1) As always Health takes every slot but, for the sake of making any kind of point, we’ll keep it at #1. As such, the Lakers (other than LeBron) seem to be in decent shape. They’re resting guys, not over-taxing key players, and have thus far avoided injuries.
2) LeBron’s injury opens the door to other things. We saw one version of the non-LeBron lineup last night. We’ll see another tonight, without Luka and Reaves I would guess. But the month or so we’ll be without LeBron for could be a big thing for Reaves to get the shine to be selected to his first All Star game. Could help with Luka being more strongly considered as an MVP candidate. Most of all, it opens the door to minutes for guys that likely would have been left out of the rotation most nights and give them a shot to grow their games.
3) Reaves looks great. Hoping he and Luka can really make this work because, if they can, it will mean the Lakers can lock down their back court for the foreseeable future as soon as next summer.
4) Luka looked amazing! He was having more fun than I ever saw him have at any point last year. He made ridiculous shots from everywhere, just super fun and happy for the dude that he got his head back on straight. His timing with DeAndre will come, in time, and those lobs will work better. It’s fair to say that the Lakers can deploy more of a power post game using either Ayton or Hachimura when they need a bucket, both are solid players off the elbow.
5) Earlier this summer I posted that I was afraid we let the better player in Goodwin go when we signed Smart. Nothing I’ve seen thus far has made me question that observation. Goodwin looked solid dropping 24 points on 50% shooting (3-7 from three) to Smart’s almost perfect donut only made me double-down that choosing Smart over Goodwin was a short-sighted choice. Akin to choosing THT over Caruso. I’m sure that won’t be a popular opinion, for obvious reasons, and if I’m being 100% honest both players have very different roles but the Suns got a solid player for the vet minimum while we used money on Smart that could have ben used for a plethora of still out there now free agents. I’m rooting for Smart to prove me wrong…but I’m not hopeful he will…
Back-to-back…WTF NBA?!?!?
