REPORT: Herb Jones and the Lakers have mutual interest, per @KevinOConnor 👀Should the Lakers make an offer? pic.twitter.com/uy5nQeso8U— Lakers All Day Everyday (@LADEig) January 16, 2026

FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

Disjointed vibes…

The Lakers lost for the fourth time in their last five games, finding themselves on the wrong end of yet another shootout and falling 135–117 to the Charlotte Hornets.

After a 15–4 start to the season, they have now played below .500 basketball since December 1st, going 9–11 over their last 20 games, and at the moment look like a very average team.

And if we are talking defense only, they have been far worse than average. Over this same stretch, the Lakers have ranked as the third worst defense in the league.

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Today’s notes:

Disjointed team

Disjointed switched-off defense (VIDEO)

Lack of depth and dynamism

1-Disjointed team

Things always look way worse when you lose and the opponent catches fire, like the Kings did a couple of games ago or like LaMelo Ball and the Hornets did last night. Ball made 9 of his 17 three-point attempts, several being his patented one-legged deep daggers, and the Hornets shot 47 percent from deep as a team. A finally fully healthy Hornets team is also a sneaky good offensive group, especially on nights when Ball is making shots from long distance. They recently beat OKC, blew out Utah by 55, and with last night’s explosion now have the NBA’s best offense over the last 10 games.

𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐩𝑮𝒐𝒍𝒅
@PurpGolded

“That’s a good offensive team. They had 150 against Utah, blew out OKC at OKC. Our coaching staff, and the guys in the locker room, we all knew that they got our full respect, and attention pregame. I thought we thought. Just another team that has another hot shooting night.”

JJ

10:30 PM · Jan 15, 2026 · 2.71K Views
1 Reply · 23 Likes

Postgame, JJ Redick thought his team battled but ultimately fell short against another hot-shooting opponent. While there is some truth to that, this Lakers team currently does not look like a connected, cohesive group, but rather one that opponents feel they will get their chances against if they stay patient long enough.

The Lakers opened the game shooting much better than the Hornets, going 7 of 12 from deep in the first quarter. Luka Dončić delivered one of his special 19-point first-quarter hammers, but because the Lakers did not do enough of the small things and lacked attention to detail, the lead at the end of the quarter was only nine. It evaporated quickly when the Lakers scored just four points in a little under six minutes with Dončić on the bench.

The struggles continued even after Dončić checked back in. The Hornets outscored the Lakers 34–16 in the second quarter, with a hot-handed Dončić attempting only one shot and posting just seven percent usage, his lowest output in a non-garbage-time quarter as a Laker.

Iztok Franko
@iztok_franko

Wild stat, after scoring 19 points in the Q1 against the Hornets, Luka Dončić had just a 7% usage rate in Q2, his lowest in any non-garbage-time quarter as a Laker.

Don’t think that decided the game, but the Lakers are clearly searching for balance on both ends right now.
Lakers Daily @LakersDailyCom

JJ Redick: “When Luka got back in we shoulda got him to the post”
4:07 AM · Jan 16, 2026 · 2.21K Views
2 Replies · 5 Reposts · 16 Likes

2- Disjointed switched-off defense (VIDEO)

The Lakers’ second-quarter issues while searching for balance on offense let the Hornets back into the game, gave them a halftime lead, and the confidence to finish the job in the second half against a struggling Lakers defense. Ball caught fire in the second half, making 8 of his 12 three-point attempts, an otherworldly outlier shooting performance that happens maybe once a season, even for the best shooters.

But again, I do not think you can attribute the Lakers’ defensive collapse solely to Ball and the Hornets’ hot shooting. Similar to what happened against DeMar DeRozan earlier in the week, the Lakers are giving up switches against the opponent’s best scorers far too easily. They are the most switch-heavy pick-and-roll defense in the NBA per Genius Sports tracking data, and they then fail to provide the necessary gap help and backline defense. LaMelo scored on several occasions going one on one on an island against Dončić and Ayton, and made a couple of other threes by punishing Marcus Smart’s and Jake LaRavia’s hesitation while switching. Similarly, the much longer Brandon Miller was allowed to go one on one against the much smaller Gabe Vincent, or was given the space to attack Ayton off the dribble.

