5 THINGS

Usually do one of these a few games earlier but I wanted us to get through the roadie and have been busy. So there it is. At the beginning of the season I picked us to end up 8th in the western conference. So I’m personally not blown away at our record (8th in the west) but more concerned with how we got there. Issues with the bench and defense were predicted and have come to fruition and, across the board, I think it’s fair to say the Lakers have actually somehow managed to take a small, if correctable, step backwards this season.

1. The Offense. The hiring of coach Reddick was supposed to herald the L:akers arrival into the world of analytic basketball, revolutionize our offensive approach and embrace the modern era of the NBA. This season, at this time, we have 113.0 team offensive rating, good for 14th in the NBA. Last season, at the end of the year, we had 115.4 team offensive rating, good for 15th overall. We are taking more threes (33.3 this season vs. 31.4 in 2023-24) but we’re making fewer 34.2% this season vs. 37.7% last year). Our turnovers are down under Coach Reddick, incredibly, and free throws are about the same. The biggest change has been the regression of D’Angelo Russell and Rui Hachimura in terms of overall FGA’s. This isn’t on the players, necessarily, although anyone can choose to be more aggressive at work. It’s also a byproduct of force-feeding AD FGA’s and the significant slowing down of the Lakers offense, in general. AD’s FGA’s are up by almost 2 per game (18.7 vs. 16.9 last season), LeBron’s are down by .2, but Rui is also down by .4 (despite an increase in minutes by game by 5.8) and DLO is down from 14.2 FGA’s/game to 10.9). Reaves has seen his attempts increase (13.2 up from 11.5) but his accuracy go down (44% down from 48.6%, 35.5% from three down from 36.7%) Consider this: last season under Coach Ham we were 4th in the NBA at Pace of Play at 101.38. This season under Coach Reddick we’re playing at a 98.66 Pace of Play. Pace is a measure of how many possessions a team uses/game. Due to several factors (mainly the entirety of my next point) the Lakers offense is more bogged down and working harder to score this season under Coach Reddick.
2. The Defense. It’s bad. Defense doesn’t just mean getting stops, it can also lead to more easy baskets, fewer second chance points and a lowering of overall scoring efficiency for the opposition. In all of those areas the Lakers have taken a very large step backwards. Defensive Rating (points allowed/100 possessions) is abysmal: we’re 26th at 117.0 (behind teams that are basically tanking like Brooklyn and the Trailblazers, that’s downright embarrassing) and the season prior we finished 17th at 114.8. Without comparing how it went last year anymore (it’s all better), this season we’re 25th (15.0 per game) in opponent second chance points, 27th in opponent fastbreak points (18.4 per game) and 26th in opponent points in the paint (52.2 per game). Points off turnovers is our most respectable defensive stat, thus far, and we’re only 10th (16.9 per game) there. Every one of those stats was better last season with roughly the same team. Unless this gets corrected there will be no banner aspirations and the front office would do itself a favor by making a form choice: win now or start building a team better suited to the theories and principals they hired the coach for. Even then, Coach Reddick has some serious philosophical issues to debate in regards to his approach to team defense. This isn’t all on the roster because we know without a doubt that this roster has better defensive potential than they’ve shown all season long. It has to start with the coach understanding that a “one scheme to rule them all” approach is inherently flawed. Any simplistic, one-dimensional approach to a professional sport is doomed from the start. You need