Optimism Discussion: The Laker's Sky Is Not Falling

we were going to beat phx--who went to the finals--handily if AD stayed upright. everybody knows it. phx knows it.

 

James was playing on a high angle sprain to boot.

 

Team will be a lot better than last year: doesn't mean they'll be contending but from what I could tell playing with James at least- Reaves, Nunn, Gabriel, Jones all look like legit rotation players on most decent NBA teams. Throw in whatever you get from Russ and Beverley and the team is going to be a lot better than last year when they were running out corpses like Ariza, Jordan, Bradley, Thomas, Melo on D, etc.

Not sure yet on JTO, Bryant, Schroeder etc.

A Nunn/Reaves backcourt is intriguing. Nunn has some decent size to him and his ability to shoot both open and off the dribble complements Reaves who could a de facto PG later in his career the way he is progressing. Really nice having two guys who can attack you multiple ways on offense and still hold up on defense.

Jones has good body size and is just springy. A guy who can rim protect, rotate on perimeter defender, and finish inside is nice after watching DeAndre and he should be more consistent then Dwight

 

What a game from Nunn and Reaves

 

Team does look better and I think Ham's influence is being felt.

I'll take it.

 

Dude, the scene is night and day.

I'm sitting back watching the offense last night, and I'm just like so happy with these changes.

Vogel had a lot of attributes, but we were behind the eight ball with our offense. Feels good.

 

C'mon now .... admit it ... you miss that weave we used to run of Byron's (Luke and Frank too?) out near the 3 point line getting further and further away from the basket.

 

Vogel has his faults but in terms of talent it is a real low bar to clear from last year:
Opening night Reaves was a rookie, they started Bazemore, Jordan, with Rondo, Melo, Bradley getting time and the savior was going to be Ariza. Just awful - Jordon, Rndo, Ariza, Melo, and even Dwight are not even in the league anymore

 

Yep. Last year we had a lot of guys playing a lot of games that are out of the league:
3rd most games - Melo (69)
4th - Bradley (62)
6th - Howard (60)
10th - Ellington (43)

Then from 12th to 17th (18 to 39 games) we have Bazemore, Rondo, Jordan, Ariza and DJ Augustin

Damn

So from 17 guys, these are the only ones who have a team this year: LeBron, AD, Russ, THT, Reaves, Stan, Monk and Gabriel. Not even Pop, Spoelstra and Kerr together would ever make this team work

 

Yeah. Definitely can see the improvements.

 

Classic over correction by Pelinka. The team with Schroder, Marc, AD, LBJ was a perennial title contender. A small tweak to that team would have them competing for years.

 

s*** good catch: forget about Ellington and DJ Augustin. That is what 8 guys if you include Isiah Thomas who are not even in the league anymore! That doesn't even include Bazemore who I doubt is more of a emergency guy for the Kings. That's enough dude to fill a G league team rotation!

 

It wasn't Pelinka. Was LeBron (and AD) with the Russ trade push.

Ah yeah, I missed Bazemore that has a team too (though not in the rotation)

It's really embarrassing. I think getting to 11th is actually an accomplishment

 

It’s underrated how big this is. We actually have an offence!

I liked Vogel but he had no clue how to use two ball dominant players like Lebron and Russ. He couldn’t get AD into positions with space to attack effectively and we didn’t run anything to get our shooters open.

Already from the highlights I’m seeing various plays from the same starting position. I’m seeing lanes opening up for our drivers with secondary actions via screens, slips and cuts to get auxiliary pieces open for kick outs. There are AD post ups near the basket and player movement to get space for him to operate. We have excellent side out of bounds plays.

Lots of positive signs. I’m looking forward to seeing where we are at 20 games in. But I think Ham will make us a good defensive team and we’ll have a high quality play book to get high quality shots at the very least.

 

Too bad Darvin will never be in Los Angeles as good as Ty God Lue.

 

I’m getting a totally different vibe from last years preseason. The team looked lost, old and lacked effort even with our best lineups.

Through two games are our starters playing sub 20 mins are leading at the half both times. But more than that, they care and both defensively and offensively we can see the start of strong concepts and effective plays.

 

Agree. I know last years roster was bad. But schematically, we are night and day.

Alignments and design look so much better. Heck, at the very least, the players are being put in the best position to be optimized. Even Russ!

We will see how it bodes going forward, but I'm happy with it so far.

 

The supremely tricky part for Ham will be to keep Russ engaged and a hopeful "plus" for the team most nights ... while not putting him into the martyr/pouting frame of mind by having to constantly make him aware of how unacceptable the brain farts are on defense and offense (under control more when pedal to the metaling it) .... and why eventually he shouldn't be in the crunch time lineups at end of games. Irregardless of his HOF body of work and stats that he feels entitles him to be in there.

 

I'm glad to hear encouraging words from fellow fans. If it continues, I may bother to watch part of a game to see for myself.

But I'm not going to get carried away yet.....

 

Sirron, watch the games...lol. We are going to be very good. Turned sixty three today and been a Laker fan for 54 of those years. I convince myself we will win the championship at the start of every season. Yes, somehow even when we were terrible. This one is no different. Been right quite a few times...lol. My daughters teamed up to make me a Halloween/Laker themed birthday. They carved me up a great Laker Jack-O-Lantern.