The Lakers continued their playoff matchup against the 5th seed Rockets by matching their intensity and desperation for a game 2 win. Kevin Durant returned from a bruised knee and, for a half, looked like the dagger wielding assassin that had ended many a p[layoff run for the opposition. The Lakers had a plan for that and were able to execute it to near perfection as they controlled the game, and Durant, throughout the second half and sent Ime Udoka back to the drawing board.

1. Defense wins championships. It was the main reason I, personally, was not thrilled with the hiring of Coach J.J. Reddick but in the last 8-12 weeks of NBA basketball he’s shown us all that he can be more than a one-trick pony on that end of the floor. A lot of credit has to go to he and his staff for coming up with a most excellent defensive stratagem to stymie the Rockets slashing attack on the rim and neutralize both Sengun and Durant. In a game of adjustments this is now the 4th game in the last couple of weeks against Houston where the half court blitzing, trapping and doubling of Durant has completely obliterated the notion of a smooth or easy offensive possession for the Rockets so it seems clear that Udoka hasn’t figured out a way to get either Sengun or Durant consistent, easy looks in their sweet spots. Some of this will, undoubtedly, prove harder to do in Houston. I expect Hayes and Ayton to pick up a few more touch fouls guarding Sengun, and for Smart and the other guy doubling KD to be called for being overly aggressive on the double but the proof of concept is there on this. Not sure this works for every team, Houston’s weakness is three point shooting and a lack of playmaking, there’s not another team in the playoffs in our bracket that has those qualities, but for this round the coaches have really put together an excellent game plan and the players are going out and executing it really well.
2. Marcus Smart doing his best to prove me wrong. In my defense, and from the beginning of the season, I have always liked the idea of Smart on the Lakers in the playoffs. I’ll also be the first one to say Smart has driven me crazy this season with bad shots, silly and unforced turnovers and the like…in the regular season. But, like Playoff Rondo, Smart is built for this kind of basketball. Maybe he tends to drift a little during the regular season; play with less discipline on offense specifically. His defense and hustle are always welcome, and he tends to reign in his more maddening tendencies (bad passes, silly turnovers and early shot clock threes when there are better shooters on the floor with him) in during the playoffs. Last night might well have been his best game as a Laker yet. 25 points on a tidy 13 shots, 5-7 from three (none bigger than the one with 2:23 left to play in the 4th to put us back up by 8), stellar defense, and 7 dimes to only 3 turnovers. Sign me up for more of that.
3. Luke Kennard is everything we hoped Gabe Vincent would be. His defense, while not spectacular, is solid. His shot-making is epic. His handle…well…he can’t be amazing at everything. Luke turned in another beauty and seemed to be more aggressively hunting his shot to match KD in the 1st half. 23 points, also on a tidy 13 shots (our starting guards gave us a combined 48 points on 26 shots, 9 assists to 5 turnovers, 8 rebounds, 5 steals and a block…that’s picking up the slack for Luka And Austin). My only critique, and honestly this is more for his teammates and the coaching staff, is that you can’t expect Luke to bring the ball up against pressure from an elite wing, which Houston has 4 of. We need to keep a guy back to set a screen to help mitigate the unforced errors like his backcourt violation and not getting the ball across the timeline in 8 seconds.
4. Weird game for the bench. Somehow, and I put a lot of this on Jackson and his excellent defense down the stretch in the 4th, our bench was an overall positive despite scoring only 6 points on 1 made basket on 8 FGA’s. The bench was 0-4 from three and had 3 turnovers to 1 assist. Yet they astoundingly all came out with a positive +/- while only 1 Rocket (Reed Sheppard at +1) had a positive rating. The +/- stat is misleading and really as much a barometer for whom you’re playing alongside with as much as individual excellence. Still, for our bench to outplay their bench is huge and something we need to maintain on the road. FWIW, Jake LaRavia’s minutes should start to go to Vando at this point. At least in my opinion. Jake theoretically is a better scorer than Jarred Vanderbilt, but JV does everything else a lot better. Especially rebounding. Jake looks a little too amped up in his first playoff series so maybe he can find a calmer, more focused state of mind as we move forward but the moment may prove to be a lot for the young man. Hayes continues to play great and Bronny came in for his customary 1st half turnover. Hard spot to put the younger dudes in but this is what injuries create: opportunity and it’s on the young players to find their inner carpe diem.
5. The never ending wonder that is LeBron James. You didn’t think I was going to leave The King out, did you? Watching James dissect the Rockets has been awesome. At 41 he keeps finding ways to get the job done while putting a lot of guys who have either not played many meaningful playoff minutes or no playoff minutes on his back and will them to 2 wins. His efficiency fell off last night (8-20, 2-5 from three) but he was able to get the the free throw line more than in game 1 (10-14) to help compensate. No matter how this ends, either this summer or on down the line, I am thankful that we’ve gotten to see LeBron James up as a Laker. A lot of extra baggage comes with him wherever he goes but it’s worth tipping the bell hop for, the dude is playing at an amazing level for anyone at any age.

