5 THINGS

There it is, the first of what should be many more wins for this iteration of the Lakers. The Lakers gutted out a gritty win over the Grizzlies from Memphis and in the doing quieted some of the chatter surrounding the cohesion, chemistry and composition of the team. While the issues that were troubling remain so (points in the paint, defense without fouling, turnovers) the Lakers, as a team, were able to overcome those and bring home win #1.

1. What a game by Carmelo Anthony! On a night he passed Moses Malone on the All Time scoring list to move into the #9 slot Carmelo also sealed the win with a couple of free throws and paced the team in scoring with 28 points. There will be nights where Melo won’t be able to throw it in the ocean and not be up to the task on defense. But then there will also be glorious nights like last night where you just think it’s going in when it leaves his hands. We needed every one of those highly efficient 28 points to overcome Ja and the pesky Grizzlies. Anthony went a superb 10-15 from the floor, 6-8 from three and chipped in 3 boards, 2 blocks and an assist and a steal leading a stellar effort in general from the Lakers bench.
2. Malik Monk had a solid bounce-back effort. Monk is fighting to prove he should stick in the rotation when some guys get back healthy. Frank went with a shorter, 10 man rotation last night and Monk featured prominently in minutes that had been going to Rondo. He did well on both ends and shot well from beyond the arc. His 4 assists were a boon and were a big part of the benches success last night as the second unit did a great job moving the ball and not letting the rock stick. Malik did pretty well on defense which is where he needs to prove he can contribute consistently if he wants a prominent role.
3. Austin Reaves continues to impress. It’s getting harder and harder to come up with reasons as to why Frank doesn’t play Reaves more. While he will certainly go through some growing pains, especially on defense, it makes sense for the Lakers to get through those as early as possible because the kid has what it takes to be a force in the NBA. Maybe not an All-Star, but certainly a key cog on a team with banner expectations. In just 18 minutes Reaves played some decent defense and kept the ball moving by finding the open man for 3 dimes. Again, as with Monk, it’s the defensive end which will determine the extent of his role but the intangibles Austin brings are already having an impact.
4. The starters are still struggling. Not one starter logged a positive +/- in what has become a fairly consistent pattern thus far. I’m sure there are metrics and measurements Frank and his staff use that allow them to justify this starting group but from my perspective it’s not working very well. I’m guessing this is pretty much set in stone at this point, barring injury, though. Frank is not one for changing things up, likes a set look and adapts to things in-game. While we could go on and on discussing the pros and cons of that approach it is the way things are run at this point. Therefor the best we can hope for, as fans, is that Frank, LeBron, Russ and AD can figure out how to make it work with DeAndre Jordan to start halves. I’m not thinking that there is anything else to hope for.
5. While getting that first win was great the issues that are worrisome remain. We gave up an astonishing 62 points in the paint, got out-rebounded 49-36 and allowed the Grizzlies to shoot 53% overall. We were a Ja Morant missed free throw away from OT and who knows what happens then. It would appear it doesn’t mater which player plays at the five, we can’t stop anyone at the rim and teams are feasting on easy shots against us. They’re also killing us on the glass. If we want to reach our goals that area needs to improve as we’ll lose more games than not if that trend becomes the status quo.

Fun fact, I happened to be at the Forum last night to see Phish and it’s always nice to be back in that building. We’re going to need a little old school LA magic for this to come together quickly and the quicker it does the more we can get around to the business of seeing what this team is really capable of. I think it will happen but the defining question of our season is when. When can this group put it all together on both ends consistently? We have a nice stretch of games coming up that feature teams we ought to beat. We pick up a couple wins, improve our defense and cohesion in the doing, and things should start to look up. While it is just one win, as the first two games were only two games, maybe this will be the thing that helps to start bringing it all together. We get another chance tomorrow night. Go Lakers.

Thanks for the fiver, Jamie. It pretty much sums up everything that went on in the game.

