2025-26 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

We didn't lose any of the last 3 playoffs series we lost, because of our lack of perimeter speed and containing penetration. Not one..yet you keep spouting that off. And banging this poa drum for some reason.

I'm beginning to wonder if JJ knows wtf he's talking about, on any issues or he's just throwing s*** out to be sounding smart.

 

actually, not having anyone to even bother jamal murray is why we lost to denver every time. we have caruso, i think we beat denver.

we lost to minny because two of our top three guys were hurt, but also due to a huge athleticism disparity.

i also care about the 90% of the games that aren't the playoffs because i'm not insane.

 

Not being able to score in the 2nd halves especially in the 4th quarter. When we had wide open looks, is why we lost both times to Denver. If we made our wide open looks, we win. The exact same looks we had no problem making earlier in those games. It wasn't like Denver was smothering our shots on D. We simply stopped knocking them down.

It's not why we lost to Minnesota either. What two of our top 3 guys were hurt? The regular season is entertainment, the playoffs are when it gets serious. Winning chips, or competing for them is serious business to me.

 

yeah, i wonder if say, a 40% 3pt shooting defensive guard might solved both?

 

If he can actually make shots when it matters..I couldn't care less about his percentage.

We've already seen how " defensive " guys shot can go left in the playoffs.

Caruso and KCP both shot 30% from the floor and 20% from 3 against Phoenix. That s*** happens a lot to " defensive " guys too.

 

it happens to pretty much everyone, tbh (look at playoff vs. regular season fg% in general). which is why it's best to be better at defense.

 

Oh ok. However Luka. Lebron and Giannis aint losing to anybody in a 7 game series brother. Period...unless one of them got injured.

 

I get your position my man.. i really do, but I'm not saying that what you post, doesn't have merit or even is unreasonable.
I just have a difference of opinion on these things, but we will watch how it all unfolds this season. We might end up in agreement or maybe not. We both want the Lakers to win, I believe you to be more of patient man than I though.

 

Truth be told (IMO), if you're name isn't Luka, anybody can moved.

As for this year, Rob will likely make moves on the margins, keep his power dry, & see what unfolds during the season, and that will determine his path this summer.

That's fine. Never know what could happen with matchups in the PO's.

 

yeah, and there's definitely more than one way to be a great basketball team. we're just not exactly doing any of them, lol.

 

I'm not mad at that take either.

 

More stats stuff here. I ran across this piece debating whether perimeter or interior defense was more important. It would seem that interior defense is still considered more important but with a caveat..you really need to be decent in both in order to make a deep run. Now this particular study came out in August, so it will be interesting to see how this study looks after this season.

https://sportsanalytics.studentorg.berkeley.edu/articles/perimeter-or-interior.html

 

I just meant his presence on the court. Good way of putting it.

 

Now see..you are actually more optimistic than you project most of the time!

 

Reason I’m drumming up Lavine because in the playoffs you’re going to need bucket getters. In our prior series rather it be Denver or Minnesota. We had Russell who couldn’t hit any open shots. Even Reaves to some degree couldn’t make anything. Hachimura got cold.

and Lavine is one of those shot makers. Shot makers in clutch who doesn’t mind taking a clutch shot and making it. He’s a pure scorer. And where this league is going at and where it’s at. You need scoring. Teams put points on the board. I want us to get more scoring. It will make the other guys job easier like Luka.

you can have Luka LeBron Lavine and Reaves on the court at the same time all scoring.

Lavine can play defense when motivated.
He goes in a zone.

bringing Ellis back you have your P.O.A. Guy. And you can have Ellis being next to Luka and Reaves as like a guard dog defender.

same with Thiero and Lebron. You shake it up while keeping your core guys.

that’s the only way you’re going to win. Let them focus on Anthony Davis and Gianiss. Get a player you can acquire and keep on your team.

Another guy I’d like them to explore acquiring is Robert Williams III as a defensive Center specialist. He’s doing nothing on Portland and they already have Yang and Clingman.

 

24 is shaping up to be one of the worst drafts in recent memory. sarr and castle are the only ones looking good so far from that class, although i don't think giving up on him so soon would be smart for the hawks

 

It's almost impossible to land Lavine, he's making over 47M. Funny enough I'd take Derozan over Rui with this squad. He's more attainable too at 24M. I think only 10M is garunteed next season. He can score, that's his skill, that's a hell of a punch, coming off the bench in the post season.Now.. I think the Time Lord could work too. I was pumping him and Thybulle as an option. Both are injury prone though...Thybulle has only played in 4 games and is currently out indefinitely. But if we could peel Derozan, Ellis and Williams...that's a better squad than we currently have. We addressed our perimeter and interior defense, and added a high level scorer to boot.

 

Id take him off their hands.

 

The lack of motor/athleticism hurt the Lakers with Denver (basically the same things we see now) along with POA defense. I have hard time thinking it was the offense as looking back at those series really frustrating that when the Lakers did get the ball Lebron/AR could cook Denver's defense. Problem is that Murray had his way in crunch time even and every loose ball went Denver's way it felt like. SOme of that is just pure dumb luck but a lot of it Lebron not having the energy/endurance he once had - in the old days he would have boxed out Gordon and be put on Murray on defense to end the game. Kills me that even teh 2020 and 2021 before Solomon Hill rolled his andle would have been good enough.

That being said the team has not been able compensate for lebron's endurance we still see some of the issue we have with Rui as the only available reliable guy left. He can make open shots but he aint getting loose balls or offensive boards and there was no else available to do that type of dirty- pretty similar results in the blowouts this year and the Denver series. Constant thread since the title year.