Tougher tests lie ahead. Houston, especially their bench, is going to be better at home. The Rockets were 30-11 at home, good for a 5th best tie with Boston in the NBA this season. Udoka is a good coach (or at least I used to think he was when he was in Boston) who will continue to adjust and tinker looking for a win and Sengun isn’t going to miss bunnies forever. As good as we’ve played at Crypto you have to figure there’s a solid counter-punch waiting for us in Texas. How we respond in Houston will tell us a lot about the character of this team. because whatever tests we pass in the 1st round are going to ramp up in difficulty exponentially in round 2 vs. OKC.

1) Injuries
2) Chemistry (or lack thereof, massively affected by point #1)
3) Too much salary in LBJ, he’s earned it but he’s not worth it, if you get my implication. That’s 2, maybe 3 young players we could be developing. Or Reaves and Hayes.
4) Took until March for the coaches to figure out defense. Unacceptable. Glad they got there tho.
5) Luka needs to keep working on his body. This kind of injury, in the same leg as his balky calf, can have a high frequency of re-occurrence. That’s the last thing we need.

What playoff hopes the Lakers had took a serious hit when the left hamstring of Luka Doncic seized up on him. The MRI revealed a grade 2 strain (grade 3 is the most serious and avoiding a tear was awesome). What does this mean going forward?

1) Out for the regular season. 5 games left (about a week left) and the week of playin games which we will miss no matter what. 15 days from today, 17 from the time of injury. Typical recovery time is 3-6 weeks, often more for professional athletes. Recent cautionary tales are Aaron Gordon, Peyton Watson and Jalen Williams. We’ve seen players comeback quicker but they often are ineffective and the risk of re-injury is high. In my non professional opinion the Lakers are looking at mid May, at best, for Luka to be able to return to the court and that’s if he responds incredibly well to treatment.

2) Same leg as the calf injury he suffered last season. Both soft tissue injuries. This is something I hope and think the Lakers want to get right. A tear would be disastrous, an injury to another body part like the knee or Achilles if he compensates for the hamstring would be disastrous. This is about more than one season.

3) Lakers can’t let other issues cloud their judgement. Yes, we all want to see the trio of James, Reaves and Luka get busy in the playoffs. Yes, Reaves’ fit w/Luka is a huge question, especially in the playoffs. Of course this could be LeBron’s last dance as a Laker, or even NBA player. Again, this is about more than this season.

4) Things will be much different next season. Lakers have glaring roster holes, fixing a few in the summer could go a long way towards helping the team for years to come. This was always a long shot season with OKC at full strength, Wemby coming of age fast and Boston not taking the gap year.

5) Save the coach and player from themselves. This smacks of Riles running the team into the ground before the NBA Finals against Detroit. Coaches and players always want to push through, not having heard from Luka we can only assume he felt good enough to go but for the life of me I don’t see why he was playing at all down 31. The team needs to do better.

1) That 2nd quarter would have did us in a month ago. No plucky comeback, no opportunities for last second heroics. That’s tangible growth on an important front: grit and toughness.

2) Tired Legs: 5 games in 8 nights on the road…still, no Cade…call it a wash and we do end up losing what was a winnable game. Can’t get too pumped for moral victories.

3)?Defense kept us in it. That’s another thing that wouldn’t happen a month or so ago. If we didn’t light it up from three in a game we got behind in we lost. This was more of a grinding, playoff style comeback. Better for what’s to come.

4) Not loving the out of time out/out of bounds plays these days. They’re predictable and I can’t tell if it’s the play or the execution because not much of either seemed to happen at the end. Something to improve on in these last few games.

5) One more. Then our other epic roadie is in the books, we can close it out with the 3rd seed and face Houston in the 1st round!