The game against Phoenix was the worst Lakers game I have ever watched. It goes without saying, that is why the preseason is very important in building chemistry. Our stars were left out of the lineups in the preseason instead of trying to integrate every one in the early going. It should have been known to everyone that a team with so many new parts need more than just the first week of the season to get started. The preseason should be treated as ” we need the preseason” instead of “the preseason needs us.”

The loses to the Warriors and the Suns shouldn’t come as a surprise. Those teams already have built-in cohesion and continuity, and to think you are going to use them to prepare yourself at the start of the season, you are literally acting like drunkard begging for a knock out punch which is exactly what they got. The Lakers were completely punch drunk in these two defeats.

There is hope with these Lakers team, and I mean a lot of it. They just need time to get this chemistry issue taken care of. There are 79 games to go for the season and this team will eventually explode in every team’s face. I like how they grind out the win against the Grizzlies. There will be more games like this as we go on.

Just like the super team of the Miami Heat that went 9-8 to start the season, this Lakers team has the potential to eventually embark on harassing and tearing up teams as if they were asking for every team to hand in their resignations or else they will be smothered. This team will come alive at some point and it wont be good for many teams.

There are a lot of wrinkles that need to be ironed out in terms of rotations and substitution patterns before the team reaches its potential, but we will get there.

Finally, I want to thank everyone for the contributions to the blog.
By the way, I am still recovering from my shoulder replacement surgery. So I am having difficulty typing with my left hand. That is why I have not been commenting that much.

The balanced and cohesive Golden State Warriors proved to be too large a load for the Lakers as the home team fell to the visitors 121-114. The Warriors are returning the majority of a core that surprised some but came up just short of making the playoffs last season as they lost both of their play-in games and failed to qualify. They looked a lot more like a playoff team last night than we did but, take heart, it’s still early in the season and great things take time and effort. Still, the road to greatness will likely be filled with potholes and landmines so buckle up.

1. The Grind. I’m not talking about the regular season, which is indeed another kind of grind. I’m talking about the length of time a process like this takes to come to fruition. When the Lakers traded for Westbrook they assured themselves of one thing: that the gelling process would be a major aspect of the regular season. Whenever multiple, ball-dominant, All-Star/HOFers are on the same team the question arises and it arises quickly: who will be the lead dog? Generally talent wins out in that debate and it should here, as well. LeBron James is still the best and most complete basketball player on planet Earth, thus, he should and needs to be the lead dog in order for the Lakers to attain their goals. The question raged all summer as to which Laker ought to change their game to accommodate the team best. Frank Vogel answered that question in his post game comments when he labeled Westbrook as both the new guy and the one who had the most to catch up on as well as being the one to fit in. That reads correctly to me, Westbrook is almost beyond elite in the areas in which he excels but where he doesn’t excel he has middling impact. I believe Russ will get there but that it will take some time. The big question being ‘how much?’
2. The Warriors bench kicked our benches butt. Warriors starters 66 points, Lakers 85 points. Dubs bench 55, Lakers bench 29. The legendary Stu Lantz has a pre-game segment called Stu’s Views and he often has a View called ‘No New Stars’. That would have applied to last night’s game as we saw guys like NeManja Bjelica, Damion Lee, and old man Andre Iguodala all score in double-digits. Of the three I felt like Bjelica did the most damage as he often out-fought Davis, Howard or anyone else that tried to grab a rebound when he was nearby. Can’t let guys like that beat you. Injuries have affected the composition and rotation of the Laker bench but the bottom line is when you are called upon you gotta go out and deliver.
3. Playing defense without fouling. We sent the Warriors to the free throw line a staggering 30 times and they made 25 of them. Now, while a point could certainly be made that they made more free throws than we took (19) we didn’t do ourselves many favors by missing 10 of those freebies, with Anthony Davis shooting a disturbing 2-7 from the free throw line. AD needs to be better, he struggled from the line last season, too, but doesn’t have the quick turnaround excuse handy any longer. We won’t get where we want to go shooting 47% from the free throw line. Can we do a better job of getting to the line more? Not really, that kind of thing ebbs and flows throughout the season based on the refs (which weren’t great last night, especially the travelling call on Russ that could be called on any guard in the NBA all game long). Can we do a better job of playing defense without fouling? Absolutely.
4. Hey, that’s Avery Bradley! Dude almost came in and helped swing the win our way with no preseason, no camp, and not much time to even say hello to the new squad. AB was one of the guys I felt like got away to our detriment after the Bubble Banner and I, for one, am happy he is back. Knows our defense, can run an offense and is class A dude. Welcome back, Avery.
5. TIME TO HIT THE PANIC BUTTON!!!!!! Well, not yet, while the same trends that had been disturbing continued from the preseason into last night I did see enough improvement, especially in the first half, that gives me a lot of hope for the future of this team. The things I’m not fond of are seeing Russ and Rondo share the floor. Rondo will dominate the ball and we need Russ to get time with the ball in his hands, some shooters and a screener for him to get comfy. Put Bradley on the floor for those minutes and save Rondo for his best season: the playoffs. Same goes for DeAndre Jordan as a starter. “The Stein newsletter be damned!” says Frank and while I agree that there a small number of compelling reasons to start off with a traditional big man it shouldn’t be DAJ. You’re not doing him any favors playing him only 13 minutes, basketball is a game of rhythm and no player will get into a groove barely playing, better to give those minutes to Dwight or Melo. Malik Monk needs to see the floor more, as well, especially since he’s healthy. Maybe they were easing him back, I didn’t hear that but it seems logical. Regardless, it can’t be all old guys; we need some youth.

