in place of ensuring guys are fully healthy to not risk more injuries down the line.