Had a cool post, accidentally deleted it…suffice to say we’re kicking ass at the exact right moment.

65 games in and the team is starting to look a little sterner, little grittier. One of the ugliest first halves I’ve seen since the 90’s man. The win was one of the more impressive of the season, in my opinion.

1) Luka finding solace on the court. Sounds like his personal life has been difficult off the court, can’t be easy to make this decision in any situation, having the spotlight he has on him as an international superstar, an NBA superstar, and a Laker. It’s true that wealth and fame don’t guarantee ease of life. But that’s a good locker room to be in. Wish him and his family a smooth transition into this next phase.

2) Reaves found his mojo. In the second half Austin Reaves looked like the ass kicker from earlier this season. He hit tough shots off the dribble, two and-1 three pointers, and was generally a bad ass mofo.

3) Jake LaRavia looks better off the bench these days. Love the energy he brings, his shot has vanished and and he’s tough as nails. He, Vando, Kennard and Hayes work OK as a bench unit. As long as one of Reaves, Luka or LeBron is on the floor that group can bring some toughness.

4) Give the staff credit. They’re dropping the zone more and more, they’ve gotten into the top half of the league on D, and the offense (when Ayton tries) works OK. There’s a lot of room for improvement but they’ve made tangible improvements. It might not be a title winning team in the eyes of the media, but on a night like tonight, if you squint hard enough and remember that all good teams face adversity, you can almost imagine a world where we can win it all. Probably too many things that have broken against us, roster issues long past their time of solving, but there is an inkling of something better around the team these days.

5) Loving Luke Kennard. I haven’t wanted to jinx it. This is what the Lakers have been searching for. The dude fits like a glove.

The loss last night dropped us a game and a half behind Denver for 5th and 14-19 against teams above .500. We’re a worse team at this point than we were last season with not too many signs of turning it around. The same old same did us in.

1) Too much whining. If I could have the coach do one thing it would be to fine any player that stops to talk to a ref during a live ball. You can yell, you can shake your head, but it better be while your a$$ is running back down the court on defense. You stop to whine? $5,000.

2) Not all that much sustainable intensity. The intense guys aren’t very good and the good guys aren’t very intense. Everyone says the right things and, if you watch post game interviews, they seem contrite and comprehend that there is an effort and focus issue. The effort being on defense being physical and matching the opponent’s aggression. The focus on just being active and present in the moment. Catch the ball, make the solid pass, finish the layup. Play the game.

3) The blame game. We have a lot of excuses as to why we have lost this season. Injuries, lack of chemistry, inherent moodiness, bad officiating, and on and on. The leadership in this team, from the locker room on up, doesn’t feel up to the task of winning a banner. Too many self-inflicted wounds have established a pattern and appearance, if not true, dysfunction. I hope that we can either discover a winning mojo like yesterday or dig deep into what is missing from the team and organization and replace it. Be it player, coach, GM or whatever.

4) LeBron passed Cap in all
Time made field goals and will probably pass Lance Parrish for All Time regular season games played. Crazy. Still, and not diminish any aspect of his accomplishment because I think the modern NBA accounts for a lot more wear and tear, he started his career at 18. All the same, historic dude, that LeBron James. No denying that.

5) Reaves looks off. Just not able to get past his man. Also not shooting great from three. He, along with half the team, has awful body language. The early season joy and verve had been replaced by a dour vibe. If he’s hurt and gutting it out he should consider sitting. Whatever chance we have in any playoff series will come down to having a mostly healthy team.

Another under-manned opponent, another Laker loss. The team looks very dispassionate, moody and like they want the season to be over. Hustle seems like it’s optional. This has gotten hard to watch.

1) Too much Luka. It’s a fine line to walk. Too many shots and you’re not passing enough, hogging the ball. Don’t shoot enough, you quit on the team. In this case I think that there’s a problem with our lack of play calling. Can’t have Ayton getting only a handful of shots, or he’s going on the banana boat in his brain.

2) Reaves too passive. Might still not have his legs back yet, probably still knocking off some rust, but he’s not really driving and attacking like we know he can. As a result he’s become more of a release valve than creator.

3) So many dumb turnovers. Whether it was one of our guards dribbling the ball off their foot, Marcus Smart not getting the ball across the timeline when absolutely nobody was guarding him, or the listless passes that were easily picked off, this game was not a pretty one in terms of execution.

