Optimism Discussion: The Laker's Sky Is Not Falling

i'll be surprised if the suns are considered a prime contender in april, tbh. think they caught lightning in a bottle last year and were VERY fortunate on the injury front compared to basically every other team except, well, milwaukee.

but mostly it comes down to me in full disbelief that paul makes it through another season intact.

 

here's my dose: the 2010-11 heat took a while to get going, and their stars were all smack in the middle of their primes.

it's a team game, and it takes some familiarity to make things work. teams that have that are going to beat us (maybe badly) early in the season.

the upside is that i don't think this is the way we're going to look in the end.

 

Right. No one likes 0-4 any time, but they’re still figuring it out. And remember, our regular schedule is very friendly this and next month with lots of home games—great way to figure things out and continue gelling.

But a win over cowtown would be nice to close out the preseason.

 

Not only did it take Bron time to figure it out with both Wade and Kyrie, but Russ is historically a slow starter on new teams. But they both figure it out.

I think we'll stagger their minutes more during the early stretches of the season which will buy us time while the big 3 are figuring it out.

 

Was listening to one of the Laker podcasts today and one of the hosts tracked the offensive possessions involving our big 3.

What was clear to the eye and even more so, is we are going to run every chance we get. We heard that, the guys talked about it, you figure that'll be the case when you have open court wizards in Bron and Russ; but it's different seeing it play out.

They played 46 offensive plays together. In 43 of those plays, they moved to the ball to our side of the floor with 20+ seconds left on the clock. And in 28 of those 46, there was at least 22 seconds remaining.

Pretty impressive for this senior citizen team that ESPN keeps laughing at.

Being able to push the ball to that degree will really help cover our half court weaknesses until we are clicking on all cylinders. But we have to be able to get back on transition D for this to work.

 

82-0

 

I watched the last game and was pleased with how our starting unit (and then our big 3 with Reaves and Brown) played. We got away 2 or 3 times and those leads didn't hold due to fatigue of our stars. We were really pushing them, Lebron played like 16min straight and AD finished the 3rd quarter making air balls (no legs).

We had good stretches defending and had some good moves on the off, specially when Lebron or Rondo take over. You could see them trying to push the ball, like it was said above. There are still some dumb ISOs or hero plays from Russ or Melo, but I believe they will regress has the season moves forward and chemistry goes up

I'm really NOT worried at this point

 

82-0

 

this has been my mantra. if our three star + a big lineup is going to work, we have to be basically the league's best defense because there's just no way to fashion a good halfcourt offense with russ, a center, and really only one three point threat (assuming one of our sgs ever lives up to billing). and no, that's not vogel's lack of creativity. it's just the facts about nba offenses.

 

Put it in quotes. Thought it was spot on.

 

Agree mostly. Monk and doumbaya are situations where we own zero rights, though, so do they really count? And tht is already getting vet money, too—is that still a prospect? I’ll grant that one, though.

 

The road to 18 starts tonight. Hoping we start things off right with a win.

 

Overall, I liked what I saw from LeBron and AD. Both looked ready to play and put up numbers.

our injured guys will definitely help when they get back.

Avery Bradley may just be a natural fit for this team as he seemed to slip back in to the line up with no issues.

 

82-0 was never going to happen. I do think more like 77-5.

 

lol, i watched most of the game and didn't even realize bradley played. so...yes?

my concern is none of the injured guys are likely to help our defense tremendously, save maybe ariza.

anyway, my optimism is that after we get the phx drubbing out of the way, we should have some margin for error to get our guys familiar with each other and get back to defending.

 

I'll take 45 wins right now and run with it.

 

Yeah. Bradley actually looked solid. We will definitely see as the season continues, but there may just be something about Vogel, LeBron etc that gets the best out of him.

And I agree. I think Russ will play better but we will still drop our game to Phoenix but then be able to right the ship a bit against weaker teams.

We've got a lot of work to do on the defensive end.

 

Right. We had that game until the end of the third. Better three point shooting and we're good to go. In hindsight, I think we would've went to Bradley earlier too if we had known he could come in and contribute right away.