If the Lakers want to survive with a switch-everything approach at all times, they need longer, more aggressive, and more connected defenders who can disrupt switch-hunting actions or provide help and cover ground when recovering. Smart tried to do some of that late in the game, but it was far too little, far too late.

At the moment, regardless of the scheme, the Lakers’ defense is far too passive and reactive, especially given the lack of backline or weakside protection.

3-Lack of depth and dynamism

This was another game in which the Lakers could not overwhelm their opponent with offense, even on a night when both Dončić and James were scoring efficiently. In January, Dončić has returned to something closer to his early-season scoring form, posting high-octane performances against the Spurs, Kings, and now the Hornets, yet it was not nearly enough in any of those games.

The Lakers have a top-heavy roster, and without Austin Reaves they lack a second or third dynamic on-ball option to ensure the offense remains at a high level throughout the game. On the other end, the Hornets had four such players last night in Ball, Miller, Miles Bridges, and rookie sensation Kon Knueppel.

And when you add the lack of athleticism and defensive talent, the margin for error becomes extremely narrow, especially on nights when the Lakers get outworked on the glass by an opposing big-man duo. I praised Ayton for his activity in the previous game against the Hawks, but the issue for him has always been maintaining that level of effort from game to game. Without Jaxson Hayes available to pick up the slack, Redick went with Jarred Vanderbilt small-ball lineups as a backup plan, but the offense has been a disaster in those stints over the last two games.

Iztok Franko
@iztok_franko

We talk about lack of athleticism for LA all season. Jaxson Hayes being out shouldnt as so big of a deal but he’s the only Laker that has athleticism/speed advantage on most nights.
Last 2 games Lakers really struggled on both ends with smallball units playing Vando at the 5.
2:22 AM · Jan 16, 2026

The Lakers’ three key bench players, Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent, and Jarred Vanderbilt, shot 1 of 10 from three last night, posting minus-17, minus-15, and minus-12 respectively. Vincent in particular had a rough shooting night, and he has become something of the epitome of the roster’s lack of athleticism and dynamism, which is understandably raising frustration among Lakers fans.

Jovan Buha
@jovanbuha
Fans are beginning to boo Gabe Vincent after he missed another open 3. He’s 0-for-7 overall and 0-for-5 on 3s.

9:42 PM · Jan 15, 2026 · 90.4K Views
104 Replies · 155 Reposts · 2.04K Likes

After the Kings game, I mentioned that the vibes had gone from great to poor over the last month. Last night was another game in which the body language did not reflect a connected team. If the Lakers want to make any kind of turnaround, it will need to start here.

FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

LOS ANGELES – It’s no secret that the Lakers are a bad defensive team.

Los Angeles has a defensive rating of 117.1, sixth-worst in the NBA, and with all three of their stars being offensive juggernauts but with their defensive struggles, it’s difficult for the Lakers to ever lock down any team.

Thursday’s contest against the Hornets was the latest glaring example of that challenge.

Miles Bridges had himself a night, going 9-13 from the field for 25 points. LaMelo Ball looked like a bonafide superstar as he scored 30 points, 27 of those coming in the second half. Brandon Miller mercilessly attacked the paint and was met with little to no resistance, scoring 26 points as the trio led the Hornets to a blowout win.

“I think that in general with our team,” head coach JJ Redick said postgame, “against certain teams that have the dynamic drivers — which the Hornets have some really good drivers and they have a ton of shooting — we can be a little bit cautious guarding the ball.”

That caution led to disaster as the Lakers’ nine-point lead after one quarter flipped into a nine-point deficit in just a dozen minutes. The Hornets then took that momentum and turned it into an offensive onslaught.