a plan A, B, C, D, and E and each of those should come with a different look. I’m not even sure we have assigned roles on defense as more often than not a guy gets rubbed off a screen and his man has an open lane or jump shot. It’s plain to the casual fan that defense is not Coach Reddick’s strong suit and that is the biggest issue confronting the Lakers at this juncture of the season. it’s on he and the staff to figure out a better way forward with the players on hand. If the roster changes, so too do the plans. Good defense leads to easy offense, a lot of problems will solve themselves if we can get better than the lower 1/4 of the NBA on defense.
3. Health. The same guys are still hurt, for the most part. Vando? out until at least January. Wood? Out for an indefinite period of time. Reaves is hurt for the first time in over a year and has missed several games (4, I think?) in a row. Jalen-Hood Schifino? Perpetually out with various injuries befitting a much older player. Of all the walking wounded Gabe has turned the corner, seemingly, and has played mediocre, at best. His offense is a gaping hole and his defense doesn’t make up for it. Now that Hayes is out we rely on G-Leaguers to plug the holes in the dyke when AD sits. It’s not pretty and is one of the factors contributing to our defensive malaise. LBJ finally sat a game and the Lakers won…against the utterly tanking Blazers. I know we got a new head trainer, it just hasn’t helped.
4. The rookie head coach. I have to say, despite all of the above, I am mildly impressed with Coach Reddick in that he hasn’t utterly lost his shit. Other than one sideline meltdown early on he’s held his composure. This season more contact is being allowed than in season’s past and you can see it’s affecting many players and their willingness to drive into the defense. I never really bought into anyone who was saying things like “Reddick will revolutionize the Lakers approach to offense” and “he’s the next Pat Riley!” because that’s all just bullshit people post in the dog days because they’re bored or whatever. If that’s what helps get them to the regular season, great. It’s not a game I play, I don’t deal in hyperbolic superlatives. I deal in results. The fact is the Lakers, with this roster, didn’t have a tremendous ceiling to come up to. LeBron is LeBron, AD is AD and nothing coach says in the locker room or on TV is going to fundamentally change how they play and approach the game. Where he has failed a little bit is in elevating the rest of the team. This can still happen, though, as everything from the previous season is a measure of 82 games and we’re only 24 games in for the Lakers season, so far. Coach Reddick still has time to scrap the switch everything as the default, go-to defensive scheme and add in some zone, some midcourt traps, full and midcourt presses, and a hybrid man/switch scheme where the only switches happen onto shooters who are hot or guys they don’t want to see get hot. He can run plays for Rui and Russell. He can take the ball out of Reave’s hands a little more and give it to Gabe or DLO. There are a ton of un-tried adjustments on the table, thus there is still time for this group to simply execute better on both ends. Where we definitely need to up our game is our physicality. We started well enough but have gotten very, very soft after a hot start.
5. Trade our way to greatness. In short…don’t hold your breath. Let’s assume for a minute that Rob has access to every pick between now and 2030. I am of the opinion he does not but who knows. Most importantly we don’t have our 2025 1st rounder (aka as “The Cooper Flagg” draft), which is bound for Atlanta from New Orleans via the Murray trad thus completing the AD trade, at long last. Here’s the list, can’t trade picks more than 5 seasons out, this season ends in 2025, thus 2030 is the cap:
   