4) Too many offensive rebounds surrendered. At some point you have to look inside and say “I need to put some effort into this, those other guys are actually jumping for the ball and stuff!”. Inexplicably we lost the rebounding battle despite Mark Williams being in foul trouble and Jordan Goodwin not playing.

5) Time is running out. Nobody cares that we haven’t had the time to develop wonderful and beautiful chemistry as a team, that Luka, Reaves and LeBron nigh not play 30 games together this entire season or any other excuse one might care to cobble together. It’s either important to you and worth sacrificing for or it’s not. Petty issues with refs, teammates, coaches or your role won’t help right now. Reddick has to figure out how to get this team to play harder. He may also want to consider putting the league’s leading three pointer shooter by percentage in when you need a game tying three…I’m sure Maxi Kleber was hot, though…while Kennard sat.

I can think of several words to describe last nights woeful outing against the under-manned Celtics but I’ll settle on one: pathetic. Not worth the watching but I did anyway. Only thing to take away from this loss: we aren’t a contender.

1) Too much whining. Sure, the Celtics got away with 2 obvious goaltends and 2 obvious offensive fouls. Evidently that was enough to take the team and coaching staff out of the game. Luka is going to complain, LeBron has earned the right to complain. Marcus Smart flapping his yap for 3 minutes just to get a tech doesn’t need to stay in the game plan. Any player who just lays on the floor and whines should be benched next time…except our coach whines as much as the players do. Weak.

2) Speaking of Marcus Smart, fine time for a donut against the team that once called him
it’s heart and soul right before shipping him out and winning a title. So much for getting revenge or playing for pride… At this point I hope he opts out, the negatives aren’t outweighed by the positives, IMO. He’s clearly a step slow on D, takes it out on the officials, and shoots far too often based on his ability to actually make shots. Play Kennard more if you need buckets or Vando if you need stops. Have him slide into a mentor role or whatever.

3) Same goes for Ayton. Please, please opt out. We don’t need your skillset on this team and we need someone whose head is in the game for more than 7 minutes. It’s a 48 minute game, dude, show up for more of them or just go away.

4) Reddick got vastly out-coached. The Celtics pressured us full court all game long and we let them, they outhustled us and we stuck with our slowest, most myopic players in the 2nd half. Pat Riley could have done a better job coaching these guys, not 80’s Pat Riley, the near fossilized one that showed more pep than our entire team last night during his speech.

5) Reaves checked out early. Evidently he just can’t keep up with Payton Pritchard. Dude got outplayed by Payton for the full 48 and whined a lot while it happened. Reaves might get paid a lot of money this coming summer but games like this make me wonder if it should be us…

Games like this make me wish our record reflected the effort this team puts forth. Honestly, this is a playin team riding on the coattails of early season success and injuries to key players on other teams. It’s sad that this is how LeBron will go out as a Laker because I’m not seeing a lot of reasons for him to put himself through this ever again. I fucking hate losing to the Celtics but I really hate the way we no-showed a big game last night. Just proves what a lot of us have seen in this team since last summer. Which is to say not much. I suppose there’s time to turn it around but this feels like what the team it is now. Weak, slow, and no heart.

As the vapid and useless All Star weekend passes us by I take this time to look at the state of the team.

(1) The offense, in general, isn’t the problem. Sure, we’re not a top 5 offense but we’re a top ten-ish offense. Seeing how we’ve been shuffling line ups, players being out and 3/5’s of the current starting 5 weren’t on the team last season that’s not bad. The major issues I’d like us to cleanup are turnovers and focusing more on quality shots, too often it seems like we try for home run passes when a simple swing pass will do or jacking up early shots.

(2) The defense is awful. Sure, injuries, a common and well-trod excuse. but one of our best defenders, Jarred Vanderbilt was benched for a stretch and we stuck with the same, incredibly ineffective, switch everything scheme for the first few months of the season. Our zone generally performs better and I’m not sure we ever play in anything close to a man-to-man. We switched small onto big with Embiid and Wemby, for example, for the entire game when we weren’t in a zone. That’s absurd. This one is on the coaches more than anyone else.

(3) Injuries. We got ‘em. So does every team. We’re not even in the top ten of teams that have players due to injury. Whereas the Thunder are. Last I looked, they were leading the west. So, sure, injuries have certainly played a factor in our overall team performance. The extent of that comes down to how much grit and heart the team has.

