Things will have to be quite bad to be in a position to draft Zion.
Would all concerned (LeBron, Magic, Jeanie, media and fanbase) be able to accept a lousy W/L record for another high draft pick?
If it helps us land a big fish in FA then sure. It's certainly a different narrative for a FA to join as the Savior of the Lakers, rather than as Lebron's eternal robin.
Imagine this team, then adding KD and Zion on top of that. Obviously we'd need to resolve our SF glut with a trade but the amount of talent would be outrageous.
Things will have to be quite bad to be in a position to draft Zion.
Would all concerned (LeBron, Magic, Jeanie, media and fanbase) be able to accept a lousy W/L record for another high draft pick?
If it helps us land a big fish in FA then sure. It's certainly a different narrative for a FA to join as the Savior of the Lakers, rather than as Lebron's eternal robin.
Imagine this team, then adding KD and Zion on top of that. Obviously we'd need to resolve our SF glut with a trade but the amount of talent would be outrageous.
It makes zero sense to tank for Zion or to trade everything for Zion if we sign KD. I thought the Zion thing was sarcasm, are you guys being for real?
What we gonna do when Zion struggles like all the other rookies? Then we can just add him to the DLO, Ingram and Ball list of young prospects that didn't meet our expectations and look forward to the 2020 draft. _________________ “Life is too short. You have to keep it moving.” - Kobe
Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2018 7:07 am Post subject: Re: Defense - is it just me?
splashmtn wrote:
CRoost wrote:
splashmtn wrote:
Day wrote:
All I hear is how bad our defense is but am I the only one who thinks we've been actually playing pretty well, or at the very least better than expected?
Like we're obviously going to give up a lot of points, that's what happens when we play at the pace we play. The other team is going to have a lot more possessions if we're playing this fast which means they're obviously gong to score more and that obviously has a huge affect on our defensive stats.
I don't care what anyone says the refs have been horrible, like Luke said we're scoring 70 ppg in the paint alone but getting absolutely no calls and lets not even talk about the calls Houston got like that's going to skew our defensive stats.
But is our actual defense really that bad? I think the only thing that really stands out was Stauskas getting open shots and having a career night but iono maybe it's just me and we are really bad on D but I've been impressed by Hart and Javalle and Lonzo on D.
Every NBA teams defense is Crap this year thus far. Have you noticed. we are not getting blown out by these teams. its us dropping the numbers on them, and them dropping the numbers on us.
whats the difference between us and them? usually we have one dynamic mega star to their at minimum two allstars. which means they will get those calls to edge out any win. since its obvious the nba does not want anyone playing defense any more.
So we're basically a star away from these wins.
In addition. we are a new team full of new faces trying to figure one another out as well as luke's system on both ends. these other teams we're BARELY losing to have already been together with their players and systems. To be as close as we are under those circumstances says a lot about our team.
we havent lost a single game we were not supposed to lose. but we did win a game we were not supposed to win.
RIght now, we're on task for the Zion sweepstakes. odds are we will rack up too many wins to be a lotto team and yes we'll make the playoffs. But truth is, as sad as it is. it would be lovely for us to tank ...one more time. get zion(if we're lucky), and still get AD in the off season. thats the kind of star power we need to combat any and all nba opponents.
Everything was good until the last paragraph. You sound like those Knicks fans getting delusional. We already got Lebron and a young core. Time to win and get to the playoff and make some noise . Enough to entice a marquee free agent next year.
no. i sound realistic. making noise in the playoffs means absolutely nothing to a laker fan thats seen multiple championships. sure it would be nice for the kids to get their feet wet and all. but, we have an issue with too many thin guys who just can't hold their man off to keep the refs at bay. that is always going to be an issue for this team as long as we have the kids that we chose. i tried to look the other way on it and every time i see it over and over again. it makes us have to overcompensate for at least 2 guys defensively every game. the nba is no longer a league where you can lock someone up. but you do need to keep someone from just scoring at will on you. and you surely can't have multiple guys scoring like its nothing all night long. and its not cause our guys are bad defensively. its mostly due to our guys builds. super duper thin and light in the butt.
SO that means in order to get back to our winning ways where we're almost assured of victory. we are going to have to get some guys with meat on their bones like a Kawhi, and surely like a zion.
Lol I don’t dwell too much on your Zion talk. We ain’t tanking so stop being delusional. NBA wants the game to be wide open but playoff will be different. We can talk about winning championships when we have a team with enough talent to win it. Stop living in the past, our previous regime mess it up and we have not been in a playoff for awhile
Which is probably greater than Rondo making a layup... fouling and then running a full court play for a last second three in three seconds with no timeouts.
