Optimism Discussion: The Laker's Sky Is Not Falling

A new generation of international ballers. The older guys aren’t up for it anymore

 

Initially I thought the wings were an easy call but man on defense Canada can throw out elite lineups: a SGA/Dort/Wiggin is all NBA defense lineup there.

 

i guess i'm really not a dort believer. i think he's overrated on defense, tbh. and his offense is mostly non-existent. i also think wiggins's defense got tremendously overrated due to one year where he wasn't a minus on that end. SGA has shown steady improvement there, though, so i'll give you that. the other two, though...not for me.

 

I'm sorry but that is nowhere near NBA all defense. Reaves, Bridges, Ant is much closer to NBA all defense

 

yeah, that was my point. reaves and ant have moved into "not liabilities" on defense, while bridges is pretty well-established as a very good perimeter defender (though he had a little hiccup in bkn). i really think dort's defensive rep actually partly stems from how useless he is on offense (he must be good at something, right?!), and wiggins was a poor-to-meh defender for all but one of his years in the nba. SGA stepped his defense up last year after being ok before that.

also, in terms of roster comparison, you can't use SGA as both a guard and wing. if he's a guard, he might give canada the slight edge (though i think halliburton is close to SGA in value), if he's a wing, their wings become more comparable but the guards become a losing cause.

long story short: the usa's c-team is still more talented than everyone else's a-team. talent doesn't always win, of course, but i thought that was the discussion.

 

Defensive stats are flawed but 538 raptor Dort was 6th among SG and Wiggins 8th among SFs so I actually think this is useful as the numbers match the rep here.

(reaves is a solid 14th, Edwards 35th slightly positive)

 

defensive stats are noisy and hard to apply to single players, but dbpm isn't impressed with dort nor wiggins.

d-lebron has dort 21st among sgs, one spot ahead of anthony edwards. it has wiggins 10th among sfs, though.

 

I would "trust" Raptor more than straight defensive plus/minus: raptor box includes the player tracking data (how much and how efficient did a player score when the player we're looking at was the nearest defender, etc).

 

i guess i'm saying two of three metrics that kinda meet the eye test aren't bullish on these stalwarts, and that matches my own personal eye test, so of course i favor them. i'm not arguing that dort's a bad defender (he's good). i'm arguing he's overrated as a defender--he has a rep as a stopper, and he's not. wiggins i could argue was actually a pretty bad defender prior to gs. so what does that mean? he suddenly got it? or the system plays to his defensive strengths? or being an afterthought on offense allows him to expend more energy on d?

anyway, this is the optimism thread, so i'll return to appropriate content:

we didn't turn over the whole damn roster for once, and i think that's good. despite the tough early schedule, we shouldn't come out of the gates and just suck the life out of the season again.

 

Hells to the yeah! Let Austin be Austin and ALL the good for the team that entails …. compared to out of the gate last year Ham trying to let Russ be Russ and all the bad that entailed.

 

I will never take seriously any defensive stat with lebron in its name

 

yeah, those stats are named weirdly. they kinda got close on the acronym and then shoehorned it. i get why.

and really, all the stats--especially the defensive metrics--have some weird anomalies (is jon konchar really a great defender?) that cause concern. i try not to lean exclusively on them in any discussion.

the beauty of letting austin be austin is that it doesn't require...anything! he fits in any system and basically any role on offense. the anti-russ.

 

Wiggins make sense to me as we've seen this happen with other players and just the limits of endurance and player role. Lebron right now is pretty much a bad defender for most games but against Denver he was really really good. It's not that he can't do it but the endurance to do it across most of the season is no longer there. Wiggins always had the tools to be a lockdown defender but his role as primary initiator is both different mentally and physically different. With GS he's tasked to be a finisher on offense allowing a lot more energy to be used on defense.

In terms of the optimism thread this helps winning teams a lot with rehabilitating other teams projects. Similar thing happened to Rui who was a bad defender with Wiz but much better with the Lakers in more definite and limited role.

 

The roster depth and balance we have so far this year with the cumulative wealth of talents …. and the way ALL these guys are getting after it.

 

I think it's the first time we are more prepared to play without LeBron

Dlo
Reaves
Hachimura
Vando
AD

Gabe, Max, Reddish, Prince and Hayes off the bench. That's pretty manageable for a stretch of games. Just really need that extra AD replacement.

It's nice to have a team who doesn't need to panic when inevitably LeBron/AD miss games. I think that's our biggest strength because you don't panic, don't need to overplay the others and likely won't go down the standings abruptly (which causes issues on load management in the last 2 months as we've seen last year)
On the other hand, Dlo/Rui will be the X factor. Reaves is a certainty at this point, but those 2 are the ones who can take the next step and go big when one of the stars is out. Gabe, Vando, Prince, Max or Hayes are not expected to have significant bumps on offense in those situations, so it's really up to Dlo and Rui

 

If Rui starts, all players on the starting 5 will be able to score 20+ pts on any given night. Of course they won't, but the talent / ability is there. How many teams can claim the same?

I'd prefer Rui not to start BTW, he should be a monster off the bench.

 

we have very solid depth, and someone deserving will not be getting minutes. Hopefully all of that ends up working out with the occasional set of missed games to keep everyone happy.

 

Rooting for injuries now ….

 

Same here. Bandaid was ripped off and we're going to be ready to go this year.

Offseason was nice and drama free. A welcome change. lol