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FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

Why the Lakers still can’t catch the NBA’s best offense

The Lakers are entering what might be their final prove-it-or-lose-it stretch of the season. For months, they have mostly been described as average. Dominant against bad teams, but with fatal flaws against the best and not a team anyone puts in the real contender tier.

The next two weeks give the Lakers a chance to change that perception.

Seven of the Lakers’ next eleven games come against teams widely considered contenders, starting tonight in Denver. There they face Nikola Jokić and the Nuggets at Ball Arena, where Denver is always tough to beat. But Luka Dončić is 3–0 against the Nuggets as a Laker and had his first statement game in purple and gold in the Mile High City last February.

The standings say these teams are nearly identical. The Lakers (37–24) and Nuggets (38–24) are separated by just half a game. Yet the perception around the two teams and their superstars could hardly be more different.

Why is that? Is there a real gap between these teams, and if so, where does it actually show up?

To explore that question, I decided to take a slightly different approach for today’s preview.

Today’s highlights:

1-Two teams, very similar profiles

2-What separates the Nuggets’ elite offense from the Lakers’ good offense?

3-If it is that simple, why aren’t the Lakers doing it?

4-The most underrated trait of contenders

5-Lessons for the summer and Lakers’ team building around Dončić

1-Two teams, very similar profiles

Record is not the only area where these two teams are close. Both are led by unique offensive geniuses who can dominate a game either by scoring or passing and are the head of the snake of the NBA’s best and second-best half-court offenses. Both are top-10 offensive teams but bottom-ten defenses. Both teams’ second-best scorers are combo guards who have had great seasons but have mostly been underrated throughout their careers.

But if we dig deeper into the advanced stats from Cleaning the Glass, we can see a gap much bigger than the standings suggest:

Nuggets: 38–24, 1st on offense at 121.4 points per 100 possessions, 22nd on defense at 117.4, +3.9 point differential

Lakers: 37–24, 10th on offense at 117.7, 21st on defense at 117.0, +0.7

Lakers and Nuggets offensive and defensive rankings to date (data source: Cleaning the Glass)

The first thing that jumps out when looking at the comparison is that, as hopeless as the Lakers’ defense has often looked, it still currently ranks one spot above the Nuggets. There is, of course, additional context, especially around injuries that have hit both teams hard this season. Denver’s best defenders, Aaron Gordon, Christian Braun, and Peyton Watson, have all missed a lot of games.

The other, more significant takeaway is that the main difference between these two teams lies in the level of excellence on offense. The Nuggets have been elite, the best offense in the NBA, while the Lakers have flirted with top-five territory but have not been consistent enough to break into it and currently sit 10th in the rankings. Two of the Lakers’ top offensive options, Austin Reaves and LeBron James, have also missed significant chunks of the season, but even with all three Lakers superstars healthy, the offense has struggled to reach a truly elite level.

2-What separates the Nuggets’ elite offense from the Lakers’ good offense?

Digging deeper into the offensive numbers reveals even more similarities between the two teams. As mentioned, Denver ranks first in half-court offensive rating, while the Lakers are second. The Nuggets are also first in the most important of the Four Factors, shooting, or effective field goal percentage (eFG%). The Lakers rank second. The Lakers are second best in free-throw rate, while the Nuggets are fourth. Neither team is great at crashing the glass, ranking 23rd and 24th in offensive rebounding rate.

Some of it is around the margins. The Nuggets are slightly more efficient in transition and on putbacks. But the most significant difference comes down to one area that has been problematic for the Lakers all season: turnovers.

If you look at the Four Factors ranking table, you can see the major difference. The Nuggets are elite with a 13.1% turnover rate, ranking third, while the Lakers, at 15.1%, are among the worst, ranking 23rd. If we translate the turnover percentages into more tangible numbers: per 100 possessions, the Lakers commit almost two more turnovers per game, which means the Nuggets get 2.6 more field goal attempts and only 0.7 fewer free throw attempts per 100 possessions.

If you take into account that these two teams rank number one (Nuggets) and number two (Lakers) in the NBA in points per shot at 1.17 and 1.16, the math becomes simple. If the Lakers had two more shot attempts instead of turning the ball over, they would generate an additional 2.3 points per 100 possessions, which would move them from the 10th-best offense to third.

3–If it is that simple, why aren’t the Lakers doing it?

Looking at the numbers, it would be easy for data geeks like me to say to JJ Redick: please make your team simply turn the ball over less and the problem is fixed. Unfortunately, basketball is not that simple, and you cannot simply push the Four Factors up and down like buttons in a cockpit.

So how come the Lakers are turning the ball over at a much higher rate than their conference rival?

The first place to look is their offensive engines, the two players who generate most of the offense and consequently turn the ball over the most. Dončić leads the NBA at 4.0 turnovers per game, while Jokić is fifth at 3.7. There is a slight difference there, but advanced data shows Jokić actually has a higher turnover rate, turning the ball over on 13.6% of his possessions compared to Dončić at 12.2%. The latter simply has the ball more, which explains the difference in per-game numbers.

