Optimism Discussion: The Laker's Sky Is Not Falling

Well we can’t lose tonight is my optimism right about now.

 

Happy Birthday! Hope you didn’t watch the game.

 

…. hope it wasn’t a lot

 

Watching Lakers basketball is depressing right now. And I don’t think we’ve hit rock bottom yet.

But we will inevitably bounce back in some capacity.

We’ll get healthy, start establishing some continuity, have some luck break our way. There will be stretches to come where we look like legitimate championship contenders. We’ll have some regressions. We’ll stabilize somewhere in the middle, get into the playoffs with a mid seed, and end up as a solid team with a puncher’s chance if we’re fully healthy.

The reason I know this, is because fans across the NBA and our own fanbase are already writing us off. Maybe it’s not as prevalent here, but everywhere else, the sky is absolutely falling.

“Fire Vogel. Fire Rob. Fire Jeanie. Trade everyone” kinda stuff.

“See I told you the Lakers were going to be terrible and they have no idea what they’re doing. Bubble championship was a fluke, Lebron is washed” say the armchair GM’s from their keyboards across the country less than 20 games into the season.

Even read a post on another Lakers place blaming our downfall on trading Danny Green. Probably the same chicken littles that were sending him death threats back when he actually played for us.

And fans on the internet are more often than not incredibly wrong, quick to judgement, and prone to hot takes that inevitably blow up in their faces.

So we won’t be as terrible as we feel in this moment. There will be a lot of frustration through the process, but we’ll be fine/okay/good.

 

Happy birthday! I also turn 40 in a couple weeks!

 

love your way of thinking and totally agree!

 

Weirdly still optimistic if Ariza can play like last year and Reaves come back.

A rotation of AD/Dwight/Lebron/Ariza/THT/WEstbrook/Reaves plus a few shooters and suddenly the defensive identity doesn't seem so far fatched. Just b******* the Lakers let Caruso go though. Having him and Reaves with THT would solve a lot of defensive issues this team had but Ariza remains the key. That's probably a bad thing

 

Not sure how optimistic this it, but the start to the season has been strange for everyone.

The Hawks, Bucks, Boston & 76ers are around .500 in the East. The Nets have lost to all the legitimate teams they've faced this season and don't look particularly great. The bulls are playing ultra small with 4 guard line-ups and I'm not sure how that will be hold up in the playoffs. The Wizards have started hot but they're the Wizards.

Which leaves Miami playing solid competition and playing well in the East.

In the West, Denver, Portland, Clippers and Mavericks are all around the .500 mark. PHX has had the easiest schedule in the NBA, barely vs-ing any playoff bound teams so I'm not sure how good they are yet. Utah has looked ok but been blow out by some random teams.

Really only GSW has looked great to start the season. Everyone else is kind of middling. If we can get our crap together, we are only two games out of a top 4 finish.

But we need to start now.

 

pho has won 11 in a row

 

Yes against:

Kings
Cavs
Pelicans
Rockets
Hawks
Kings
Blazers
Grizzlies
Rockets
Wolves
Mavs
Mavs

Hardly any playoff teams there and not a single team that’s playing well.

 

Both mavs wins at home with no Luka, too.

and they’ve been healthy.

nobody but gs has impressed me at all so far.

 

The league is still very wide open. If can get ourselves together we’d still be right there in the mix.

 

We should win this Detroit game.

 

ummm...yeah. so much so that if we lose, i expect something sizable to happen. probably the wrong thing (coach fired).

 

Are the big guns all finally healthy now? Let’s see how we do in an actual decent stretch of healthy games in a row to close out 2021.

 

I hope so because I can’t take much more of the lifeless play.

 

Please let us look back on this in a few months and say that Lebron busting Stewart’s eye open was the turning point

 

well 11 is 11, i doubt this team could even pull a .500 record against those 11

 

you mean fully healthy like phx has been? we'd get pretty close. they had nearly zero roster turnover and have had almost everyone for almost all games. against that slate, they should be winning that much.

 

It's called good management