Optimism Discussion: The Laker's Sky Is Not Falling

Was thinking the same. Well …. not suicide but a LOT of doom around here and not the kind @Cookie gives us. Speaking of which I hope she’s in shape for this season.

 

I'm not sure if the Suns can rely on three guys scoring 80-90 points per game for every game just to be able to win. Durant is likely getting injured at some point so then you're left with Beal and Booker? That'll win you some games against bad teams but I don't see them winning too many games with just those two.

Nurkic is a solid backup big but how do they plan on stopping Jokic, AD, and KAT+Rudy?

Another issue is they have Frank Vogel as their head coach. We've seen that Frank does best when he has a solid big who can defend and perimeter defenders who are willing to guard. Beal and Booker don't play defense. Durant does play defense but his thin frame means he's usually best as a help defender.

At some point, the shots won't fall and they're left scrambling.

 

i don't know that they will. the vet min guys will have such an easy time of it with the attention those guys draw that some heretofore scrubs will put up numbers. nassir little, for example, might put up 15ppg. grayson allen (puke), kbd...even old eric gordon can all put the ball in the basket if they're wide open.

i think this is the biggest issue. durant hasn't been an iron man at all, and they depend heavily on him. i guess they just need him for the playoff run and hope they can stay afloat when he misses his 25+ regular season games.

harden and irving don't play defense, and the nets were setting the world on fire before folks got hurt. and maybe that nets team was going to end up losing in the fashion that you're suggesting here, but it's possible they weren't.

i'm not a big phx believer, but it's basically 100% due to health, kd's in particular (but beal is a risk, too). and yes, you can say that about any contender, but it's a bigger issue for phx and us because these are teams for which the key guys have been routinely missing big chunks of the year lately.

 

Its game day! Lets go!
Lets ruin their ring ceremony!!

 

Today is the start of our road to June. We're THEM. Let's get it!!!

18

 

The pressure to have to outscore a team every game and not being able to rely on your defense is too much pressure on the offensive end, though. It reminds me of the Lakers in 2020. The offense was good but it wasn't great. What held the Lakers up when they couldn't make a shot was their defense sucked any momentum a team had. Can the Suns do that? If the shots aren't falling, Durant, Booker, and Beal are getting doubled, can they handle that pressure every night? They'll beat bad teams just off of talent alone but against the more sophisticated teams, they'll key in on those three and pick them apart defensively as well.

Durant has declined in the last three years. I personally had him as the 2nd best player in 2020 but to me, he's in the 7-9 range right now. And that Harden+Kyrie+Durant trio were all more established players than Booker+Beal. Beal and KD are two very injury prone players. If any one of them goes down, hang the curtains. The difference with this Lakers team is they are deep. LeBron and AD don't have to score the majority of the points for the team to win. You have guys from 3-8 who can give you 10-15 on any given night. D'Lo, Reaves, Rui, Prince, Vincent, and Woods. So to me, the Lakers can afford to have LeBron and AD coast some games and just play an average game. Durant, Booker, and Beal, you will need at least 2/3 of them to drop 30+ per game to beat the top teams.

If you were to tell me the Lakers could have AD, Bron, and Beal with the remainder of the Suns roster minus KD or Booker, or the current Lakers team, give me the current Lakers team all day.

 

First ever 98-0 season starts tonight

 

#LTTriggered

 

All things considered, I’m quite pleased with how the opener played out.

I’d be lying if I said I expected to win that game.

Loved how we kept fighting when down ~20 and continued to stay competitive against an elite team, on the road, riding on the high of their ring ceremony. Denver is not a great matchup for us (or anyone really).

Lebron looked great and it’s now apparent how much of a shell of himself he was in the last postseason. I actually like the idea of limiting him to 30 minutes. Lots of fans upset at pulling him in the 4th quarter when it got close, but right after that we were an AD open 3 away from making it a 1 point game. Instead Jokic came back and made a 3 and the game swung the other way. Those plays go differently, we’re potentially in a nailbiter AND have Lebron fresh for the closing stretch.

AD being invisible in the second half was disappointing, but you have to assume some of that was being gassed from trying to contain Jokic. AD looked amazing in the first half.

Most of our new additions looked very solid. Prince made a strong case to be the permanent starter. Wood and Reddish made some important buckets and looked to be playing with a lot of effort on D, didn’t see any notable lapses.

This is going to be a fun season

 

Losing Schroeder for essentially the same money as Gabe is going to continue to piss me off but I think the bright side is all the other signings showed out or had very good glimpses. Wood was good on offense and no reason he won't continue to get better as he didn't play much this offseason, Prince was terrific on offense and passable on defense, Reddish was terrific on defense and passable on offense.

Lebron, AD, Reaves, Prince looks like a legit four-man lineup that you can win a title with. If Reddish and Wood creep up to 25+mpg you don't need all that much from the rest of the team to win a ton of games and you just need a tweak of the roster to set you up for the playoffs

 

Still wondering, same as others, if we chose Gabe over Dennis for that kind of contract ..... or from comments made after the fact about what he liked about how he'd be utilized ......if Schroder chose Toronto over the Lakers. I tend to think the former because we didn't really hear any reports we offered him the same at any point.

 

this only counts as one loss, so that's good

 

In the standings anyway. For the mental state of our team I'm not so sure. At least AD has provided the masses with meme material. We are going to see how many ways Denver is your daddy can be illustrated...lol. and Coach Ham just seems to remain clueless.

 

Cookie is ready for the season even if our team isn't...lol.

 

Ok.We lost game,but Bruce Brown already scored 24 points for Indiana.Nuggets are going to miss him big time.

 

like i said in the other thread, they're really about 5 deep now. when they've got them all, they're a bear. but just having brown walk with no replacement is being overlooked by the pundits, imo.

 

yeah, that's a gift. combined with the kinda flat showing in denver to open things up, i expect them to take care of business. if we lose at home against durant and the minimums, i might start dispensing the hot takes.