(4) Speaking of which, the game against the Spurs showed us all the quality of that heart and grit. Outside of Vando and Kleber it looked like everyone else showed up to lose. Nobody hit Wemby, nobody bumped Wemby, nobody tried at all in D except those 2. One would imagine that, for a lot of the guys who played in that game, that having the opportunity to showcase a skill set beyond the one perceived would be welcome. Clearly not with this team.

(5) Don’t worry, Jamie, the summer signings will fix everything. Not sure I buy into that, not while Rob is in charge. We need young impact players, ideally in rookie deals. Our current rookie has barely played because he has a history of knee injuries since before he was drafted. Before that the 1st round rookie we drafted is now completely out of the NBA with no team even offering him a two way deal and we broke the other one. We let our other, cheap impact player, Jordan Goodwin, go so we could sign an older version of the same thing. Feels like we could have kept Goodwin and signed Smart if we had a better GM who maybe could have moved Gabe over the summer instead of another mostly wasted year of him being ineffective.

Clearly I have issues with both the composition and direction of the team. Maybe some of you feel differently, maybe not. I see us maybe making it to the 2nd round and bowing out then in the playoffs. That won’t cut it for anyone.

A Lakers team without Luka failed to muster enough firepower to win. While disappointing it should also come as no surprise. The defense couldn’t find a groove and we lost to the champs again.

1) Jake LaRavia finally made some baskets! Started cold, finished cold, but in the middle, when we pulled ahead, he scored 8 points on FG’s and hit the majority of his free throws. It’s not easy finding a groove playing next 2-3 high usage players and your job is to bail them out when they pass you the ball, just ask Rui, but I still like Jake sticking in the starting 5.

2) Reaves got in his own head. He was a shadow of himself after that tech for arguing the non-call. Dude knows better but sometimes it’s hard when you feel like it’s 8 on 5.

3) Not enough of LeBron down the stretch: Reddick copped to this post game and I agree. LeBron was exploiting the defense in the 3rd and in the 4th we went…everywhere else. 3 total FGAs for James, he made 2, but this one had all the ingredients for a “turn back the clock” game. We just didn’t impose our will hard enough.

4) Know your enemy. It’s not just a catch phrase or a Rage Against the Machine tune, it ought to be in the notes for the coaches. Going to Maxi Kleber against the Lilliputian Warriors or the slow of foot and small besides Embiid 76ers was a good move. Watching him get out-gazelle’d by Thunder big men was quite easy to see coming. For my money I even thought we played Ayton too much (and him sitting out another game means he could have used some more R&R and gone with the key guys who sparked us in the 3rd: Vando, LaRavia snd Hayes. Jake got 4th quarter minutes. The other guys…not so much. We failed to learn the matchup lesson.

5) Make your free throws fellers. What good is whining about the refs if you don’t take advantage of the ones you were given? C’mon man….

Curious move, plenty of players that can help now available and we rush to secure…a G Leaguer?! If we’re gonna do that why not lock up Nick Smith Jr. or Drew Timme? Weird.

I don’t mind when the team wins ugly. This was another fairly ugly 1st half. A stellar 3rd quarter propelled us to a back-to-back home win and we need to grind out 3 more before the All Star break.

1) Welcome Luke Kennard. 6-7, 2-4 from three with the first shot being a nifty quick flick release on a close out. More impressive was how he adapted to the defense quickly with drives to the rim. He got blown by a few times on D but it’s his first game. We’ll chalk it up to that.

2) LBJ and sloppy excellence. Back to back double-doubles for the this season. Far too many unforced turnovers in some of the worst passes I’ve seen him throw: the ASB is coming soon, though. We’ll chalk it up to that.

3) That 3 man defensive unit of Smart, Vando, and Kleber has been getting after it. Add in Rui and Reaves and you wonder if there’s a world where Reaves can see his way to playing off the bench. I think he would have to ask for it to happen and it would have to be very personally organic because Reaves off the bench truly does solve a lot of problems. It’s a contract year and I’m not sure Coach has that level in him, yet. Wish he did or would figure out how.

4) Speaking of Maxi, release the Kraken! Dude is all over the place and moving as smoothly as I’ve ever seen him. Back to back solid outings where the box score doesn’t show you the true level of his impact.

