Optimism Discussion: The Laker's Sky Is Not Falling

It wasn't all about Prince's minutes, he and Rui don't play the same role anyway. And Rui wasn't a starter last season either, Vanderbilt was.

Fwiw..Ham should have moved Austin to the bench earlier than he did. He should have benched D'Angelo earlier too. Both moves paid off later. It got both of those guy's attention, and they both responded by playing better afterwards.

 

Naw Jones..you are using the selective cherry picking of certain stats, and some convenient amnesia, on a few other things in order to support it.

Rui missed 14 of our first 40 games. We were 7-7 in the games he missed. He's started 30 games this season. When you actually look at the game logs, it doesn't support this narrative. Rui started out a little sluggish in our 1st 3 games, then he was injured, when he came back, he avg over 25 minutes per game, then he got hurt again. After his second return from injury, he waa consistently playing a lot of minutes, then he was injured again. He's remained injury free since his 3rd injury, and started in most of those games. Rui has had 3 periods, where he was hurt this season.


Vanderbilt played from game 21 to 50, this overlaps some of the time, that people complain about Rui’s minutes. It's not as cut and dried, this..Ham chose Prince over Rui stuff, that you continue to promote. Sometimes Prince and Rui played a lot in the same damn games. When he did play before becoming a starter, on some nights he had it going, and some nights he just didn't.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hachiru01/gamelog/2024

So NO..it is NOT all about Prince's minutes. It sounds good in theory, but it was more going on with this team, then Ham playing Prince over Rui.

Fwiw..Rui’s minutes were up and down here, when we got him in the trade, including in the playoffs.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hachiru01/gamelog/2023

For some reason you've decided, that it's mostly about Prince, and that is not the truth. Hell Rui...is one of my favorites on this team, and I still think Reddish and Vanderbilt, made more sense as starters.

I'm just against all this dumping on Prince jazz. Which is I guess is dumping on Ham in the process.

 

@Slick2021
Taurean Prince was THIRD in minutes behind LeBron and AD for literally half of this season. Forget Rui and Vando for a second..he was ahead of both Reaves and DLO in minutes per game for HALF OF THE SEASON.

Look at our record when Prince plays less than 25 minutes...let me help you out, they're 19-4.

The truth is, I actually like the Prince signing a lot, but the way we've over-utilized him has made me hate the signing. We preached continuity last summer when we brought everyone back, and then Ham decided it was better to bench all the guys that we signed over the summer (yes vando was the starter but he was injured to begin the year so the logical starter shoulda been Rui). We were switching lineups often and early when we didn't have to...ALL YEAR every beat writer and lakers fan was pleading Darvin to stop starting Prince OR stop playing him so many god damn minutes. We would also put Taurean on the other team's best perimeter player whether they were a guard or a forward, and that's just NOT him. He's not a good primary defender - he's a good secondary defender if you're switching everything.

Rui did start out slow, but that is also on the coach to get him going and get him more minutes, regardless of how slow he's starting. For whatever reason, he gave a much longer leash to a brand new player on this roster who had not developed the chemistry with our guys yet...and didn't afford the same to guys that were here last year and helped us make the WCF. We then find out later on that Darv has nepotism towards players he's either played with or coached previously...dating back to last year with Schroder and now this year with Prince. THAT is what infuriates all of us man. There's no consistency from Darvin and the reasoning always doesn't make sense and we all wish he said nothing instead of the BS that comes out of his mouth when someone asks him if he regrets not starting Rui sooner.

 

The game logs speak for themselves. Rui and Prince are different types of players, and were meant to play different roles on this team too.The record with Prince playing x amount of minutes, lacks some context. What else was going on, with some of our other players during this time? Who else were we missing, who wasn’t playing well?

Every coach has players that they favor, it's been that way in the entire history of organized Basketball. Vogel had Avery. Ham juggled lineups all last season, we still got to the Conference Finals, the only guy that didn't show there, was D'Angelo.

I give the man more lattitude on his rotation decisions myself. It's not written in stone, that if Rui had started every single game he's been available, that we'd have any better record today IMO.

We move forward and see what happens. At the end of the day, there are going to be some great players, and good coaches right there, in the exact same spot, as we will be at the end of the season. In the play-in, it's a tough Conference.

Back to Prince, he's also been one of the few players on the team, that hasn't been injured too. This stuff about last year's guys gets a bit overplayed IMO. TWO important pieces, were also missing early in the season, Shroeder and Vanderbilt, those guys were an integral part of that run we had. Dennis avg 30min a game, and we never replaced him. Everyone tends to minimize or overlook that part, no..Prince is mostly the problem. I disagree with that sentiment

I don't blame the guy for stiff arming the media some either, The team is playing pretty well, been doing so since mid January. Who really gives a s*** about what woulda, coulda, been now? For what purpose? It's irrelevant chatter. I don't care about what he has to say, show me what's what when it matters the most..the playoffs. Let the Minn, OkC, NO of the world celebrate their regular season success. In Cancun in April or May.

