Lakerholics

No disrespect to the Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo or the Toronto Raptors’ Nick Nurse for great regular season performances but the ‘Real’ MVP, DPOY, and COY are always determined in the NBA playoffs.

While LeBron James or Anthony Davis will win Finals MVP, the dubious logic that enables biased media prematurely crown the best defensive player and best coach before the games that really matter happen should be changed. Were the votes for the NBA’s best defender and coach taken after their championship caliber performances in the playoffs, there’s no question Anthony Davis would have easily won as DPOY and Frank Vogel as COY.

There’s something inherently dishonest and unfair about awarding defensive player of the year and coach of the year awards that didn’t include the most important part of the year, which is the second season or playoffs. What’s even more frustrating is the voting for the awards is completely the prerogative of the media, many of whom are fundamentally biased, inherently unqualified, and often don’t even watch games.

Most objective experts who closely watched and followed the regular NBA season didn’t need to watch the Lakers’ dominant playoff performances to know LeBron James was the ‘real’ MVP and Anthony Davis the ‘real’ DPOY. They could have just listened to the players and coaches themselves, who clearly understood, while Giannis Antetokounmpo may have had a great season, LeBron James and Anthony Davis deserved to win the awards.

While the playoffs showed James and Davis deserved the MVP and DPOY awards, Vogel did need four playoff rounds of brilliant defensive coaching moves shutting down superstars to prove he deserved the COY award. There’s no question Nick Nurse is an elite NBA head coach but, like Mike Budenholzer last year, his winning ignored the savvy decision making and adjustments needed to win in the intense pressure of the playoffs.

The NBA playoffs are where regular season pretenders are separated from the legitimate contenders, where it became crystal clear LeBron James was the ‘real’ MVP, Anthony Davis the ‘real’ DPOY, and Frank Vogel the ‘real’ COY. The league either needs to postpone voting on DPOY and COY until after the playoffs or create a seperate awards for best defender and coach in the playoffs. They also need to include players and coaches in the voting.

While the bubble exposed Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kawhi Leonard as MVP and DPOY candidates and Mike Budenholzer and Nick Nurse as COY candidates, LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and Frank Vogel shone bright. When the chips were down and legacies on the line, it was LeBron rallying the Lakers, Anthony Davis shutting down Miami’s Jimmy Butler, and the Lakers’ Frank Vogel out coaching the Heat’s strategic genius Erik Spoelstra.

The sad and unfortunate reality in today’s NBA is LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and Frank Vogel have a major disadvantage in the NBA awards competition because they’re on the same team and that team is the Lakers. The NBA’s not going to change the requirements for MVP, DPOY, or COY, allow players and coaches to vote, or reward the best defender or coach in the playoffs but that’s not going to stop me from expressing my opinion.

The Lakerholics.Com Most Valuable Player is LeBron James, Defensive Player of the Year is Anthony Davis, and Coach of the Year is Frank Vogel. The trophy for their accomplishments will be the 2020 NBA Championship.

With a cocky Jimmy Butler telling LeBron James and the Lakers “You’re in trouble” and a taunting Tyler Herro sneering after a late three to clinch the win, the Miami Heat have suddenly brought the 2020 Finals back to life.

While you couldn’t blame the Heat for a little strutting and swaggering after losing the first two games in the Finals to the favored Lakers and then being written off by everybody, it might have been smarter not to poke the bear. You could see the storyline already developing as an angry LeBron James and Lakers team walked off the court with 10 seconds still left on the clock, setting the stage to approach Tuesday night’s Game 5 as a revenge game.

Forget LeBron allegedly telling Jimmy the Heat were in trouble earlier in the game or the Lakers completely disrespecting Miami by coming out flat, James has a long history of grasping anything possible for extra motivation. LeBron, AD, and the Lakers’ starters have no one to blame for losing Game 3 than themselves. They were passive, complacent, and ineffective. The only thing that kept them in the game was the outstanding play of their bench.

In addition to being outplayed, the Lakers were also outcoached. After a failed attempt to contain James and Davis by playing zone in Game 2, Erik Spoelstra went back to man defense in Game 3 but with key adjustments. Defensively, the goal was the same as playing zone in Game 2: prevent LeBron James from hunting and forcing switches on Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro by doubling, hedging, stunting, and fighting through screens.

Offensively, the Heat wanted to turn the tables on the Lakers and unleash Butler to relentlessly hunt and force switches to take advantage of Green, Kuzma, and Caldwell-Pope just as James had done to Robinson and Herro. While Frank Vogel has always been a strong opponent of switching, it was LeBron James’ unwillingness to fight through screens and willingness to allow switches that ended up making Spoelstra’s adjustments successful.

Overall, Jimmy Butler enjoyed a career best playoff game, posting a triple double with 40 points, 11 rebounds, and 13 assists in 45 minutes without taking a single 3-point shot, which reveals how teams need to defend him. The Lakers need to go under those screens and force Jimmy, who is average at best from deep on less than two attempts per game, to make his threes rather than letting him to go 14–20 from the field and 10–12 from the line.

