Ex-Coach Luke Walton Discussion

Luke is good to go. He needs the youth to develop and better personnel, IMO.

He's not perfect, but he's the best head coach we have had in a few seasons, IMO.

 

Agree with the need, like we finally turned the corner with when Trevor Ariza was signed, to bring in a couple of athletic and talented defensive players. The other remediable thing that needs to happen is true leadership and winning first mentality from amongst the best young players on the roster ..... has to rise to the surface. A big reality waiting to happen in that regard is when it finally sinks in to Russell that in order to do this, as he seems to truly believe he has in him .....



..... he has to put in more work off the clock and step his game up to the level where he can back it up. Large gap right now between the two.

 

Man, I miss Ariza. We could use him right now

 

I feel ya dude. I completely agree about how long it can take for a young squad to shake the stench of Boron's losing methods+the Kobe farewell nightmare from last year. It's not the wins and losses that bother me because they're ahead of schedule from last year. It's how they're playing the past 25 games. It hasn't been up and down inconsistency like you would expect a young team. It's been a sudden drop off a cliff with like 2-3 good effort games. We've lost good effort games and won bad effort games due to our being hot from 3. But those wins and losses don't matter, it's the consistent defensive apathy that bothers me because when focused and motivated they CAN defend. I'd accept and expect some horrible games mixed in with some good games mixed in with games with fire and heart that came up short. Instead we're getting horrible effort and heart almost every night consistently since December. WTF is up with that? That's not inconsistent youth that doesn't know how to win. That's something seriously wrong.

 

Some of today's half court scrimmaging.

 

That was a great read! I agree with everything and it puts things into perspective and makes me feel better. Still, given those valid points, they're still underachieving IMO.

This is under emphasized. Yes a young team, still with a horrid taste of losing all last year is going to fluctuate in their effort and focus. But there's been a consistent steep drop off in effort and focus since December. Bad habits, immaturity, learning to defend, and ups and downs with effort and focus are all acceptable and excusable. This consistent "we admit we're not bringing it" is not.

 

19, 20, 21. That is your core and your future. One useless stiff and a good but declining player with all that. It's hard to win in a veteran league when most of your guys still aren't old enough to legally drink. It is a young man's league but not that young.

Luke can coach. I know this, I can see it. However, front office needs to figure some things out or they will continue to suck.

 

I'm with ya. I'm not concerned about the big picture. I was just expressing that this play of late is unacceptable and a tad more than just a young teams expected ups and downs. I think they'll right the ship though.

 

the hell they practicing? looks like street ball at venice beach

 

Cant expect a 17win team to improve over night but they shouldnt be getting worse either

 

The answer is pretty simple when you take a look at our ten most used lineups :

5 have a postive net rating and at least one of Nance and Black appears in 4 of them .

Our 2nd unit who used to kill it at the beginning of the season just play 20 games together for 193 minutes...

Black and especially Nance absence have been huge .

Our starting unit which also has a net rating of between 7 and 8 has missed 19 games ...