   2025 NBA Draft
   First round: Hawks have the rights to this pick from the Pelicans
   Second round: (2) Own plus one from the Clippers
   2026 NBA Draft
   First round: Own
   Second round: Headed to Miami
   2027 NBA Draft
   First round: LAL’ 2027 1st round pick to UTA protected for selections 1-4; if this pick falls within its protected range and is therefore not conveyed, then the LAL will instead convey their 2027 2nd round pick to UTA
   Second round: Own (see above)
   2028 NBA Draft
   First round: Own
   Second round: Orlando or Washington (all part of the Westbrook trade)
   2029 NBA Draft
   First round: Own
   Second round: Washington (last of the Westbrook trade)
   2030 NBA Draft
   First round: Own
   Second round: Own
   
   Here are the picks we CAN trade:
   2025 2nd round pick (LAL)
   2025 2nd round pick (LAC)
   2026 1st round pick – Pick Swaps Only
   2027 2nd round pick
   2028 1st round pick – Pick Swaps Only
   2029 1st round pick
   2030 1st round pick ***cannot trade both 2029 and 2030***
   
   Here’s Why:
   I’m sure we’re all vaguely familiar with the Stepien Rule in that we can’t trade 1st round picks in back-to-back seasons. So, because of the Westbrook deal and the AD deal we can’t trade our 2026 1st rounder until Draft Day in the summer of ’26. Depending on what happens in 2027 we could trade that one on draft day ’27, as well (it can’t be included as a pick swap, either, as we don’t own it outright so it’s actually Utah’s pick to trade until it becomes clear where it falls after the 2027 season concludes). So, for this season, the only 1st round picks we can trade outright at the moment are: 2029 and 2030 and we can’t trade them both. This is because we do not yet know what will happen to our 2027 1st round draft pick as it is protected 1-4. It will know it’s fate when the draft lottery happens…in the summer of 2027. As such, it is essentially holding our 2028 1st round draft pick hostage. Our picks we can include outright in trades are limited to: our 2029 first and 2030 first & second round draft picks, and the 1st rounders can’t both be included. We can trade pick swaps in 2026, ’28, ’29, and ’30. We have 3 second round draft picks because we won’t know the fate of the 2027 pick until…2027.
   
   The cupboard, as they say, is bare. We don’t have much in terms of impact players to trade, either. Lakers fans will be loathe to see Reaves or Knecht in any trade scenario but you can bet that any team the Lakers call will insist on one or the other, if not both, if the trade is for anything but another mediocre role-player. You can forget the “DLO, Rui, JHS, Max, and Gabe are perfect trade filler for Fox” type scenarios. That’s absurd; plain and simple, there is absolutely no way the Kings make that deal. Same goes for LaMelo, even if he sprains both ankles this season, again. If Atlanta hadn’t pulled out of their tail spin a couple weeks ago one could almost see the hope of a Trae Young deal. We will not be getting any picks back for doing the Bulls the favor of trading for Zach LaVine and trading for Lonzo Ball is beyond ludicrous, the dude can play…at max…16 minutes/game and no more than 4 minutes at a time. So any trade involving those kinds of scenarios I find simply laughable.
   
   To put it all simply and plainly: we don’t have the juice to use just filler players in a blockbuster trade, even if we go all-in. It’s not more than at least4 other teams can beat that have similar needs as ours and vested interest in not seeing us become elite, again. No team trading with us will be doing us any favors. Whether it’s a dislike of Rob, the Lakers in general, or both we will be looking at a slight overpay (or more) in any trade we make. These are the problems accrued by drafting poorly, using our exceptions on the wrong guys, and not including the coach on the Westbrook trade. These are the problems that are still reverberating through time, waiting for us in the future. With nothing to be done now.
   
   Go Lakers.

Folks who have been around the Lakerholics blog and the LA Times Laker blog of yore may remember a cat named Phred. Phred had a whimsical way of posting and would often conclude his thoughts with “it’s all about the love”. Well, if Phred were here (or lurks in the shadows of the blog-o-sphere) he’d be saying something along the lines of “the love is gone. it’s all about the love”. Because, hooooooooooo-boy, that was one bad game and I’m not as willing to blame this one on tired legs as the last.

