Ex-Coach Luke Walton Discussion

He earned the skepticism to start the year with his a** backwards rotations. Things are starting to slow down and come easier. Certainly he deserves credit for the defensive buy in he's gotten, but it even he admitted a lot of that is the players' desire to improve on that end. This off-season the Lakers got players more willing to defend and we're starting to see it come around.

 

We're much, much higher in defensive categories than we have been the past few seasons. Walton has yet to prove he's a capable strategist but he is learning on the job. It's early and last season was "experimental" so I'm giving him some leeway.

 

Our defense is so much better now - props for that! Now, why did it take an injury to Nance for Luke to realize what Kuz can do in the starting lineup? Oh well, at least it's going to be obvious now.

 

The only part of the rotation I wasn't sure about is Randle. But even that is starting to look like he knew what he was doing, he just had to give Randle time to settle into his new role.The team needed time to integrate our players. Lopez and Ball both missed significant time in the preseason. The unfortunate thing is Nance may not find his way back into the rotation. Kuz continues to play like this, and Randle continues to beast as our first big off the bench, Nance becomes a spot time player. the 10th man in a 9 man roation.

 

He also started the year with Deng in the lineup. He tried Brewer at the 4 for some reason. Luke was all over the place early on.

 

If I remember correctly, that Deng thing happened because KCP was out on his suspension. It was a dumb substitution, but whatever. The team is starting to get into a rhythm offensively and we are top 10 in defense with a bunch of kids. Hard to argue with the results at this point. There are things he could have done better, but I just want to sort of stand up for him because a few people on this board and other boards were killing him after the first couple games.

 

I was among those killing him and I still am not entirely convinced he's as good as we want. I do however agree that the results are coming through. I'm glad he's got a good group of kids on the team who are all eager to be competitive. He's making up for his early mistakes.

 

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I do agree with that. He is still learning, but there are things that he certainly got right and the players love him.

 

Cutting baseline was something Ball did a lot of in UCLA and did it well. He's a good lob target. That's something the Lakers should be utilizing more. Not to mention, having Lonzo as a secondary playmaker on the strong side is also a dangerous weapon to use. I'd definitely have our SG in playmaking actions and let Lonzo work off the ball. He's got great instincts and can read teams like a book. Why not put him in that position?

 

I feel like we've only begun to scratch the surface with our offense. It seems very, very basic right now and we have the personnel to make it much more dynamic now that Kuz is in the starting lineup. There are a lot of skills that are being underused at the moment. This staring lineup has a ton of upside.