WMC 24-25: Seasonal Highs And Lows!

Does this team not run plays? I rarely see an actual play....... where's the strategy. They compete on pure athleticism and iso ball from Lebron and some freaky penetration game from Westbrook. If Melo is off or guarded well.. they lose.

Very bizarre season.

 

it's so interested to hear the players have confidence in the coach and what's going on when we see what we see on this side.

There must be a very different set of things going on in the inside for everyone to be so confident and chill about the situation

That in turn makes me confident we make the WCF, but I fear we run out of gas and gimmicks at that point. But I do think we'll be a team nobody will want to face, and since these are the times we are in, there is definitely going to be some luck involved on health for who makes it to the finals.

 

Lebron and Vogel are so full of it. Team was down 20+ points early in the 4th and Lebron was still not playing any defense while he was chasing stats. I don't want to hear another word about saving legs or load management, there's no reason to be out there if you're not competing to win.

^ The team has looked awful defensively all year especially recently during the winning streak against non-playoff competition. The excuse Lebron has spat out mostly all year is...


https://lakersnation.com/lebron-jam...certain-guys-out-due-to-protocols/2021/12/24/

And yet here we are

https://www.silverscreenandroll.com...mall-ball-center-defense-offense-leader-voice

Over and over again last night we saw Lebron play little to no defense

 

He wasn’t the only one who just watched Memphis players make layups without even attempting to close out.

 

Desmond Bane is such a BOSS name…kudos to his parents for naming him like a DC Comics villain. Especially with those impossibly short but thicc arms

 

Whenever I see Bane having a good game, I can’t help but feel frustrated over the fact that if we didn’t throw our first rounder into the Schröder trade, he would have been right there on the board for us. We had the #28 pick, Bane ended up going #30. He would have been perfect for us.

 

i feel same way but most of us think we needed a pg like DS but yea Bane was our pick in a few mock drafts

 

I can see the gifs... T-Rex would be prominently featured and would be compared to our own pterodactyl.

 

yeah, lol. i still remember seeing the footage of bane and being like: why isn't this guy a lotto pick? and then some draft guru is like "short arms". ok bro. looks like he's doing fine.

 

I’m done defending this team and their half assed effort and inconsistencies. Half the geriatrics don’t play defence and we don’t have an offensive play to get an open shot for the other half who do.

 

There’s so much bad it’s tough to know where to start.

 

Need to whine a little.

To be honest, I don't like this team. I didn't even like it in 2020 where we won the title. I'm not even saying they're bad (well, they're certainly not great either right now, but that's not the point). I'm pretty damn sure if this team had any jersey except the Lakers, it would be one of my most disliked teams out there.

That would never change the fact that I'm a Lakers fan for life. Been following this team for 20+ year, and that just has no turning back. I'm happy we won the title in 2020 (it was a small patch for the huge wound we all received that year)... but if I'm perfectly honest, what can I say, I don't like this team, even if I root for them to win. This is new for me to be honest, considering having Kobe from 1996 up to 2016 made all those teams likeable for me (even if 2005-2007 teams were not good). I even kinda liked rooting for the young guys in the brief period between Kobe and Lebron, even if that team sucked.

But I have a hard time putting magic glasses that make players I didn't like suddenly likeable just because of a Laker jersey.

We got a title out of this core, so I'm not planning to hate on them or anything of the sort. Again, I love my title. We needed it that year, and of course, no matter the year, it stopped Boston fans from saying "we have more titles than you", which is absolutely fantastic. But yeah, I don't like this team. I root for them, I want them to win because they're the Lakers right now, but it's hard for me to pretend I like them (and I've tried).

 

I completely feel you Magic Skywalker you're not alone. I've had this conversation with many coworkers who have also been Laker fans since Magic/Kareem days, these guys wear the Laker jersey but they don't play for the franchise's glory. They don't remember or care about our history. I think part of it is just this generation being more self-centered but the way this team goes about business has been a put-off for quite some time. I root for them because its our team and there's exciting potential like THT, Monk and Reaves and ol timers like Ariza and Melo but outside of that they're quite hard to like and get excited about. The franchise is unfocused and they're misguided in thinking appeasing a certain great one can automatically make them a championship contender.

 

If your arms are as thick as they are long, it makes up for the wingspan?

 

Uggggghhhhhhh.

 

it feels like I read this 21 times already

 

You guys who have been around for 20 years still feel like kids to me!! LOL
I've been watching for 60 years!! Since the Lakers came to LA, since Jerry West was a rookie. What we are seeing in the game now is due to the rules of the game and legal aspects that the league and our government have allowed. If the kind of money and ability to move around was available to players in the early days, they would have done the same thing.

One thing I have learned in life is that people that do anything well, are not also great humans. I can give you examples. I love wine, I have at various times in my life been very fortunate to be involved in the industry. I knew most everyone in the industry. I got to meet all the people I had looked up to. In the end, a ton of them were douche bags, some were not very bright, some were bigots and some just like me. Haha, almost perfect. LOL. But all in all, if you really love a certain winery, don't feel like you have to meet the winemaker, you might not love the winemaker nearly as much as you love the wine. This is true in music, though to a lesser extent, but there have been a number of musicians I have met who were pretty surely a-holes. There are a lot that are awesome but buyer beware. So, my point is, who cares if you don't like a player on a personal level. Can he play, does he make us a better team, is he capable of winning a ring?? Personally, I cannot stand Lebron's personal views on life and I don't really have much respect for his opinions. Just because he is a great basketball player doesn't mean that all his other opinions on the world count more than anyone else's. They do to some jackarsses but that is their problem. I am not making it my problem. When it comes to things outside of basketball, he is just another dude to me. He IS a great basketball player and I am more than glad to have him on my team. That is the end of it for me. And despite the fact that I don't really like his personal opinions about life, I do think he appears to be a moderately bright business man and I think he is a good locker room guy. Not that I would know for sure, but I suspect the other players respect him. I like most of the guys on our team, they have been around the league and know the game but I have my doubts that they can win a ring at this point. I don't hate on them though. And if you hate on them because you don't perceive them to be true Lakers, then I think you may be in for a lifetime of disappointment. I think this is the new normal and I doubt we will ever get back to the days of players staying with teams for most of their careers. It's just not very common, especially in the NBA.

If you get to the point where you are looking up to players to be shining examples of humanity, you are making a mistake even thinking about it that way. Players are just people like you and I are. Some of them are cool and you would be happy sitting at a bar or restaurant talking to them, and some of them are self absorbed idiots. Sometimes it is the ones that you want to be cool who end out being jerks. I typically avoid interactions with famous people because I don't want to risk knowing something that might prevent me from enjoying the things they do well. Hope that makes sense.

 

Russell Westbrook. His play and his NOT really being “all in for the good of the team … whatever it takes”. I stated why in his thread, furious with him tonight after the Sac loss.