I love what Luke is doing so far. Only thing I don't like is that he has played around too much with the lineups. I know, its preseason, but I think its important to have some chemistry the last couple games of the preseason going into the start of the season. Too many times players after the game are saying "I haven't played much with xyz and we need to get familiar with each other." I think a lot of the mistakes made of the court come from lack of on court chemistry. That being said, how much can you really do in 8 games during the preseason? I just hope it doesn't cost the lakers 5 or 6 games because they are still getting to know each other's habits on the court.
Luke told the press that he's willing to lose games in order to experiment with chemistry within lineups. He wishes that he could get it done during preseason but conceded that if he needed to sacrifice short term goals to benefit the team long-term, he'd do it. I'm not happy about it either, but at least he was honest about it. The good thing is that he's happy with the bench unit. It's the starters that are bothering him. Especially their tendency to get off to slow starts. That starting unit will likely go through several changes before he's happy with what he sees.
I'm curious why he hasn't tried Russell, Young at the 2, Randle, Deng, Mozgov. Let Lou's chips fall where they may if Swaggy can hang there.
I agree this lineup has good defense on it to not allow crazy slow starts. With Lou it causes defensive liability, also I think Lou needs to be traded for a legit sg that plays defense and can stretch the floor.
isn't the early schedule pretty rough, too? maybe he figures they're going to lose a lot early in any case.
Yeah, schedule is tough the first 5 games. Off the top of my head, we're at home against Houston, then to Utah, OKC, Atlanta, and Indiana. Not easy.
If the starters are never going to be good enough to win against starting units of other teams, then we at least need to showcase a group of players for when the February trade deadline nears. Our most valuable trade assets need to be out of the floor regardless of whether they fit together or not.
Good Listens/Watches Prior to our Game Tonight on the status of our team Practice Report: Luke Walton (10/25/16) http://www.nba.com/lakers/video/teams/lakers/2016/10/25/1477433005766-161025_Luke-Walton-886248 Practice Report: Luke Walton (10/24/16) http://www.nba.com/lakers/video/teams/lakers/2016/10/24/1477347860735-161024_Luke-Walton-883232
I hope it's Russell/Young/Deng/Randle/Moz. Then Lou/Clarkson/Ingram/Nance/Black rotating in. Then it may be something like Russell/Lou/Clarkson/Randle/Moz to finish the game.