1. I know I sound like a broken record buuuuut…defense was A.W.O.L. Again. Whether it was Tyler Hero raining down fire from three, offensive rebounds or just a lack of hustle and vigor there wasn’t much resistance put up by the Lakers last night on the defensive end. As a result we got our asses handed to us by 41 points. This is unacceptable. With Vincent we have, in theory, a better POA guard than we had at any time last season. Vando barely played last season and has yet to suit up in this one (an issue I’ll touch on down below). The combination of Dalton Knecht and D’Angelo Russell is even worse defensively than the Reaves/Russell pairing. In general we’re just not showing much heart on that end of the floor. This is where the season will be defined, if we can’t forge a semi-respectable identity on the defensive end, we will be a bad team. It’s really just that simple.
2. If Dalton ain’t shooting he shouldn’t be starting. This isn’t really on Dalton, either. He’s not calling the plays. He’s not bringing the ball up. He’s not the one dictating the action. So, while it’s obvious he’s been scouted and teams are making an effort to deny him the ball, it’s equally obviosu that his presence in the starting five (and his role in general) is predicated on him taking and making a lot of three pointers. If he can’t add another wrinkle to his game (driving thew ball and scoring in the paint/making a play), set solid screens to free other guys when they aggressively cover him, or up his defensive impact he really doesn’t need to start. Again, this isn’t necessarily on all DK to address, the staff has a lot to ponder as we finish the road trip out.
3. DLO coasting. In some ways I get it. No deal, been picking up his options rather than getting what I’m sure he feels he deserves in free agency. Yada yada yada. The thing is, if DLO wants one of those bigger deals he need to stop coasting. Gone is the aggressive player we saw get PO’d after getting benched by Coach Ham last season. Returned is the passive, aimless, drifting combo guard who is increasingly harder and harder to justify his role. Every single stat on the block is down this season and down in a way that represent career lows: minutes, FGA, FGM, 3 PT FG% (the year he got hurt and missed about half the season is his career worst, technically…by .1%), FTA, FTM, rebounds, and blocks. He’s near his career lows in assists but all the lower years are his 1st 2 years in the league. In a season that should be about him earning that next deal, under a coach that was supposed to unlock his game…this is pathetic. I’m sure the Lakers are shopping him, they’d be fools not too. The problem is he’s really expensive contract filler at this point. A contender doesn’t need him, he’s not a rebuild/culture kind of guy, and so here we are. Basically having to pay to trade the dude, at this point. Better to simply let his money expire and start reshaping the roster through free agency unless we can combine him and couple other players into a decent deal (the opposite of the Westbrook deal, hopefully…)
4. Bench was always going to be an issue, more so with Vando and Hayes out. AD can’t do it all and when Russell, Knecht, and Reaves are the starting front court options you lose so much on defense you dig a hole that we evidently can’t get back out of. Reddish needs to start for one of Russel or Knecht when Reaves gets back. If Reaves is out you either need to start Gabe for Russell or Cam for Dalton. LeBron doesn’t have enough juice to give good effort on defense when we’re asking him to basically carry the offense…which we are. With teams switching to a “deny AD the ball in his favorite spots” defense it’s more on LeBron to initiate and make plays as the opposition is happy to watch us shoot from the outside as a first resort. In general the Lakers strengths start inside and trickle out, we’re not an early shot clock three point shooting team…or at least not a very good one. Once we’ve dug a hole, and with Reaves and Hayes out, the bench can’t beat the other teams bench or really even make it competitive. This is why, even though the starting five with Cam and Reaves had an overall net negative rating, the bench got better with DLO, Knecht and Hayes, for the bench to be competitive at this time you need to start Cam or try a G-Leaguer or consider going bigger and start Koloko and bench Rui. None of these feel like good options that move the team forward, though, they all feel like crappy band aids.
5. Trade our way out of this? In theory? Sure. Wait until the 15th when you can include Max Christie in a deal, package Max, DLO, JHS and whatever other dead weight that makes the money work and hope two unprotected 1st rounders and two 1st round pick swaps gets something meaningful done. In reality, we don’t have much anyone wants other than the unprotected 1st rounders, Reaves and Knecht. I don’t know about you but I rarely see meaningful superstars traded for a couple of first rounders, a couple swaps and detritus. In the Lakers case, at least JHS and DLO are expiring money so, in theory, that represents something of a bonus but, again, the reality of NBA trades doesn’t seem to support this happening. Especially for the Lakers. Nobody wants to provide us the spark that elevates us to the next level or out of mediocrity. So, while I don’t think we can move forward as we want to they way we are, I’m not sure we have enough to swing for a player that is A) available, B) actually helps the team, C) we won’t have to overpay for. I get that the idea of winning the trade vs. getting the player that fits is a thing to navigate, I just don’t trust Rob to navigate it well or intelligently. I also expect him to get fired this summer.

