2022-23 Team Developments: News / Trades / Free Agents / Rumors

so much arguing going on these days



watching your favorite team play crappy ball does put one in a foul mood. I suppose I'm lucky for catching so few games this year. Mostly unwatchable ball.

But I hope we are still pulling for all of the guys to put it together for a nice run heading into the playoffs with some rhythm.



Yes, I said playoffs since the West is relatively weak. It could happen, but our remaining strength of schedule means the guys are going to have to step up. If not, at least help pad the Kang's all time stats so he can set records while in a Lakers uniform. Always nice to have record holders set records while they are Lakers.

 

it's pointless.

yes.

except that you don't. you're trying to blame vogel, which is not at all what he said.

 

It should. Defense wins championships.

 

I don't disagree about beating Phoenix. I still believe that AD and Lebron at 100 percent will beat any team in the West. Last season and this one too. I feel like last season's team should have done better than 7th, they had enough talent to do better than that, in spite of the AD and Lebron's injury situation. The coaching staff never figured out a coherent offensive strategy outside of ...give the ball to Lebron, or give the ball to AD. Vogel never figured out how to use Shroder or Trez effectively IMO. Maybe he didn't think it was a big deal, because he expected to have James and Davis back. It didn't pan out. He doesn't seem to know how to use Russ either, Lebron asked for another ball handler last season to share the playmaking duties. We got Dennis and basically didn't change up anything to suit his abilities and Lebron was back carrying the load. He wanted Russ, it's the same story, we don't run anything special to cater to Russ, for a minute with Lebron out, Russ and AD were starting to gell some, then Anthony goes down. Lebron comes back and it's back to give the ball to Lebron and he'll figure it out. Coaching plays a part in this scenario, Frank doesn't have the luxury to sit back and concentrate on the defense. I have no idea what Fiz is even on the staff for, we basically run the same strategy to me, hold the ball as late into the shot clock as possible, and give it to Lebron or AD. AD is not here and now it's move Lebron to center and do the same stuff. We should have a better record right now, and it's not all due to the defense and Westbrook. The INDY game was just a microcosm of the issue..we have enough to beat these teams, but we make some dumb coaching decisions, that the players don't always bail us out from. I'm not excusing the players from not doing a better job on some things, but this staff is definitely not performing at a high level either. All that being said...AD , Lebron and Russ have played 3 consecutive games together all season. That is the single biggest problem with this team IMO. IF AD comes back strong and we are healthy in May...I'm not afraid of anyone in a 7 game series. I have to actually see the roster envisioned play before declaring everything a lost cause. That hasn't happened. I hope Frank makes it through, he deserves his shot with at least a healthy big three. If he gets fired though, he will have earned that too.

 

You read into it what you want. AD's injury was the ultimate downfall last season, but Vogel could have done a better job, that team still should have finished higher than 7th anyway. Furthermore AD is the major issue again this season and Frank could have done a better job this season too. In essence if Frank can only coach when Lebron and AD are at peak performance, than perhaps he isn't that great of a coach. Simple as that, he's had enough at his disposal to have won more games, last season and this one too.

 

why should they have finished higher than 7th with lebron and AD's injuries?

frank's proven he can coach to the conference finals without lebron, AD, or really anything close. what has your replacement candidate proven? oh right, you don't have one.

 

It's a part of the equation but it's not some magic foil either. Of the top 5 ranked team defenses in the NBA last season, none of them made it out of the 2nd rd.

https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/def...r=-1&Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular Season

 

of the top 10 defenses, none missed the playoffs.

here's the top 10 offenses:

https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/advanced/?sort=OFF_RATING&dir=-1

so, defense alone isn't enough, but defense alone is much better than offense alone.

 

Why not? Lebron or AD didn't miss all the season and ...are you saying the Kcp,Kuz, Morris, Trez, Gasol, Shroder, Tucker, and Caruso weren't really all that or something?

We aren't going to miss the playoffs this year either. And FWIW most of the top 20 in this link you posted didn't have much success in the playoffs either did they?

 

Last season was a total anomaly. A bubble-fatigued league saw an unprecedented (at least it seemed that way) number of season-ending injuries among the top players. And even so, when the dust settled, the #6 and #9 defenses ended up in the Finals.

 

And still the top 5 didn't make it out of the 2nd round like I said. Injuries hit some high profile players true. Ours included, I'm still not making a big deal out of our top ranked defense last season.

 

Did Frank make it to the Conference Finals with one of his key players hurt? That would be something to brag about. He had some decent talent in Indy. There are plenty of coaches that have at least made it to the Conference Finals.

 

We all complicated this thing. Even I did. Kenny Smith, out of all people, said something the other day while that garbage disposal Chucky Barkley kept yapping. He said, AD isn't playing. And hasn't played in a long time. Last year, he didn't play for a long time. It was an excellent observation.

If this team doesn't have AD and LeBron playing and playing every game, this is the result.

I said I wanted Westbrook to spell LeBron. Not spell AD and not spell either one for 40 games. I meant spell during the game and maybe a few games here and there when LeBron wanted to rest. Westbrook as the 3RD option would work. As anything above that, well, here we are.

So, all the banter and all the redundant horse**** and cemantics at this point are just people to talk and entertain themselves.

Nothing more....

 

Pretty much...but I'm bored and Abeer likes to argue/debate as much as I do!!LOL

 

Ya, but abeer is my guy so, he's allowed to do as he pleases.

 

This season sucks.

Most importantly, Russ sucks.

Trade that cancer.

 

Russ isn’t a cancer.

I’ve read the back and forth and I have to say, Slick has some decent logic. We missed half a season of AD and ended up in the play in game last year. This year we missed half a season of AD plus quite a bit of other injuries and we are in line for the play in game.

All the pining for last years team is just looking at the past with rose tinted glasses. We’re in the exact same spot, so it can’t be argued that they were better than the current one.

 

Calling it now. We swap Russ for Wall and get Grant.

 

no way in hell am i down to trade picks just to unload westbrook for john wall