All in all, I had this pegged as a loss and there it is. I didn’t like a single thing about our 4th quarter except Avery Bradley. Too many lazy threes when we just needed to score points of any kind (too many threes in general). We started the 4th down 85-83 and came out and missed several threes as the shot clock wound down, another bad carryover from last season where we fiddle seconds away while Rome burns. The turnovers were OK, still a lot of unforced turnovers which is maddening. NBA playoff rematch on Friday, might be a rough start to the season, I need to see Phoenix/Denver tonight before I form an opinion but if you asked me now I’m seeing another loss on Friday while we continue to integrate.

Go Lakers.

We’re here, the day when all the theories become practice, where the paper team takes the floor in the flesh, and when the game start counting. Tonight the Lakers face the Golden State Warriors but the real question a lot of Lakers fans want answered don’t stem from whom the Lakers are playing but rather whom the Lakers are playing at what positions and when. While opinions and notions fly around the internet only one man’s thoughts matter on this and that man is Frank Paul Vogel.

1. Will AD start or at least play the majority of his minutes at the center position? I think so, but it’s a slight majority. While some took the now legendary Marc Stein newsletter as gospel for the the future, I took it as a theoretical blueprint or framework for how the playoff version of the Lakers will look. I still am of the opinion that, no matter what AD or LeBron says/thinks, Frank trots out his regular season line ups with an eye towards reducing the physical toll and load so as to better save their legs for when the games take on a whole new meaning. With the Warriors on the schedule and seeing Looney in the line up for the Dubs it throws the door open wide for Frank to counter with DeAndre Jordan to start. In terms of a purely strategic discussion there are some valid points on starting DeAndre or Dwight, my preference is Dwight but Vogel’s on record saying he wants Dwight to abuse second stringers like he did for us 2 seasons ago. First off is foul trouble, because we are limited in the size department (long, but not big…not the same thing and both have their uses) keeping AD out of foul trouble is vital. Being forced to play Jordan or Dwight major minutes is not a recipe for success. The other point I consider valid is Ad’s off-ball defensive chops, which are elite. He has excelled as the weak side shot-blocker and being able to rotate around on the perimeter knowing that there is a viable shot blocker behind him. These points don’t overcome the positives that AD at the 5 bring to the table overall, but knowing Frank’s penchant for the defensive side they loom larger.
2. The Lakers didn’t complete the ultimate goal of preseason: get through it healthy. We’re all sorts of banged up with, as of now, THT, Trevor Ariza and Wayne Ellington listed as being out and Kendrick Nunn and Malik Monk are listed as day-to-day. While those names don’t shake the Earth like LeBron James, Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis do for a Lakers team that added 9 new faces and overhauled it’s offensive approach missing anyone who figured on being a key part of the rotation is a fairly large obstacle. It didn’t take a genius to see that during preseason the Lakers weren’t just getting acclimated to each other but also to a new way of doing things. This was later confirmed by the coaches when it was revealed the Lakers overhauled their offensive system (which wasn’t much to speak of). Further complicating things for the Lakers dream scenario of seeing more AD at the 5 are the injuries to THT and Ariza both of whom can guard a size up when called upon. With no other real power forwards on the team except for Lebron or Melo the Lakers lack mobile big bodies to deploy to shore up these missing players.