One more in Atlanta, who is a giant-killer this season so maybe it’s a trap game for them? I dunno. We got one more epic road trip this season and our road record is abysmal. 60 games left on the schedule, 28 road games. We need to nudge that road record back towards .500 and we need to figure out how to respond to losses better. Dropping 2, 3, 4 games in a row isn’t a great habit to build. Need someone to step up or a miracle trade to fall into our laps. Neither feels likely.

Even though it came at inopportune time, this was a loss in the making before the Utah game. 5 games in 7 days, all with travel, and a T’wolves team motivated by recent struggles and an October loss at Crypto and to right the ship after a recent 5 game losing streak. After carrying the team to victory the night before in Salt Lake City the superstar duo of James & Davis needed a team pick me up to make this one competitive. They didn’t get one.

1. 7-30, 0-6 from three. That was the combined scoring output from ADS and LBJ. They did go 6-8 from the stripe. Some of that was the stellar defense the Timberwolves deployed but just as much I blame weary legs, especially in LeBron’s case. None of his jump shots looked good, nothing is smooth and it’s affecting his passing game as he’s not getting to the angle but he makes the pass anyway because his brain is telling him to make the pass. In his last 6 games he’s averaging 5 TO’s/contest. He’s 0-19 on three pointers since Phoenix which has driven his 3pt FG% down to 34.5. AD isn’t as affected but you can tell he’s tyired because he’s been taking a lot more step back mid range jump shots on the road trip. He’s not getting any friendly whistles but you can’t let that dictate how you play. AD and the Lakers are at their best when he’s applying pressure in the paint and delivering body blows.
2. Dalton Knecht and his feast or famine stretch. The last 5 games has seen a lot of variance in Dalton’s contributions. He’s either over 40% from three or under/at 25% for a 32% average. Some of this is simply his home/road splits (50% three point shooter at home, 31.6% on the road) but I think some of it is also that he’s now on the scouting report and there’s a tactic being deployed. They’re forcing him to either shoot an extremely contested shot or put it on the deck and make a play. He’s not getting 4-5 clean catch and shoot attempts/night, he’s getting 2 or 3. Even those are coming with more pressure to perform now that he’s starting, facing the better defenders and coaches are forcing him to tweak his game. He needs to figure out a wrinkle to keep his hot shooting, our winning, and his ROY hopes going.
3. Could have seen more DLO. The last few games have seen Russell begin to emerge from his long summer’s nap and play better. He and Hachimura really carried the Lakers for long stretches to help keep the game in striking distance until midway through the 3rd when it was obvious they weren’t going to be getting any help from anyone else. I’m not saying another 4-5 minutes would have swung the game but when the end was still in question did we really need to see so much Vincent and/or Christie? For all the hype and words spouted over how JJ Reddick was going to help DLO unlock his best self I really haven’t even see it. Reddick has basically done the same thing Coach Ham did: express a modicum of preseason confidence, give him a nebulous role of spacer, and then bench him when he doesn’t carve out anything besides drifting around the three point line.
4. Stick a fork in Gabe Vincent. Dude is done. Followed his best Lakers game up with a really bad effort on both ends highlighted by several silly fouls. We need a lot more from Gabe Vincent and I don’t think he has it in him.
5. Every single Laker who could play did play and all but Cam Reddish (11 minutes) and Gabe Vincent (22 minutes of not doing much) had at least 1 turnover and every starter but DK had at least 2 highlighted by The King’s 6. We gave up 26 points off turnovers, a lot of those showing up in the Fastbreak points stat line (20). Some of this just sloppy play by the players, some of it is tired LBJ and some of it is we’re not really running plays anymore. Not like we did in the first couple weeks. Same goes for what defense we muster these days, the first 6 or so games saw a much more physical Lakers defense that had transition issues but still played hard. Those days are now gone, evidently, as we are soft all over.