Last night's defense was god awful. It honestly looks like we're regressing on that end.
What defense? Until they start getting stops on the defensive end they will be a non-playoff team. Either they're all terrible defenders (except Javale) or their defensive system sucks.
Look no further then Kyle Kuzma (2nd in minutes) and Rajon Rondo (4th in minutes). When you have two defensive liabilities top 5 in minutes, with Lebron James (who isn't much better himself in the regular season) then you're not going to be a good team.
Hart, Lonzo, Ingram and McGee can play both ends of the floor. But they're not good enough to make up for 3 (bleep) defenders on a consistent basis.
Rondo and Kuzma should get around 25 minutes per game unless they're not being defensive liabilities.
Hart has been HORRIBLE defensively. AWFUL. His D against bigs when he’s forced to switch is good for his size, but against guards he’s giving up easy, straight line blow bys far too often and guys are shooting over him from three or the midrange with impunity and at a high percentage. His perimeter D has been among the worst on the team, IMO.
Which is probably greater than Rondo making a layup... fouling and then running a full court play for a last second three in three seconds with no timeouts.
If Rondo took the layup, the Lakers would have had way more than 3 seconds. Him passing up the shot ran off like an additional 9 seconds off the clock. Rondo passed up the layup with 12.5 seconds on the clock. He almost lost the ball, passed it to Hart with a man draped all over him, which prompted a pass to Lebron who had to force up a shot from the hash mark with Gay right in his face. Naturally, he missed the extremely low percentage shot he was forced into, and Hart was fouled trying to grab the offensive board with 3.5 left. Rondo passing up the layup was a stupid move, period.
Hart is our worst perimeter defender so far this season. The good news for him (but bad news for Laker fans) is that he’s not alone in putridness: Lonzo and Kuzma are only slightly better than him. Every single perimeter guy we have is in the lower 50 percent of the league, with only Ingram close to the top 50 and The guy fans were freaking out about, Lance Stephenson, qualifying as an elite perimeter defender at the 93rd percentile. Like the tweet says: small sample size, but it is ugly.
Hart is our worst perimeter defender so far this season. The good news for him (but bad news for Laker fans) is that he’s not alone in putridness: Lonzo and Kuzma are only slightly better than him. Every single perimeter guy we have is in the lower 50 percent of the league, with only Ingram close to the top 50 and The guy fans were freaking out about, Lance Stephenson, qualifying as an elite perimeter defender at the 93rd percentile. Like the tweet says: small sample size, but it is ugly.
They were playing against murderers row of perimeter players. Dame, CP3, Harden, Derozan, Butler, Booker. Stevenson is playing mostly against bench players. Our guys definitely need to improve and make adjustments.
weren't we supposed to be good at defense?
I still think a lot of our fanbase is operating under the assumption that "talent" is equally divided amongst the stat categories like shooting, passing, rebounding, etc. It's not like that. IN bball, the most talented person is the best shooter. The best shooter can easily focus on rebounding and passing or hustling by taking fewer shots or something like that. But not vice versa.
IN all our losses, we come to a point where no matter how much we push the pace or hustle and play D, etc., someone on the other team will get hot for a while and then the game is over. We don't have that, so we will not do well. Last game, Butler went off, and we lost. We are going to continue bricking important FTs and all those desparate longballs when we go down by 8 with 2 minutes left. This is to be expected, look at our players. THis deficiency cannot be made up by playing better D or rebounding more, it just doesn't work like that.
A team like GSW, can just sit back and wait for one of their elite talent players to get hot for just a few minutes. Whereas we have to play flawlessly with no turnovers, high pace, and lots of layups and dunks. It's not really possible. Lebron is bricking clutch shots, he is passing hard passes to Kuz knees, behind the back out of bounds. The other guys are bricking open shots because that is not their strength.
Warriors can just have a lead, let the stars play D for a while (so easy), and wait for Klay to go off.
We have a lack of talent. NOT shooting talent, just a basic lack of talent. THis is if we're trying to win a ring. But I agree with others, we're just seeing who were going to keep this year before we figure out what team we will have next year and on.
Hart is our worst perimeter defender so far this season. The good news for him (but bad news for Laker fans) is that he’s not alone in putridness: Lonzo and Kuzma are only slightly better than him. Every single perimeter guy we have is in the lower 50 percent of the league, with only Ingram close to the top 50 and The guy fans were freaking out about, Lance Stephenson, qualifying as an elite perimeter defender at the 93rd percentile. Like the tweet says: small sample size, but it is ugly.
They were playing against murderers row of perimeter players. Dame, CP3, Harden, Derozan, Butler, Booker. Stevenson is playing mostly against bench players. Our guys definitely need to improve and make adjustments.