3. The Lakers brought in a lot of three point specialists, they’re making about the same amount of three so far and the team is taking about as many as they did last year. Like a lot of the lofty notions bandied about I didn’t buy into the “we need to up our volume of 3 point FGA!!!!” one much, either. If we shoot 30-35 three pointers/game I’ll be fine with that volume of attempts, we’re a team designed to excel in transition and in the paint. It would be worrying to me if we averaged more than 40 three point attempts/game as it would likely mean we’re settling or unable to generate off-ball action. I continue to think we need to work on how we generate higher quality three point looks. Solely relying on Russ or LeBron to set them up with paint attacks is fine, it’s worked for both guys for a long time. But I think the guys we brought in also have unique and individual ways they can get that shot off and, for some of them, especially out of time outs. This may have already occurred, we haven’t seen us in a situation yet where we needed a three off an inbounds play and Frank wouldn’t tip his hand yet, either. The quality of the shots still has a lot of room to improve, in my opinion, if they’re falling on a given night then take more.
4. The new faces are acclimating OK. I have a lot of mixed reviews about all of the new guys. It’s safe to say they’ve all had a good showing, a clunker and a game where they had very little impact. The age of our bench is a worry and it didn’t get younger with the addition of old newcomer Avery Bradley, although I am a big fan of his overall impact to our team defense. In preseason we saw the on and off versions of all the key role-players and the “off” side is kind of frightening. It looks like a matador on defense and a bad shot on offense. It has no cohesion or identity as it usually occurs when Russ is on the floor and LeBron is on the bench. Russ has the most to integrate of any of the guys on the team and it showed in preseason. My hope is that in 10, maybe 15, games Russ will have it in his head where the ball needs to go when he passes it and the other guys will know to be in that spot. Too many completely unforced turnovers sunk us both last season and in the preseason and a lot of that is on LeBron and Russ as they are the primary initiators. If we can weather an early storm of sloppiness and be a couple games over .500 10 to 15 games in I think we’ll start to see a whole new look and get a more complete vibe from this squad.
5. “What about tonight’s game, don’t you even care Jamie?!?!?!” Yes, yes I do and I have it penciled in as an L. Steph and the Warriors look like they are in mid-season form, Jordan Poole is breaking out in a different way every night, and they’re ready to start winning basketball games right now. We still have as many questions as we did at the beginning of camp. So, with that in mind, I see us letting a close game get out of reach with some late-game defensive miscues that will make for some great fil sessions for the team to learn from and improve on. Our training camp is extended for another month, the rest of the NBA just doesn’t really care. At any rate, I still see this squad as 3ish seed with a top ten defense and top 15 offense. We just need to keep up with the pack until these guys can find some cohesion and put it all together…together.
   
   Go Lakers.