On offense, the Lakers simply need LeBron James and Anthony Davis to play like superstars. James cannot turn the ball over 8 times and Davis cannot get into foul trouble and put up just 15 points and 5 rebounds with zero blocks. The Lakers’ other starters also need to show up. 5, 4, and 2 points and -26, -15, and -15 +/- from Caldwell-Pope, Green, and Howard in a Finals close out game won’t cut it. Frank Vogel clearly needs to make some adjustments.

While it may sound to some like a broken record, the time may be here for Vogel to sit Dwight Howard, move Anthony Davis to the five, and start Markieff Morris at the four to turbo charge the Lakers’ offense and defense. Whether Adebayo plays or not, that’s an offensive lineup with the 3-point shooting to offset the Heat doubling LeBron and AD and a defensive lineup to match up and defend the five-out sets that have been killing the Lakers.

In the end, the Lakers just need to come ready to play. Down 1–2, this is essentially another elimination game for the Miami Heat. Lose and they’re in a 1–3 hole from which only one team in NBA history has ever come back. While great coaching trumped talent in Game 3, LeBron, AD, and the Lakers will be looking to avenge their loss and will come out gunning for revenge. Game 4 should be a wire-to-wire blowout with the Lakers dominating.

Despite Jimmy’s heroics and Strolestra’s genius, it’s still Lakers in Five!

With the juggernaut Los Angeles Lakers thrashing the undermanned Miami Heat, the disrespectful chatter by the critics and doubters about the 2020 Bubble Championship being the Asterisk championship has already begun.

There’s no question the 2020 NBA Finals is a gross mismatch as the favored Lakers dominated the underdog Heat in Game 1. To add insult to injury or, more precisely, injury to insult, the Heat also lost their best two players. Losing starting center Bam Adebayo and starting point guard Goran Dragic was enough to bust any balloon of hope Miami fans had their team would be able to bounce back, which Game 2 unfortunately quickly confirmed.

While Adebayo may play in Game 3, Dragic is likely out for the entire series and the Heat face what is for all intents and proposes a Finals elimination game for them since no NBA team has ever come back from an 0–2 deficit. That makes Game 3 a close-out game for LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Lakers, who are not going to take their foot off the throttle or the Heat’s throats knowing they are two games away from winning the championship.

Can the Heat come back and somehow win Game 3 and keep their dim hopes of stopping the Lakers from being extinguished? It’s the NBA where anything is possible but the odds are certainly daunting to say the least. Before Game 1, the Lakers were 5 to 1 favorites to beat the Heat and win the Finals. After winning the first two games and Heat losing players, the Lakers have now become prohibitive 200 to 1 favorites to win the Finals.

To put this in perspective, before tip off for Game 1, Miami at 5 to 1 was already facing the longest odds ever in an NBA Finals series, longer than the Mavs who were 2.8 to 1 underdogs when they upset the Heat back in 2011. Short of LeBron James and Anthony Davis getting injured, there’s frankly no way the Miami Heat are going to beat the Los Angeles Lakers and win the 2020 NBA Finals. It would take a miracle to win even one game.

That’s why Lakers critics and doubters are already declaring the Bubble Finals as the Asterisk Finals, claiming the championship if the Lakers win is not the same as other championships and should have an asterisk next to it. Their argument is the unprecedented conditions of playing in the bubble without fans and home court advantages skewed the results in favor of the lower seeds to give the Lakers an easier path to the championship.

While there’s no question the coronavirus bubble dramatically changed the competitive landscape of the playoffs and took away advantages from the higher seeds, that just makes the Lakers winning even more impressive. Rather than taint the Lakers’ accomplishment with an asterisk, the NBA record books should reward it with a gold or maybe purple and gold star because the Lakers were able to overcome what other top seeds couldn’t.

As the Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Clippers, and Toronto Raptors soon discovered, winning in the bubble is no cakewalk and the Lakers should be congratulated and praised, not dissed and doubted, for what they’ve done. The Lakers beat the supposedly best 8th seed ever in the play-in champ Blazers, toughest matchup ever in the small ball Rockets, and greatest comeback team ever in the spunky Nuggets just to make it to the Finals.

So excuse me if I’m a little testy at the critics who want to put an asterisk instead of a star next to the 2020 NBA championship the Lakers are going to take home next week. Call it bubble fatigue or Lakers bias or sour grapes. The reality is the Lakers are going to win their 17th NBA championship, more than any other franchise but the Boston Celtics and now own one fourth of all of the NBA championship trophies that have been awarded.

And we have the best two players on the planet are just getting started!

A funny thing happened on the way to the Lakers playing big against a Heat team that lacked the size and physicality to match up with the Lakers front court. Frank Vogel decided it was time for the Lakers to embrace small ball.

