WMC 24-25: What To WMC About Now? PLAYOFF TIME!

S***. I forgot about that. @ZenMaster wishing the same for you.

 

Thought I was posting this a few minutes ago in the general thread but it was Dalton's .... ooops. Maybe better here since injuries SUCK and this thread had drifted off to Page 2 .... can't have that.

A close family friendship of ours is wrapping up the final stages of them all moving to Idaho from Thousand Oaks, CA. Known since HS and countless boat/camping and houseboat trips with them. Their son and his family moved up there several years ago outskirts of Boise and built a house. Then more recently their daughter and her family decided they wanted to do the same, and by mid August our friends will have sold and moved as well, building a nice home on the same large property as their daughter and son-in-law.

The daughter and her husband leave in a few days and stopped by yesterday to say goodbye. Her husband is successful in sales but for all of the Bryan Twins' doubles career in Tennis, also from Thousand Oaks area and soon to be inducted into the HOF ...... he was friends of them and their family and worked with them as a physical therapist mostly when they were in town. He's a LeBron hater LOL but knowing what a Lakers fan I am and the changing makeup of the team he brought them up and asked if I was excited. After a bit I asked him what he thought was the cause of all the achilles injuries that are happening in the game now. He went right to all the sudden stops from speed and reversing or changing directions off those planted stops, while keep dribble alive and the step back Js going then immediately upward. Comparing how past eras where the handles and acceleration was basically forward with the side to side forward angled movement to work on the defenders. Seems logical and we have had 82 game schedules with balls out up and down the floor athletic action for a long time, but of course just his opinion.

 

it's an interesting idea, but if you look at the achilles injuries, they all come on plant and burst forward moves, often when the shoulders are low, right?

also, curry and harden--two of the most prolific stepbackers--have yet to have any achilles (or knee) injuries, and most of the achilles tears happened to guys who don't use the stepback that much. i guess haliburton and lillard both do, but again, these aren't the poster children--a lot of lillard's threes are step in from way out, i feel like.

anyway, i'm not sure that's the primary reason, and i'd point more to the pace of the game, particularly on defense. it's part of why i want everybody not named luka and reaves going forward to be mobile defenders. you save your stars by hiding them/developing schemes where they're not hauling a** over the floor on defense.

 

WMC …. so far NBC bites the proverbial Big one with their NBA coverage. Bad enough the stupid double(triple?) overtime Rockets - Thunder game cost us already a quarter and a half of the Lakers - Warriors game … but zero effort to get to that game quickly afterwards. Absolute garbage halftime with them interviewing freaking Chet for half of it, no scoring breakdowns or highlights (unless I missed them) like is standard on SSN and most Media companies that have covered the NBA, and rest mostly commercials. Garbage!

 

We didn't look prepared.

 

coaching has been terrible, can't have Vincent in there for almost 30 minutes

 

Zero surprise. We have 3.5 basketball players at this time, rest of these guys SUCK.

 

We Got a Long Way to Go...

 

Will be interesting to see what the new ownership group does when they officially take over. Openly wonder how much time getting Luka buys Rob.

 

we got the best center available on the market given our financial status. we got the best perimeter defender on the market given our financial status. were we supposed to trade lebron last summer? because that's what it would have taken to plug the holes in the roster that everyone's concerned about.

we lost to a healthy gs team without lebron. we were supposed to lose that game. we're supposed to lose the minny game, too. a win in either game would be quite surprising.

dammit i told myself to avoid this place this week!

 

I think the reaction thus far is about what I expected. The sloppiness was expected given our preseason but still sucked to watch.

I can’t see an ownership group taking over a team like the Lakers without a vision of how they want to run the franchise. Everyone in the front office has to show they can execute that vision or they will be gone at some point. Just the reality of things IMO.

 

Exactly, this place is getting OC and hard to deal with, much like LG did in the past.

Come on guys, have some patience, hold your tongues just a little. We all know this team has not played enough together to have chemistry. Let's talk after 20 games and then we should know something.

 

it's wmc, so it's ok to be mad. i just don't think losing the first game without a top player against a good team at full strength is worth re-evaluating the whole roster.

 

there was no path to a roster as good as okc's or denver's this offseason. we were going to be a middle of the pack playoff team if prime gm jerry west was at the helm and prime pat riley was coaching.

it took denver a while to get the right pieces around jokic, same with dallas with luka. you can't do it overnight with limited draft picks and zero cap space.

 

He's officially a problem. Treated one of the best option against him like a fruit fly. That's a big Mavs team and he put them on notice.

Only thing that can derail him at this point is injuries.