Last season the Lakers scored 109.5 points per game. LeBron James scored 25 ppg, Russell Westbrook 22.2 and Anthony Davis scored 21.8 which would, when totaled, add up to the tidy sum of 69 ppg over the course of an NBA season. By my math that means we have to account for account 40 more points to bring us up to the scoring potential of last season’s team. Let’s just say that the 3 superstars above will be able to replicate their performance from last season, that they will score roughly the same amount of points despite there being more players of gravity on their squad than last season. Where will those other 40 (or hopefully more) points come from?
The Others.

1. The Other guards. Much has been made of the shot-making potential of the guys we brought in this offseason. Much like last season, really. The Lakers last season brought in guys coming off career seasons from three (Schroder, Wes Matthews) a stretch 5 (Gasol) and saw decent marks from returns KCP and Alex Caruso in terms of efficiency. This season we brought in Kendrick Nunn, Malik Monk and professional shooter Wayne Ellington along with the trade for Russell Westbrook to shore up the guard position. With Russ we got instant intensity and the ability to get to the rim or out on the break. In Nunn and Monk we got guys who have shown themselves to be decent three point shooters albeit in a small sample size. Wayne Ellington is the only proven commodity among the three when it comes to scoring from the outside and his inside game is nascent, at best. As a trio, Nunn, Monk and Ellington averaged 35.9 ppg on teams where they had defined roles. If they can come anything close to that as Lakers our offense will look great. Coupled with the 69 ppg we hope to get from the Trio if they manage, as a group, to average 30 ppg (accounting for fewer minutes since they won’t all be playing 20+mpg every game) that would get us right about to where we stood last season. I don’t think it likely as at least one of those three will be fighting for minutes and you can expect there to be a fairly sizable dip in production for at least one, if not all, of our guards. They each averaged 20+ minutes per game (Nunn at 29 mpg stands to see the biggest decrease). If one slots THT as a guard those numbers from those three will take a bigger hit and put more pressure on the 20 year-old Talen to show off an improved jump shot, or a floater, or something to up his efficiency. In short, I expect the guards to average fewer points than they collectively put up last season. One of the reasons being the flow/super-star driven nature of the Frank Vogel “offense”. The Lakers, as a team, really don’t know where their shots are coming from. For guys like Ellington that’s a killer, professional shooters like Wayne seem to function better when they know where the butter for their bread is coming from. Can the opposite prove true? Of course. Time will tell which way this breaks. Oh yeah, Rajon Rondo. I don’t expect him to play much, I think he’ll be this team’s better version of Jared Dudley. Seeing as he averaged 5.4 ppg last season I’ll be happy if he’s not hurt, racking up some dimes and hitting a couple shots a game. Not offense saving stuff.
   
   Prediction: 25 PPG averaged between the 3, 35 if THT mostly plays at the 2.
2. The Other forwards. We added some big names to the forward spots and, to a man, they’re all getting up there in age for the NBA. Combo guard/forward Talen Horton Tucker goes a long way towards reducing the cumulative age of the forwards on our team at 20 but after that the youngest one is Kent Bazemore at 32. Ariza is next at at 36 and not far behind him is Carmelo Anthony. This trio averaged 30 ppg last season but where I take some hope is that they each are reprising roughly the same role just on a different team. Here again a breakout season from Taken Horton-Tucker could really boost the forward’s scoring fortunes if he can either simply improve upon what he was able to accomplish last season or show us all a little something new. The minutes here will also be impacted by how much LeBron plays at the 4 and so, until we get a better sense of how that will factor in (since, as of preseason game 1, we saw AD at the 4 and LBJ theoretically would have played at the 3) so, depending on Frank’s rotations, one of these guys could essentially sit out every game or so. My theory is Trevor will start on the IL, let him really ease his way into the season. He’s battled several injuries over the last few seasons and I think we’d all rather see him effective in the playoffs rather than come out of the gates hot and fade. Bazemore and Melo ought to have fairly sizable and stable roles.
   