 

agree on Schroder not being replaced and of course no Vando. AT this point, I'm just excited about where this team is going but it does make me cringe when I see us being 9th with a 41-32 record and the teams ahead of us just keep winning. Makes it hard not to think about where we'd be if we had just gone with the same lineup from last year's playoffs...

 

I feel you bro..I actually get Jones too..I'm just more optimistic about our chances than some. We are beginning to look a lot like we did, at the end of last season to me. Those guys went from 7th to the Conference Finals. I'm still rocking with Lebron and AD in a 1 game playin over anyone, even if we had to do it twice. Then bring on whoever

 

i'm warming up to the idea of playing Denver in R1 while our guys are fresh but honestly, I don't like our chances even if we're rolling into the play-in / playoffs against a healthy Denver team that will have home court over us once again and they've beaten us 8 straight times and our one advantage against 99% of teams goes completely cold against Jokic.

 

To be fair @lakerjones .... what are you going to believe, your lyin' eyes or what Slick tells you? Come on now.

 

Naw Jones..I posted those game logs for a specific reason...because you keep flailing around on this topic, with this same false narrative.

What 50 are you even talking about man? 50 what? Games? Rui has started 30 games, he's only been available for 59.

Like I said, the preferred starter which is Jarred Vanderbilt, was also available during a lot of these games, that you keep talking about starting Rui.

If you had bothered to even look at the logs, you would have noticed that Rui missed 9 games himself, before Vanderbilt returned.

After Vanderbilt came back, Rui missed another 5 games, before Vanderbilt was injured again, in game 50.

So..this assertion that Ham just played Prince, when he should have started Rui , is incorrect.

Look at the losses, You keep pointing to how many minutes Prince played, yet you overlook how many minutes, Vanderbilt and sometimes Wood, played in those games too. Yet you keep skipping to " Hey, he should have just started Rui!" ....Over Vanderbilt too? Jarred didn't deserve to play?

Prince doesn't play PF/SF he plays SF/SG. I mean you do know that, Lebron is also a PF right?

It was never that simple man.When you look at the games, some games Rui or Vanderbilt played more minutes than Prince, whether he started or not.

Now it's..we are playing well now, so this means he should have just played Rui more! Problem solved, Ham caused this problem!

That's a false narrative, that doesn't reflect what actually happened. Delve through the actual game logs, of the games that we lost then, and point out these games.

I guess your point is, Rui should have gotten all of Vanderbilt's minutes too. So throwing out some numbers related to Prince, and contrasting it with Rui’s, is disingenuous, when you also ignore, that the guy that was supposed to start, was also playing. That part is irrelevant huh? It's all about Prince. That's some BS.

Hell..if Reaves played better, early in the season, we might won more games. Didn't YOU say he looked like he needed a month off?

If D'Angelo hadn't decided, that his feelings were hurt, by being in trade rumors, and played like he gave a F, before going to the bench, We might have won more games.

If Lebron and AD hadn't stumbled and fumbled, down the stretch, and got outplayed, in some of those losses. We might have won more games.

A lot more went on, than just how many minutes Taurean Prince played dude. We could have still won more games, if some of what I just listed happened. But it didn't, and here we are.

 

I’m ok blaming Ham. He made us pretty much unwatchable and allowed injuries to be a crutch despite a deep roster.

the Prince numbers are hard to dispute. I suppose if the results were inverse we’d give him props for helping us win. But since he didn’t, I’m completely ok letting it guide the team in playing him far fewer minutes.

simply, go with what is working.

 

Is he? Ham is still coach though, the dumbest in the league who can’t decide on a rotation to save his life

 

Bron and AD look more healthy at this time of the season than last season ? Do you all agree ?

 

Agree

 

Took Vando 2 months last time to start hitting his stride. I think his impact will come if we make it deep into the playoffs and if he maintains health. IF he's coming back.

Otherwise, history says he'll need ramp up time to be effective. Or maybe a different coach.

 

yeah I wouldn't RELY on Vando unfortunately. And I'm also worried that Ham is going to reduce Rui's minutes instead of reducing Prince/Gabe minutes to get Vando playin time, which is a negative for me.

 

Of course he will. It's what he does over and over. Probably will stick him on the fastest guy out there first game back too. Hope Vando can hold up this time.