Can't go all out on defense from October to (hopefully) June.
That said, the Lakers are not contesting enough shots and making scoring too easy for the opponents.
I expect that to change as Magic has raised the anxiety level and the reality is this team needs to get to .500 before they can even realistically talk playoffs.
I expected a slow start with all the new players, a green head coach and a brutal early schedule.
But that will all start to even out and if the Lakers can just tread water until December 1st or so, I like our chances after that. _________________ Love, Laker Lanny
I think one of the biggest problems to our D is Luke's insane line ups/rotations. How do we expect players/units to have a defensive cohesion when players are constantly rotated and have no stability.
All the guys on one year deals, are playing for contracts next season and the reality is teams pay for your offensive production, not defense. As far as the young guys, they want to boost their offensive production as much as possible for the same reasons when they become free agents.
Joined: 15 May 2001 Posts: 2146 Location: Tega Cay, South Carolina
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2018 4:14 am Post subject:
We really miss Randle from a rebounding and defensive perspective. When he locked in on defense he set the tone for the rest of the team.
Hart was good last year but something seems to be missing with him. He was the other guy that jumped up when we were in lock down mode.
KCP seems to have lost his entire game right now.
Lebron rebounds okay so far.
Kuz might be better playing at the 3/4 instead of the 5 but where are the rebounds?
McGee and Ball these guys rock on defense. Get BI locked in and encourage Kuz in the 3/4 to pick it up and we have the makings of a good defense.
2nd unit with Rondo, Hart, KCP and Stevenson should be pressing all over the court and taking advantage of what those guys do best. Throw Zu in there for some rebounding and rim protection and they should be acceptable.
We really miss Randle from a rebounding and defensive perspective. When he locked in on defense he set the tone for the rest of the team.
Hart was good last year but something seems to be missing with him. He was the other guy that jumped up when we were in lock down mode.
KCP seems to have lost his entire game right now.
Lebron rebounds okay so far.
Kuz might be better playing at the 3/4 instead of the 5 but where are the rebounds?
McGee and Ball these guys rock on defense. Get BI locked in and encourage Kuz in the 3/4 to pick it up and we have the makings of a good defense.
2nd unit with Rondo, Hart, KCP and Stevenson should be pressing all over the court and taking advantage of what those guys do best. Throw Zu in there for some rebounding and rim protection and they should be acceptable.
And you need a guy like that on the team to set the tone and the example when it comes down to it. How many times last year did we watch guys being lackadaisical and then Randle would do something with intensity or make a big defensive play or hustle and it seemed to wake up the rest of the team? That's why he was the heart and soul of our team and where the intensity started.
But if LeBron is all the guys have to look to in terms of inspiration or to get them engaged defensively, they aren't going to find it very often.
The energy and intensity on the defensive end this year just isn't the same.
I expect that similar would happen with the Warriors to an extent if they no longer had Draymond, or if they'd traded Draymond for Love. It's ALWAYS important to have a guy like that on your team. You see the effect it has team wide once that element is no longer there. _________________ How NBA 2K18 failed the All-Time Lakers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxMBYm3wwxk
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2018 6:11 pm Post subject: Re: Defense - is it just me?
Day wrote:
All I hear is how bad our defense is but am I the only one who thinks we've been actually playing pretty well, or at the very least better than expected?
Like we're obviously going to give up a lot of points, that's what happens when we play at the pace we play. The other team is going to have a lot more possessions if we're playing this fast which means they're obviously gong to score more and that obviously has a huge affect on our defensive stats.
I don't care what anyone says the refs have been horrible, like Luke said we're scoring 70 ppg in the paint alone but getting absolutely no calls and lets not even talk about the calls Houston got like that's going to skew our defensive stats.
But is our actual defense really that bad? I think the only thing that really stands out was Stauskas getting open shots and having a career night but iono maybe it's just me and we are really bad on D but I've been impressed by Hart and Javalle and Lonzo on D.
It's not all in your imagination. With Javale Mcgee on the floor, the Lakers have a Defensive efficiency rating of 103, That's ranks as 10th best in the league (a league where let's be frank, almost nobody really plays good defense anymore). But when McGee sits, that rating balloons to 123. Now with Chandler coming onboard, you'll see the teams defensive efficiency rating make a consistent rise every game since the Mcgeeless minutes won't be leaking like a siv. _________________ I'm On point, On task, On message, and Off drugs. A Streetwise Smart Bomb, Out of rehab and In denial. Over the Top, On the edge, Under the Radar, and In Control. Behind the 8 ball, Ahead of the Curve and I've got a Love Child who sends me Hate mail.
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