   Prediction: 20 ppg between the 3, 30 if THT mostly plays at the 3.
3. The Other centers. or the only centers, depending on how Frank plays this thing out. The biggest storyline of the Lakers offseason is easily the news that AD is willing to play more (when he talks sounds like a lot more, when Frank talks it sounds like not to much) center. How that shakes out will affect the other line ups on down the roster. More AD at the 5 opens up more minutes for Melo at the 4 backing up LeBron when he either slides back to the 3 or even potentially seeing the return of Carmelo Anthony: starting NBA player. The more we rely on Dwight and DeAndre Jordan to score the worse our offense will look. Both are past their NBA primes, both averaged just over 7 PPG last season and neither has any range to their game. It’s dunks off of lobs and offensive put-backs or it’s nothing. OK, OK, the occasional Dwight Howard three-bomb. Point is, neither of these guys even has much of a traditional low post, back-to-the-basket old school game. They really do rely on the guard setting them up or crashing the glass. So, based on how many minutes AD takes away from this duo it’s hard for me to see even 10 ppg coming from the other Laker centers. If they come close to 15 we’ll have what appears to be an elite offense in the making. 5 more ppg from Dwight and DAJ doesn’t necessarily mean fewer shots for anyone else, just that they’re doing their jobs well providing a paint release for drives or cleaning the offensive glass.
   
   Prediction: 10 ppg…if we’re lucky.
4. What about all the three point shooters we picked up? Frankly, I don’t see us transforming our offense or playing much differently than we did last season. We’re not going to lead the league in 3 point FGA, we’ll be in the top 1/3 most likely. We shot 32 three pointers/game last season, I don’t see that number going up too much. We hit 35.2% of those. If that could creep up over 37% it will help open up the paint a little bit but the honest truth is that, with LeBron and Russ handling the ball 90+% of the time, teams will dare us to make threes. They are not going to open up the paint for those guys to breeze to the rim from rim-rattling dunks or crowd-juicing lobs. It’s not going to happen no matter what kind of line up we trot out. The Lakers will need to prove that they can hit three pointers at a high clip to alter ay of the tried and true stratagems against Russ and The King.
5. But won’t AD playing at the five make our offense better? In theory, yes. More Davis means less Dwight or DAJ and so that means a more dynamic offense. But AD likes to shoot inefficient step backs and off-balance twos. A lot. Couple that with Russ who is not a knockdown shooter and LeBron who can get hot from the outside but is far better at scoring in the paint and we have a lot of guys who like to play an older brand of basketball, which suits me fine, just that we’re seemingly built for a newer brand. That’s where Frank and his new extension come into play. While not relegating him to lame-duck status Rob didn’t cement his status as long-term future coach of the LA Lakers, either. Frank is going to need to show a little something more, especially on offense, than he has in seasons past.
   
   So, if you add up my predictions we seem to have the potential to score an amazing and near NBA record 124 ppg this season! Don’t bet on it, my predictions are based on feel and notion as much as anything else and we haven’t even seen the full team play, yet. It’s going to be hard for each group to hit my predictions simply because there likely won’t be enough shots to go around. For a little dose of reality we didn’t even crack the 100 point mark in our first pre-season game. For another dose of reality the top scoring teams in NBA history are all from before the 90s. In fact during this, the glorious offensive renaissance of basketball, no team from the 2000’s cracks the top 50 list except for two: The Milwaukee Bucks from last season and the season before. Yeah, that’s right, that misbegotten group of not the New Jersey Nets, or the high octane Mike D’Antoni Phoenix teams or the Shaq/Kobe Lakers are the only modern NBA team to crack the top 50 highest scoring teams in the regular season.
   
   That’s because they do it with defense as much as offense. Which is exactly what we better do. More on that point next time.
   
   Go Lakers.