Dončić has faced criticism for his shot selection, efficiency, and style of play. However, he is not the Lakers’ main problem when it comes to turnovers, despite some high-turnover games. The Lakers turn the ball over at a much lower rate when he is on the floor, and if there is one advantage of a heliocentric style of play, it is keeping the ball in the hands of your best player. Throughout his tenure in Dallas, the Mavericks were consistently among the top five in turnover rate.

source: Cleaning the Glass

The real difference in turnover rate appears when we look at the next players in the usage hierarchy, the secondary stars on both teams. Jamal Murray is having a career season, scoring 25.7 points per game on elite efficiency while also averaging a career-high 7.3 assists per game. Even more impressively, at a 30.7% usage rate he has only a 9.8% turnover rate, which is among the best in the league for high-usage scorers.

On the other end, the Lakers’ two other creators, Austin Reaves at 14.6% and LeBron James at 13.6%, have much higher turnover rates than Murray. Reaves’ rate is even higher than Dončić’s and Jokić’s. Reaves’ turnover rate has been relatively high throughout his career, and it is one thing that separates him from other high-end secondary scorers like Murray or Kyrie Irving. James has similarly been on the higher end of high-usage players when it comes to turnover rate for most of his career. Some other Lakers role players, Marcus Smart, Deandre Ayton, Jake LaRavia, Jarred Vanderbilt and even newly acquired Luke Kennard, have also been among the players with higher turnover rates when compared to other players in similar roles. All rank in the bottom third percentile (dark blue in the table) in turnover rate for their roles.

Source: Cleaning the Glass

But while some of it comes down to individual skill and play style, I don’t think all, or even the majority in this case, comes down to that. I don’t think Reaves is that much more turnover-prone than Murray, as the numbers would suggest. Again, there is more context.

4-The most underrated trait of contenders

If you ask me, besides the obvious brilliance of Jokić, what the secret ingredient is that makes the Nuggets’ offense so special, I would offer the same answer I did when I analyzed the teams that made it to the second round during last year’s playoffs.

The Most Underrated Trait of a Contender? Familiarity

Iztok Franko
May 5, 2025

The Most Underrated Trait of a Contender? Familiarity

With Luka Dončić and the Lakers officially out of the playoffs (you can find my first reflections here), and the Mavericks eliminated long before that, it’s time to pivot to offseason mode.

Continuity, familiarity, and compatibility are the key differences between a Lakers offense that relies on individual talent but often lacks balance and flow, and the well-oiled Nuggets machine. As of today, the Nuggets’ two stars have played 15,856 total minutes together in the regular season and playoffs, the equivalent of more than 193 full 48-minute games. On top of that, offensively they are probably the ultimate fit when it comes to a 1–2 punch: a center and a guard who can both score and pass, offering very different ways to punish mismatches, either with size (Jokić) or speed (Murray). The duo forms the best two-man game in the NBA and can run their dribble handoffs, pick-and-rolls, and other actions almost blindfolded by now.

If I circle back to turnovers, that means the actions, and consequently the reads and passes, are much more predictable and simplified for both. Another important part is that most of the actions and passes involve the two best players. For example, 101 of Jokić’s assists have gone to Murray, while Peyton Watson is second on the list of Jokić’s recipients with 68. Similarly, most of Murray’s assists this season, 127, have gone to Jokić, with Watson second at 52. Pass combinations paint the same picture. Jokić has passed 1,095 times to Murray, while Murray has made 1,057 passes to his partner. The next most frequent combo, Watson to Murray, is at 582. For comparison, most of Dončić’s assists, 89, have gone to Ayton, 59 to James, and 52 to Rui Hachimura. James has 52 assists to Ayton, 44 to Marcus Smart, and 41 to Jake LaRavia. Reaves’ top targets are Ayton with 48, Hachimura with 31, and Hayes with 24.

5-Lessons for the summer and Lakers’ team building around Dončić

The upcoming summer, when the Lakers are planning a full-scale rebuild of the team around Dončić, is going to be fascinating, and we will see what direction the Lakers’ brain trust chooses.

One recently reported option is a Dallas 2.0 version of the 2024 Finals team. That model features a potent but not top-five offense built around two guards, surrounded by athleticism and defense to create a more balanced team capable of defending.

Then there is the 2019–20 version of the Rick Carlisle Mavericks, mostly forgotten by now, that stormed the NBA as the league’s best offense. It is a model much closer to the Nuggets, built around elite offense and just enough defense. For the latter, the Lakers will need what the 2019–20 Mavericks had, and what the Nuggets have: a recognizable system and complementary stars. The Mavericks were ahead of their time with Porziņģis as a stretch big and with shooting and spacing around Dončić that made him nearly impossible to stop. Despite the somewhat sour ending later on, Dončić and Porziņģis were the two players involved in most two-man actions and passes, with everyone else playing off them.

The current Lakers don’t have that, at least not consistently enough. Tonight’s game in Denver will offer a real-time look at the difference. Two teams with similar profiles and two elite offensive engines, but one system that runs with far fewer mistakes.

TERRIFIC ARTICLE, IZTOK. THANK YOU.Loved your analysis of the differences between the Nuggets and Lakers offenses and how turnovers and continuity are the difference makers right now.I love how the Lakers are leaning into their strength by trying to turn the offense into a… https://t.co/D9CqwKgtGP— LakerTom (@LakerTom) March 5, 2026

And a real Center that can Rebound and protect the Rim.

The first thing that came to mind is that we couldn’t get Tyus Jones, who’s good but can’t find a home.