Showing once again that he wasn’t afraid to make big changes midstream, With the Lakers trailing 23-10 just five minutes into Game 1, Vogel replaced Dwight Howard with Kyle Kuzma to go small with Anthony Davis at center. For a head coach who had consistently favored playing two bigs for the regular season and every series other than against the small ball Rockets, this was a bold move that changed the direction of the game and series.

While most teams opt to play small to turbo charge their offense or force the opposing team to adjust their defense, Vogel went small for the same reason he makes all of his strategic decisions or personnel moves: defense. What Vogel and the Lakers discovered when forced to go small against the Rockets in the second round was their small lineup with Anthony Davis at the five was actually a quicker, faster, and more athletic defensive team.

That small ball defensive adjustment was exactly what the Lakers needed as they went on an 83–44 run from the 7:05 mark in the first quarter through the end of the third quarter, going from 13 points down to up 26 points. Howard played just 15 minutes, McGee got a DNP, and the Lakers played two thirds of the game with Anthony Davis or Markieff Morris at the five as their defense dominated and shut down the high powered Heat offense.

While Vogel was reluctant to make lineup changes during the regular season except to replace injured players, he’s demonstrated he understands the greater urgency and need to make quicker adjustments in the playoffs. He replaced McGee with Morris to go small against the Rockets, Howard for McGee to matchup against Jokic against the Nuggets, and now Kuzma and Morris for Howard with Davis moving to the five against the Heat.

Vogel’s putting together an impressive resume as a savvy playoff coach whose arsenal of defensive tactics have essentially shut down Damian Lillard, James Harden, Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and the entire Heat roster. He’s stayed true to his core belief defense starts with protecting the rim but understands speed, quickness, and athleticism from going small can also win matchups defensively, especially when you have Anthony Davis.

It’s a shame the NBA only considers the regular season when awarding honors for best job as head coach because Frank Vogel deserved more recognition. Hands down, he should have been the Coach of the Year.

There’s more at stake in these NBA Finals than just surviving the bubble, defeating the Miami Heat, and winning the league championship. LeBron James and Anthony Davis are also chasing the Ghosts of Laker Legends.

They’re on a holy quest to honor Kobe Bryant by winning the Lakers’ 17th championship and have their retired jerseys hanging together in the rafters at Staples alongside legendary duos Magic and Kareem and Kobe and Shaq. Winning this championship is just another step in a grand master plan to catapult LeBron James past Michael Jordan as the GOAT and Anthony Davis past Giannis Antetokounmpo as the next Best Player on the Planet.

LeBron knew he needed more than just championships to become the greatest ever. He needed a bigger platform to provide him with the ultimate opportunity to become a hero, which is why he signed with the Lakers. Winning a first championship for his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers was great but resurrecting the Los Angeles Lakers and leveraging their big market advantages to put a crown on his legacy as the king was the key.

The Miami Heat are just the unfortunate team in the way of LeBron’s grand plan, not unlike the New Orleans Pelicans who suffered the misfortune of having the young superstar James and his team at Klutch Sports coveted. And while coronavirus and the bubble threatened to derail the plan, LeBron and Anthony were able to prevail and dodge the bullets that took down the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Clippers and make it to the Finals.

Now they find themselves just three wins away from winning the first of what could be multiple NBA championships together, an achievement that will open up opportunities to make the Lakers even better next season. While the offseason talk will be focused on the return of the Golden State Warriors and the ascent of the Brooklyn Nets, the threat contenders should be worrying about is the Los Angeles Lakers building another dynasty.

While the Lakers still need to take care of business and finish off the Miami Heat, LeBron James, Rich Paul, and Rob Pelinka are already strategizing on short and long term moves to transform the Lakers into an NBA dynasty. Short term goals could include luring a top free agent like Jerami Grant to force a sign-and-trade or a young superstar like Victor Oladipo, who’ll be a free agent next offseason, to force a trade to the Lakers ala Anthony Davis.

Long term goals could include LeBron re-signing at a discounted salary to create the cap space for the Lakers to sign a third superstar like Giannis Antetokounmpo to help win now and take over after LeBron finally retires. Another enticing and realistic option down the road could be the Lakers signing Atlanta Hawks’ dynamic young point guard Trae Young, who just signed a contract for Rich Paul of Klutch Sports to become his agent.

There’s no doubt LeBron James, the Los Angeles Lakers, and Klutch Sports are working in concert help James in his crusade to pass Michael Jordan as the GOAT and Davis in his mission to win the Best Player in the World title. This championship will be a key step towards executing the grand master plan that started with LeBron James signing with LA two years ago. Lakers fans should get ready to enjoy a fun dizzying ride over the next few years.

The sky is the limit right now for the resurgent Los Angeles Lakers as superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis are following a grand master plan for NBA domination and chasing the Ghosts of Lakers Legends.