Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

Darvin Ham is not getting fired.

 

Eh..there wasn't a large degree of separation even without Lebron. The Timberwolves are 12-1 at home, they aren't an easy win.

 

It's started when they fired Vogel
Then it doesn't matter.But Hachimura can't play center vs Gilbert or KAT ..

 

He definitely can't, but he's better at it than Wood or Hayes against bigs with any weight which is on Rob for his mistakes.

Hayes nearly got balled up and shoved through the basket by KAT. That through the legs TO where he forgot how to catch the ball was fun too.

 

Vogel deserved to get fired. Might get fired again by the Suns if they don't pick it up.

 

Rui had his advantages on offense..Gobert isn't a scorer anyway.

 

Won't matter unless they're replacing him with Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. Coaching isn't their problem. It's predictable injuries, which is roster construction.

 

They have the highest paid assistant coach in the league. A guy that was a finalist for the job, who also has longer ties to the organization. He's also their offensive architect, hand picked for the staff to boot. Frank has very little margin for error there.

 

After the Lakers' 4th straight loss, on a BTB, on the road, against the team with the best record in the West, and without Lebron:

What went right:
I thought we played 'em pretty tough, but my gawd did MIN's size down low expose a weakness of ours other than our 3 point shooting (which was pretty good this game: 10/23). AD can only do so much against that much size.

Wrong:
I hate to sound like a past POTUS, but the malaise since winning the IST: it's soured me on the idea of the IST, really. I mean, I'm not sure it's the hangover letdown of the IST, but our guys are healthy (although I wonder about Vando's heel and what happened with Gabe for this game?), but there's little urgency. Lebron missing the game of course hurts us, but the team since the IST (barely beat SA one game, lost to them the next: 4 straight losses) just looks like it's stuck in 3rd.

D-Lo hit 2 late 3s for his only 2 3s of the night. The game was lost, and he finished 7/19 from the field: his shooting has been terrible going on 7 games now. I'm not blaming him.

Antman Edwards is a force of nature. Man alive...

 

Set back 5 years? Revisonist history. This team is still better than that team.

 

we got two of them and traded one out (the 22nd pick), but it doesn't matter. it still killed two years, if not more.

 

Not much better at all IMO. D'Angelo and Rui are equivalent to KCP and Kuz, plus we got Vanderbilt. Kcp is a better defender but his shot came and went frequently. Kuz still can't guard a chair today, and his offense was sporadic too.What did we actually lose in a 2024 and 2028 2nd rd pick? For some reason folks still keep overlooking the fact that we didn't have a PG, when we made the Westbrook trade. Keeping Kcp and Kuz didn't change that situation at all, and we were already over the cap.

I'd say chosing Tucker over Caruso was the real mistake.

 

How? I need some clarity on how Kcp and Kuz, somehow would have made any difference in 2021. What killed 2 years was injuries to Lebron and AD period. The rest is some absence makes the heart grow fonder stuff. It's not rooted in reality.

 

we got killed because we had russell westbrook killing us for almost every second he played, man. he was so bad. subtraction by addition. just like a lot of our improvement after the trade was simply...not having to play that guy.

 

Nah. We got killed because AD and Lebron were injured. Whoopee doo, we might have won 3 more games with Kcp and Kuz..maybe. Our record after the Westbrook trade, wasn't much better than it was before the trade. Until LeBron came back. Once again we've only won consistently with Both of those guys playing. Whether you cared for the HC or other players around them or not. Westbrook AD and Lebron were 22-22 in 44 total games. That ain't getting killed in any fashion.

Hell..we are playing 500 ball right now, with Lebron and AD, playing most of the season together!!

 

Lol are we really re-litigating the Russ trade again? He wasn't the only issue, that 2021-2022 roster turned out to be awful in hindsight. And Slick isn't wrong that consistent injuries LeBron and AD kept that already flawed group from building any continuity. They could have been better.

But Russ obviously was a terrible fit that lowered the ceiling of the team from championship contenders to mediocre at best. Having a guy that actively conflicted with how our two stars want to play on a $50 million per year contract forcing us to round out the roster with old minimum contracts was a death nail. Once we made that trade, we had no chance to win a championship. The Warriors team that won in 2022is pretty uninspiring compared to historical champions, if we just ran the 2021 team back with Reaves and Monk I think we could have done some real damage.

 

people forget just how good the 20-21 team was. if AD doesn't get hurt, they probably beat the suns and make another deep playoff run. there was no need to blow that team up to bring in westbrick and even worse, there was clearly no consideration to how he'd fit alongside lebron either. the mindset behind that trade was basically "let's bring in westbrick so he can carry the team when lebron sits"

and yeah, the entire 21-22 roster was just completely f***ed from the start. they brought in a bunch of old shooters and figured they could win games on 3 pt shooting alone without considering how bad the team would be defensively. westbrick was the main issue, but there were quite a few underlying problems with how that roster was constructed. even if lebron and AD had played every game that season, they still wouldn't have been a winning team because the roster around them was just terrible

 

i still say bron/ad should take accountability for Westbrook trade