Optimism Discussion: The Laker's Sky Is Not Falling

We wore purple at an away game

 

…only 81 more games of Russ.

 

Only 80 games left this year. Only 18 more games until Rob looks at the rosters of other NBA teams.

 

and gets owned by the other team

 

His name is Rob so it’s apropos. Rob Pelinka is the motto of his trading partners

 

In both games we had good runs who bring some hope that we may be into something. Yesterday came with LeBron, JTA, Reaves, Lonnie and Russ. Later the same but with Beverley instead of Russ. Interesting

We gave some fight to the 2 biggest contenders in the West who are the deepest teams in the league in our first 2 games. While shooting like crap.

Our success definitely relies on defense, which I believe can win us a bunch of games against not so deep and talented teams.

We need a win against Portland to better grasp what this team can do


Also think our success 100% relies on defense. There's no way around it. This team is built to go in transition after getting stops. That's the only way our offense flows. Let's see if we have enough D to hold our ground

 

We just needed Nunn, Russ and Bev to hit a few more shots instead of just 1

 

philly's in the same spot as us, and nobody's saying they're dead in the water. we got maybe the worst possible schedule to start the year following another summer of roster and system upheaval. and we looked better last night than in almost any game last year, tbh.

now be ready for me to unleash some vitriol if we sleepwalk against portland.

 

Difference with Philly is they have a NBA roster. They have 10 high level NBA players; including size, shooting, and defense. We do not. Also Beard works himself into his version of game shape as the season wears on.

 

i suppose...but



that bench is better than ours? i'm really not sure. they have maxey, and we have no real equivalent. but i'm wondering if pj tucker might not be a bigger beverley and tobias harris's production at his salary level is problematic.

also, if AD had the same second half as embiid last night, pitchforks everywhere.

finally: harden used to work himself into game shape. he never really got there last year. was that an anomaly or part of a trend?

point is they got spanked by the runner up and then lost a tight one to the next best team in their conference.

 

I think the Sixers and Nets will get off to rough starts.

 

There is a lot of "good tape" you can point to.

We looked very good in spurts.

Let's get the W in Portland.

 

I don't think it's even close.

Trez is better than all our supporting bigs combined by a wide margin.

Thybulle is a better defender than anyone on our roster not named Bron (playoff mode) and AD.

Milton and Melton are buckets. Maybe Walker and pre-season Nunn can get there. We'll see.

House is one of the ones who got away. Solid two way backup wing.

On our roster Niang who be good enough a shooter to get a statue outside Crypto.

Reed has looked really good in summer league and pre-season. So he's as promising as our young guys not named AR

 

LOL. Cause that's the place we usually mark as W on our calendars.

 

Would be stoked to see what an AD/James/JTA/AR/Walker would look like as a finishing lineup. A quick PG might give them trouble but like the ability to switch and is refreshingly athletic: harks back to the bubble team

 

i think if you switched those guys, i'd be here listening to non-stop complaining about just about everyone you named? i could easily write a similar optimistic case for players on our roster.

they have a third and 4th player that are miles ahead of our respective 3rd/4th players (do we have them?), but down the roster...big bag of meh.