WMC 24-25: Seasonal Highs And Lows!

The reason I'm open to a rebuild and retool approach because I don't think Lebron/AD core can be trusted to lead you a title.

 

lol so weird that everyone waited until now to pronounce them dead and pick at the bones. it was over weeks, maybe even months ago.

 

Yeah. Its been over for a long time.

 

The autopsy on this season is all time bad though IMO. To not even make the play in when we were supposed to be contenders is bad enough but that so many of us feel a sense of relief that the season is finally officially done and we can focus on moving on is a real indictment on everything that happened with the team. Just a very poorly constructed roster and there's blame from top to bottom on this mess.

 

Yeah, I don't know what people were watching all season.

Either way, it is a team wide organizational failure.

You can assign blame to everybody from the top down.

Just a mess.

 

Yep. This team just wasn't fun to for at all. There was no joy to them. They played with no effort; they looked poorly coached at various points. The roster looked decrepit.

So glad it's over...

 

i think it's more than a little unfair for the press to just pretend like injuries weren't the main thing here. we'd be comfortably in the playoffs with 65 healthy games from lebron and AD. but yes, the team wasn't well-constructed, and pretty much all the problems we foresaw were even worse than we imagined.

whatever, i'm thrilled we don't have to go through the play-in and possibly 4-5 games against phx while paul is at his healthiest.

 

yeah, and that started from the top. lebron's "i drink wine and love life" stuff was a cover. he was miserable all year long. russ was even worse. AD was sleepy then injured. and the vet role players just read the cues and acted accordingly.

i know everyone's tired of me saying this, but i really don't know what a coach is supposed to do with that. his top guys weren't into it, period. and them not being into it from day one really can't be pinned on the coach, either.

 

Right. It was a joyless experience for everyone involved. No one was having fun.

Vogel did what he could. I feel like only a truly empowered coach that really had the backing of management and could bench whoever he wanted when needed would have a real shot with the team this year. The team never had much faith in Frank and we know the players knew that which I'm sure didn't help.

Just a mess and I'm not sure how long it will take to get the ship back on track.

 

Blame pie:
Injuries 30%
Roster construction 30%
Stars+vets apathy 30%
Coaching 10%

 

yeah, those were just HUGE red flags and perfectly emblematic of what the season would be. we were too good to try. even lebron's oft-requoted stuff is great evidence that they thought it was going to be easy instead of hard. by the time they realized it was going to be very hard, they were ready to quit, lebron at the front of the line.

 

The Lakers were only 11-10 when Westbrook, LeBron, and AD were healthy. Even if we had stayed healthy the entire season best case scenario this is a 7th or 8th seed.

 

i do agree with AD that you need more than 20 games to integrate westbrook with those three. also, don't discount that the spirit was sapped by midseason, too, so nobody really had any motivation to figure things out.

i think if AD and lebron are healthy, they figure it out enough to have a record more like denver's. so firmly in playoffs, upper 40s in wins. still not great, still likely out in the 1st round. still short of the hopes and expectations. but not this eyesore.

 

I think we could've gotten 5th or 6th (only 1/2 a game separates the two) if we had a fully healthy squad. I think they run into a problem against Phoenix, Memphis, or GS (if healthy). I'd try to target the Jazz as a first round opponent and do whatever jockeying needed to line that up. Even at 100% we're not competing for a ship with this team, but they could've done OK and at least get into second round and steal one game against the Suns.

 

nah, that "brain trust" didn't win jack sh**

lebron and AD did. magic was responsible for lebron and lebron was responsible for AD. rambis and jeanie don't deserve an ounce of credit for that title. we're in for some dark days for as long as they're calling the shots

 

It IS unfair to downplay the impact that injuries had on our season. It was annoying to keep hearing it as an excuse, but we legitimately had our top players constantly shuffling in and out of the rotation and were never able to develop any cohesion.

But I’m glad that the media is downplaying the injuries. We deserve to be clowned on with no excuses.

I don’t want the media to throw an alley oop to our FO in regards to staging a narrative that injuries were our main problem. Even if that’s true, that might enable management to deflect culpability from the myriad of other flaws with this team.

 

I hope the FO now realizes you need to build a roster that can stay afloat with two injury prone stars. See the Clippers.

That being said, even if they realize that now, the Westbrook trade has made it so that you effectively don't have the flexibility to construct your roster to account for if/when AD and/or Lebron misses a significant amount of time due to injuries because you are essentially limited to handing out vet minimum contracts and 1 MLE.

Basically next season is going to again hinge on the availability of AD and Lebron. If one or both miss significant time again, it's going to be rinse and repeat of this season. And to be honest I don't have confidence in their health. Lebron will be another year older and well AD is AD. I think it'll be a win if we can get 60 games out of him.

Can we just fast forward to the summer of 2023?