Two more games to go on the road trip of which we are 2-3 and we’ve lost 3 of our last 10. The younger guys need to pick it up more than a little because I don’t think there’s another gear either AD or LBJ can find, they’re maxed out for the regular season. Staff needs to really re-think whatever defensive scheme they think we’re running: it isn’t working at all. Don’t change these two things and watch us continue our long, slow slide into mediocrity. Guys who think they deserve more of a role need to start proving it and not just by hitting a three every game or so, they need to defend and play at a hard, high level.

The world of sport is funny, so much is made of nuanced stats and metrics. Graphs and formulas for how you can win populate blogs and websites. “Experts” blab on and on about how analytics has changed sports forever. I don’t buy it. Why? Because when you look at who won and how it usually comes down to something basic that didn’t get done. A foundational aspect of winning that came up short. In the case of the lakers last night it was 2 things: rebounds (or lack of them) and missing free throws in the clutch. Simple.

1. Give credit where credit is due. The physicality and tenacity the Orlando Magic play at gave the Lakers fits all night long. Much whiny and moaning to the refs who let a rough, and consistent, game play out over the course of the evening. The Magic get up into you. They drape, they get handsy and we never adjusted or played up to it. Look no further than the rebound category to see where the threads of the win began to unravel. The Magic pulled down 12 more boards than we did (48-36) and grabbed 6 more offensive rebounds (15). While that led to only 15 second chance points it helped stymie or fastbreak and allowed Orlando to win the possession battle on the road.
2. Off game for the offense. The ball movement and flow last night was decidedly lacking. We average nearly 27 assists/game and last night, even though we got 21 dimes, the normal flow we’ve become accustomed to was AWOL. A lot of this was due to the physical pressure applied by Orlando. But it also had to do with guys like DLO passing up open shots in favor of relocating and then forcing up a bad shot, instead. The Lakers offense is predicated on player movement and when it’s flowing it works great. Too much standing around last night led to a stagnant flow and helped contribute to the loss.
3. Missing free throws. Look…it’s gonna happen and it happens to every team. There will always be a handful of games you look back on every season and say “should, woulda, coulda”. This and the Phoenix game top my list currently. Both were games where we had cont5rol and simply let it slip through our fingers. Missing 4 out of 6 free throws down the stretch, along with not forcing Wagner off the three point line, are the main culprits in this one. Wipe slate, move on.
4. Should have gone with Cam over DLO down the stretch. Called a big game for Russell last night…that is still MIA. Dude hasn’t scored 20 points in a game this season. I know he’s distributing the ball OK, had 6 dimes last night, but he’s a net negative defender and that’s not going to change. When he passes up open threes, like he did last night, it makes him playing really hard to justify. Cam was doing a better job than Reaves who inexplicably seemed to get matched up on Wagner a lot in the second half. When Wagner got hot and we finally went back to Reddish in the waning minutes it was too little too late. Bad decision by JJ on this one, I understand the desire to see DLO get on track but the west is to tight to let one guy beat us. Not sure why we didn’t put AD on him, either. Curious choices and some of that has to do with the switching scheme which my personal jury is still out on. It works when we’re physical like the Magic were but when you play willowy it opens up wide open threes and driving lanes.
5. Offense is not the problem. In a game where, even without good ball movement, you shoot 50.6% from the field and 41.9% from three while keeping the turnovers reasonable you ought to win. The free throws (65.4%) were a big part but the defense just isn’t rising to the occasion. We play good D in bursts but it doesn’t seem to be as much of a focus as it will eventually need to be. Our physicality comes and goes, we don’t rebound well, and our transition D continues to be a major weakness. If this doesn’t get addressed soon it will only become a larger issue.