1) This roster was flawed from the get-go. Hoping the perfect trade materializes and solves everything compounded by thinking this roster has anything to say about competing is folly. Worse roster than last season and I thought Rob should have been fired for that.
2) AD needs to rest in back2backs. He just can’t stay right, you want to give him the recovery time he truly needs, he will never be the answer in terms of the next great Laker. He will be a highly talented, fragile, and with suspect motivation and/or engagement second best player.
3) JTA is unplayable. Too small, to play the 3, too slow to play the 2 and he can’t shoot. Waive him, sign Melo who is at least fun to watch.
4) Damien Jones or Dwight Howard? Who cares, neither fixes the true issue which is the Lakers can’t decide how to play. Small or tall? Skilled or gritty? Terrible or awful? Hey look, it’s all of the above!
5) LeBron will ultimately lose this battle with Father Time. The real question is will it be all at once or slow attrition. Seems like since he came to LA it’s been the latter. Kobe was amazing and then he wasn’t, Achilles injuries have a way of doing that to talent. That groin strain he suffered on Xmas against the Dubs in his first season here has never fully healed, I suspect. It’s been managed, compensated for, and explains the slow drift outwards of his shot profile. He wasn’t lying when he said he would never be 100%.
Feature AD and trade him, get what you can for Russ. Build back through a trade or two and some smart signings next summer.
Great summary, Jaime. One of my main disappointments on the roster is JTA. I have always wondered why the Lakers sign him in the first place. To replace him with Melo would be a huge gain. Is anybody out there talking to Rob about Melo?
The more you touch on LeBron’s fight against father time the more I feel sad. It’s ugly to see him struggle against ailments that are compounded by father time. Let’s just enjoy watching whatever is left of him. But this is a painfully sad truth.
It was hard to watch the Kobe teams at the end, too. LeBron will be fine. He’s a billionaire, he has a legacy, he’s won titles everywhere he’s played. He’s in the NBA Mount Rushmore, he’ll be fine.
1. This roster was beyond flawed on account of flawed premises. You can’t go well into luxury tax territory on just 3 deals for guys who are washed, injured, or the league has just passed by. Getting 60 mil worth of performance out of 140 mil of contracts is a surefire recipe for a disastrous season. Adding an oft-injured stretchmark-5 and a streaky shooter who offers little else would bump them up to 25 wins.
2. AD plays like he doesn’t want to bump into anyone out there. Probably for the best. Dude wants to be treated like the bubble was the norm instead of the outlier. He certainly wants to be paid like it. Neither matter much, but at this stage, he’s a 3rd option guy. Nonetheless, if he’s still looking for a ma extension, this dumbass FO will probably give it to him.
3. Who ever though JTA was anything? Just another minimum pickup on a team with next to no options. See point #1.
4. See items 1 & 3.
5. Father time really caught him that last Cleveland season. It was really obvious the 1st Lakers season when he couldn’t help propel a pretty talented young bunch to the playoffs, and unironically, was the best full 82-game season Lakers team Lebron has played on.
The bubble, but more the lockdown rest, helped carry Lebron and AD to unrepeatable success. Then the LeEgo kicked in along with LeKlutch to start fixing something that wasn’t particularly broken. In part because he always thinks he knows better, but secretly, knew he couldn’t carry the offensive load any more. So he pushes for the Schroeder signing, but then is really incapable of giving up his counting stats. He continues to play the way he always has, then labels that a failure. So in the final Hail Mary, strongarms a hapless Rob to trade for Westbrook and that’s the nail in the Lebron Lakers Era.
Someone forgot to tell Jeannie and she signs off on making yet another in a horrible line of signing and extending the washed king for another 2 years of albatross contract.
In any objective retrospective, the Lebron era in LA has been an abject failure. If he ends up in the rafters, I will walk away from this team until these Busses sell it.
He’ll end up in the rafter. Three arenas next to three banners. It’ll be hung simply for the brand.