Optimism Discussion: The Laker's Sky Is Not Falling

and AR is dressed too nice

 

We are going to be playing tough defense, running, dunking, high fiving, nailing threes. We will be playing basketball the way it is meant to be played. My brain won't be numb after watching a game.

 

I don't know who is this guy, but he's completely different than all screaming talking heads and I like that

 

That was nice and goes along with what some of us have been saying. Rob was on his game putting this roster together.

 

welcome back Johnny

 

Agreed, going to be so much fun I expect to see Nick and Eddie walking in...lol.

 

Youth, depth, a few very promising prospects, clear hierarchy, absolute killer as the leader, pretty decent coach? Sign me up.

This team is not perfect, but it is much better than what I hoped for before the offseason started. And while there are some question marks, there is also a lot of potential for positive surprises.I just love how young and full of potential this team is.

 

Let's all meet here around the ASG

 

I don't know, I would have to go WAY out of my way to show up here at that point. Like I have nothing better to do with my time!!

 

I completely agree.

Nothing but respect for LeBron, but I think that this kind of enthusiasm and hype for the next season comes from also the fact that he's no longer with us.
It's like a beginning of a new era for the Lakers, and in the sport the beginning always brings hype and excitement.

 

On the Lakers roster: “Well, there’s certainly a lot of offense. And I think it’s offense that all fits together pretty well. They have way more shooting this year than last year. More off-the-dribble creation too. They should be a really good passing team also,” a rival scout said. “Defensively…well, they’ll score a lot of points! (laughs) If (head coach) JJ (Redick) can get this group in the top-20 on defense, give him Coach of the Year, because they’ll probably be awesome.”

https://www.spotrac.com/news/_/id/3424/2026-nba-western-conference-summer-league-notebook

 

Why is anyone ^^^ poo pooing our defensive potential this year when it should be way better than past couple years?

 

It’s just the typical lazy takes. On paper, this team is easily a better defensive team than last year’s. A lot of reports from “executives” last summer thay we’d sorely miss DFS too.

 

Just remember, there are scouts and basketball executives working for NOLA and Wizards too.... I wouldn't trust them with my kid's kindergarten team.

For all we know, all these rival "execs" are their Jimbos.

 

A lot of people who only watch highlights and dunks on tiktok still think that LeBron could play defense all 82 games for 30+ minutes

 

well, i think in both cases, they aren't/weren't wrong. we DID miss DFS. so did houston, of course, because rob was right and he was dead. but still, that brief period at the end of that season, he was a key to us playing some (albeit unsustainable) good defense. and this year, i get looking at our moves and watching our best (only?) perimeter defender walk and be replaced by guys lacking that rep (one, sexton, having the opposite rep and film).

i do think one lazy thing people are doing is looking at mamu and thinking he'll be a downgrade from rui defensively. that's based on nothing.

to me--and maybe i'll be proven wrong about this--people are underselling what having kessler on the back line can do for your defense. everyone's always assuming you're just going to switch and switch and switch. you do that if you don't have a kessler on the back line. if you do, you probably play some other coverages as your bread and butter, letting your perimeter guys run people off the easy threes and funnel them to kessler, counting on your team defenders to have the iq to recover to the right spots. i feel like teams have built good defenses with similar parts. the only thing we're missing is that rangy forward who has the speed to do what i just said. hence my continued interest in kuminga or similar.

 

We lost one of the better perimeter defenders in the league that also serves (shockingly) as a very good interior defender. Would have been great to put Smart with Kessler, but alas.

We’re going to be a better defensive team from the get go, because we have everyone slotted better. No more Lebron, Rui and Luka all wanting to guard 4’s. Also we have Kessler who’s a really good defensive big.

To his credit, JJ had us as solid defensive team by the time playoffs rolled around. We’ll see where he gets us by the all star break, especially with peices like Grimes, Ziaire, Thybulle and Kessler.