Ball caught fire in the third quarter, scoring 15 points with his most impressive basket coming against DeAndre Ayton. The Chino Hills native had Ayton on an island at the top of the key, worked a little magic to get the big man backpedaling, then took a ridiculous step back three that had the crowd audibly gasping.

LaMelo slips FREE from his defender and hits the THREE

He’s up to 18 as the Hornets hold a slight lead in Q3! pic.twitter.com/mXMMlGpedD

— NBA (@NBA) January 16, 2026
“He hit some crazy shots, but that’s what he does,” Luka Dončić said. “He was shooting a lot of threes off the dribble, which we planned for that. He hit some crazy shots. Like I said, he does that. He got really hot he made eight threes in the second half. It’s kind of hard to stop him.”

While Ball is certainly an elite offensive player, the NBA is filled with guys like him who can get hot and take over a game.

It seems whenever the Lakers face one of those types of players, they take full advantage and exploit the holes in LA’s defense. And on this roster, there are plenty of options to choose from, regardless of whatever five-player lineup Redick concocts.

The reality might be that there is no solution for the Lakers’ defensive woes.

Perhaps they are simply too slow, too unathletic and too old to keep up with a league that seems to be getting bigger, younger and faster by the day. And no amount of rest, film work, or player desire can alter this team’s defensive trajectory.

However, that’s an uncomfortable truth they would never publicly admit. Instead, the focus has to be on being as physical as possible defensively and giving the kind of effort they had in their most recent win against the Hawks.

“We got to be able to adapt,” Marcus Smart said. “And that’s being able to understand that, no matter whether our shots are falling or not, we have to bring the physicality on both ends. The whole game.”

From Redick’s perspective, the Lakers have the effort and desire to execute their defensive schemes, but they just aren’t getting the job done.

This team, after all, features two superstars who are all about winning and are in the running for the most competitive players in the NBA.

However, that fire hasn’t been enough to slow teams down once they get going.

“We didn’t do a good job of containing the basketball at times, and then at times they made ridiculous shots,” Redick said. “We did three different coverages tonight, so it’s not like we’re not trying. We’re trying.”

What’s been made clear this season and specifically over the last week, though, is that no amount of trying is going to be able to cover up the team’s potentially fatal flaw

FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

Yesterday, Tom Haberstroh published a detailed piece on Yahoo about the NBA’s sudden free throw decline and the league-wide scoring dip that has followed. It immediately caught my attention, not just because I’ve been following Tom’s work on this topic since 2024, but because this has been sitting in the back of my mind all season. Especially with Luka Dončić opening the year living at the free throw line, leading the NBA with a career high 11.8 attempts per game.

Like Tom, a couple of events in January caught my attention. First, the January 9 loss to the Bucks, one of Luka’s roughest games of the season. An 8-for-25 night, visibly frustrated, struggling to finish through contact, engaged in an all night battle with the referees, as several familiar foul bait attempts turned into awkward, off balance misses without a whistle. Then, two days later, I watched Spurs vs Celtics, followed by Jaylen Brown’s now viral reaction to Boston taking almost no free throws, which became the centerpiece of Tom’s story. Two moments that, on the surface, feel unrelated, but together point toward the same underlying shift happening across the NBA.

I’d recommend everyone read Tom’s story. What I’ll try to add here are my own observations from the Lakers and Dončić perspective, and why this trend matters and is worth keeping in mind as the season develops.

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Lakers at the forefront of a decade-long peak in free throw rate

The first thing worth highlighting is the broader state of the NBA and the 2025–26 season so far. Per Basketball Reference, the league is scoring 115.7 points per 100 possessions, the highest mark since this data began being tracked in the 1973–74 season. At the same time, free throw attempts sit at 24.0 per 100 possessions, the highest rate of the past decade, dating back to the 2015–16 season.

Source: https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats_per_poss.html

I don’t want to get into whether scoring is too easy or if defenses are at too big of a disadvantage. I’m simply highlighting that the trend of increasing offensive efficiency has continued this season, and that a significant spike in free throw rate compared to the previous two seasons has been a big part of it.

