2026-27 The Coach's Corner: A Place To Discuss Concepts, Rotations And Tactics

I actually think Adou has some play making ability as the roll man. He showed it just recently in summer league. He grew up a guard before a growth spurt.

I hope we play a more multi dimensional offense where players have the opportunities to do things like that, we have a lot of guys that can do multiple things. If it’s just Luka creating from the high pick and roll again, it’ll be disappointing because that isn’t a solution in the playoffs.

 

If it is just Luka creating from the high pick and roll again it will be confirmation JJ isn't the one. With this roster I'm really hoping to see some creativity from him and expect he will come through. I haven't been overwhelmed with him on either end yet but now he has a better more coachable roster to work with. We shall see.

 

JJ has shown a lot of creativity, both sides of the ball. I'm not worried at all.

He just wiped Houston with no all-stars and the best player being a 41y old dude.

Long were the days of stagnant and predictable offense like with Vogel and Ham. It's night and day

 

I would agree JJ is night and day over Ham and maybe even Vogel offensively but I have a little higher bar than that. I still support our coach completely but we need another jump this season and will likely get it

 

I know Ham isn't popular, but he and his staff were pretty good offensively. Our points per possession when we actually ran organized offense under Ham in 2023 and 2024 were awesome, we just didn't do it enough. Ham's offensive playbook was great. His problem was rotations, which in turn undermined his buy in from the roster. Both Ham and JJ are way better offensive coaches than Vogel.

 

probably. but vogel got the team to defend, and vogel has a ring. these are not unrelated.

had vogel not gotten saddled with westbrook, i think he may have seen another extension, lol.

 

I doubt he'd get another chance even if it wasn't for Russ. I always had the impression the FO didn't like Vogel and generally feel like he is underappreciated league wide. I consider him to be a pretty good coach and better than some of the current HC around the league. I would like him to get another gig somewhere as a HC.

 

To get Ham after Vogel, though… pure garbage

 

Yeah, Ham may actually be worse than Byron.

 

anyone think jj is going to play a lot of three-guard lineups (i.e., the rick carlisle special)? we clearly prioritized grimes and sexton in FA, and i'm guessing jj had input there. so in the starting lineup, you have three big guards (luka/reaves/grimes), but i wouldn't be surprised to see reaves at sf defensively a fair amount this year, with both grimes and sexton or even some carr/bronny mixed in.

 

Literally today thought of that ahah. I think with Luka, the 3 guards happen more often. It happened last year with Gabe/Kennard alongside Luka and AR.

I hate the defense of that lineup, but basically Sexton plays POA like Grimes and Luka is a forward defensively, so it's the same concept we had with Smart and will have with Grimes. The upside is having a great shooter and rim attacker which can really open the field for Luka/AR to cook.

I'm pretty we'll have at least a stint per half with those 3, if not more.

Poor Kessler

The combinations of our top 10 guys (11 with Adou) is so interesting. JJ is having the best summer of his life.
It comes at the right time too. JJ is now settled as a HC and saw already a lot of things during his tenure, a bunch of injuries and the crazy post-March months last year. He'll be ready and I think will do a great job maximizing this group

I do expect us to take 2/3 months to find the right combinations, more if there's important injuries. But that's fine, I think we are a lock at the top 6 and can click late like last year.

 

It's no secret we're guard heavy. We probably shouldn't count Luka as a "guard" sized player. But we have Reaves, Grimes, Sexton, Carr, Thybulle, Bronny and Hardy that are all 6'5 or below. And 5 of those 7 guys are probably going to feature in our rotation, so it's alot of guards.

On the wings we have Luka, Ziaire, Jake, Adou, Vando and Knecht (although I imagine he'll be gone soon). We could definitely use another decent wing.

 

I'm more worried about the times we play Sexton, Grimes, Reaves, Luka and Mamu. Because you know that's coming...

 

I think Grimes and Thybulle are more wings than guards. They're a combo yeah but in our team I think they'll play mostly as wings.

In modern NBA the wings are getting smaller. Spurs play Champagnie at the 4. OKC played a lot Dort, Caruso, even Wallace. Phoenix with Grayson Allen. Philly with Oubre. So many examples across the league.

I think the 1-5 concept is a bit outdated as a whole. It's more simple now.
Guards, wings and bigs. You're a wing if you can't dribble, you're a guard if you're too small/not physical. That's why the best guards or wings are the ones who have both. Bigs are still bigs.
Offensively, you're either a ball handler or a floor spacer. That's it. Which makes easier on defense because you also only need a POA, the big and the rest is whatever.

The only downside is rebounding which you need to offset somehow. Which is also why it turned into a high commodity (Adams or Robinson have important roles just because they're elite offensive rebounders). Which is also why we leaned a lot on that by getting Kessler and Mamu.

 

Yeah JJ will love that.
You can see the positive side which is that will force each one of those to improve defensively. So I see value as a regular season practice. We saw it last year with Luka-AR-Rui-Bron-Ayton, it was a bad lineup but had good moments, and I think it reflected later on when Smart was put on the team, the other were a bit more equipped to have good defensive actions.

But definitely not sustainable and a bad recipe for the playoffs.

 

I agree with you. I just think Grimes at 6’4 is more of a guard and Thybulle, who can play as a wing, is more of a guard / small wing. Champagnie meanwhile is 6’7, and although it isn’t a huge difference, I would argue he was the weak link on that Spurs team and that’s why they got Tobias.

In my opinion we’re definitely missing a larger wing type player to even the squad up a bit. We could afford to lose Hardy and Knecht and replace them with more size.

I’m really curious who JJ closes with. I think both Mamu and Sexton can be hunted in the playoffs and I’m still unsure about Kessler not having some issues when teams try to pull him out of the paint. Even if we say Kessler will be fine, who is the 5th closer?

 

i'm actually not super worried about it, as it could run some second units off the floor with the sheer scoring output. it's just not a starting lineup.

re: too many guards, i wonder if the plan is to just try to contain penetration and live with the big wings putting up big scoring nights. this is a bit of what vogel did here, tbh. kcp and bradley were better defenders than grimes/sexton, but one thing i trust those guys to do is keep ballhandlers in front of them in isolation (at least non-superstar ballhandlers).

but yeah, lots of holes are filled with a kuminga type pickup. or even the non-yip version of jake.

 

Non yip version of Jake could start for us and be better in that position than Rui doing it for all reasons almost except 3pt per cent on low volume. I don’t think non yip Jake is some big reach as he started 30 some games for us and was quite decent on perimeter D and with his good size, strength and decent athleticism.

 

Why would I come to LB to discuss Lakers concepts? Maybe some will, I guess.

I'm straight. Nice concept, but this isn't the place.

Go sub to Pete and Darius.

 

you mean...guys that were basically bloggers and message board jockeys a while back?