So why does this spike, and any potential reactionary adjustment in the way fouls and free throws are being called, matter more for the Lakers than for most teams? For starters, the Lakers have led the NBA in free throw rate both last season and again this year.

Austin Reaves, LeBron James, and Anthony Davis are all players who consistently draw fouls and get to the free throw line. Last season, Davis led the Lakers at 7.6 free throw attempts per game before the trade. He was then moved for Luka Dončić, who averaged 8.9 free throw attempts per game with the Lakers last season, further reinforcing how central free throws have been to this team’s offensive profile.

This season, Dončić’s free throw volume has climbed to a career high. He currently leads the league at 11.8 attempts per game and has been one of the clearest on-court blueprints behind the free throw spike seen across the NBA this year.

Shooting fouled percentage for Luka Dončić is at a career high (source: Cleaning the Glass)
Dončić getting to the line at that level, and converting them at a career high 79 percent, is a big reason, along with his efficiency inside the arc, why he has remained the NBA’s top scorer despite struggling with his three point shot this season.

NBA calibrating offense and defense on the fly

Per Cleaning the Glass, offensive efficiency steadily climbed through the first three months of the season before dropping off in January. Per Cleaning the Glass data league scoring rose from 115.2 points per 100 possessions in October to 116.0 in November and peaked at 116.7 in December. In January, that number fell to 114.4. The drop is noticeable and has naturally led to speculation about whether the league is reacting to the early-season scoring explosion by adjusting how the game is being officiated. As Haberstroh pointed out in his article, the decline in scoring has been accompanied by a steady drop in free throw rate that reached a new low point in January, fueling visible frustration from players like Brown and Dončić.

We have seen this before, with Luka at the forefront

Again, as Haberstroh explains in his piece, we’ve seen this before. He reported on a similar in-season adjustment in 2024, something I’ve referenced multiple times in past analysis and NBA trends pieces as well. That adjustment happened in March 2024, with commissioner Adam Silver later, somewhat reluctantly, confirming the league had made “a bit of an adjustment along the way.”

My Dončić and Lakers–specific angle here is that a month prior to that adjustment, on January 26, 2024, Dončić scored a career high 73 points in Atlanta. That performance sparked a wave of pundit discussion about whether scoring in the NBA had become too easy, or even a disgrace. I don’t know how much those loud voices contributed to the league’s adjustment, but the reaction that followed was evident.

Watching Luka’s free throw trend going forward

The early-season spike in free throw rate, both league-wide and for Dončić and Reaves (who reached a career high 8.6 free throw attempts per game before his calf strain) specifically, has been one of the more surprising and notable trends of the year.

I don’t have an issue with the NBA attempting to recalibrate, clean up the game, and make it a more enjoyable product to watch. And I’m not suggesting any adjustment is happening because of Dončić alone. Rather, he sits at the intersection of this discussion as one of the league’s highest-profile and most polarizing scorers.

Looking at his free throw attempts and shooting fouls drawn rates, there is a slight downward trend, though so far it has been less drastic than what we’re seeing across the league as a whole. He has finished with 10 or fewer free throw attempts in each of his last three games, though similar stretches have already shown up at points earlier this season.

Luka Dončić free throw attempts per game trend (source: pbpstats)

I think the bigger issue for Dončić, and for other players like Brown, is transparency and consistency, especially if or when bigger shifts are happening. I can understand the frustration of not getting the same calls later in January that were there earlier in the season, or, in Dončić’s case, not getting the whistles he received against the Spurs in the following game against the Bucks. Especially for an emotional, in-the-moment player like him, who has often struggled to adjust to a different night-to-night whistle.

Dončić allowing officiating to affect his play has been a persistent issue throughout his career, and it remains an area he needs to improve to become a more consistent game-to-game performer. In-season swings make that challenge even tougher, and if these trends continue, adapting to them will matter more for the Lakers than for most teams, given their roster composition and the profile of their stars, as the season unfolds.