5) Three games to go, close it out solid. No SGA? Don’t show any mercy. If Luka is out until after the break (my personal hope) come hard at the Spurs with this grind then down energy we’ve been showing of late. Smart and Vando have been a big impact on D. This team needs to get the TO’s under control and continue to embrace this level of defense. There’s enough scoring to win if they can.

Not really expecting the Lakers to make much noise. Not for lack of desire or need, far from it. We clearly have needs on both ends of the court. But there are built in and self-inflicted reasons why I expect there the deadline to come and go without much action on our end.

1) Not much grease for the wheels. 1first round pick 5+ years out when Luka will still be on the team and we ought to be contending isn’t really worth much. Packaged with other picks it’d be better but all in it’s lonesome it’s not a trade needle mover.

2) Lack of coveted young players. We’d be covering them if we had them. As it is it’s Reaves and then a loooong gap between Hachimura. Neither is really all that young, either. Nobody wants Knecht, even if someone did why pay now when you can simply wait until he’s an unrestricted free agent this summer when his option goes unclaimed? Their o has been underwhelming when he’s even available to play. This concludes the list of young assets.

3) Everyone had the same needs as we do but also have more to work with. The Lakers clearly have needs at the 1, 3, & 5. Guess what? So does the majority of the league! As such the competition for those players is steep. Based on our war chest, or lack thereof, it’s hard to see us beating offers from other interested teams.

4) Rob is inept. Old “Master Class” couldn’t shit or get off the pot I terms of making a move for DeAndre Hunter perfectly encapsulates the Rob Pelinka era as GM. He was savvy enough not to blow the Luka trade and after that his signature move was the Russ trade which really just hacked him out of his own mess he made. Hunter would have been a slight upgrade over Rui, IMO, but it’s even more of a bummer we couldn’t be in in the Ellis move. Some of this isn’t Rob’s Fault, per se, although he is the one who has traded first round picks for subpar players or players we simply let walk multiple times. It’s why I’m not too optimistic that Rob can be the GM we need during the Luka era.

5) Nobody wants to help the Lakers. We generally seem to overpay in these scenarios or don’t get invited to the party at all. That’s the way it is when you’re one on the most iconic brands on the planet.

All in all, if we can trade our unprotected FRP 5+ years out for a couple OKC picks (lightly protected) that would feel like a win. I hoping/expecting for a more exciting summer for us, anyhow, and adding fuel to that prospect seems savvy.

Still unable to get to the site at work, evidently it’s being blocked. So I gots to use the phone lol. Anyhoo, as we pass the halfway point on the road trip and near the trade deadline there are some things to get into.

1) Jake LaRavia is the best starter. Of the 3 candidates to start at the 3 (Rui, Vando and Jake) LaRavia has been the best fit. While it could be argued that Vanderbilt hasn’t been given a shot at the starting spot his impact off the bench remains steady: LaRavia off the bench isn’t as impactful as it is as starter. So, despite Rui’s superior shooting, I feel like Jake impacts the game on both ends more.

2) LeBron decision won’t be made in-season. Lotta fuss being made over a dude who has earned the right to end his career when he’s ready. He got emotional during a tribute, no big whoop. He’s not pulling a CP3.

3) Dalton Knecht is HILARIOUS!!! Dude…you don’t need to demand a trade. Writings been on the wall since last season. You might not even get a deal next season man.

4) Lakers defense isn’t up to playoff standards. We can shuffle guys, make tweaks, but this group of guys and this coach need 3 things to work if they’re going to win; make threes, get to the free throw line, and have the other team miss open shots. That’s how we’ve been winning a lot of games lately and it’s not sustainable in the playoffs.

5) Sea Change Summer. At this point I’m just hoping that we see a massive amount of change around the roster this summer. I have zero faith in Rob and never had much in Reddick. I’m personally convinced neither has what it takes to succeed at a high level in the NBA consistently. Reddick can’t coach an NBA level defense and Rob can’t build a complete roster. Is it possible a different GM could better align with the coach on staff? I suppose…but the basic issue seems to me to be a lack of focus on that end. Basic stuff like “guy who wants to right is allowed to go right…all…game…long” have been issues since Reddick Day 1. I’m willing to give JJ another shot with a different GM but neither the coach or GM has inspired much confidence in me.

5) Threatening to be a playin team. Which is inexcusable given the talent currently on the roster. We’ve had injuries, sure, and so has Denver that didn’t miss a beat without Jokic and Gordon. Or Boston that actually blew up their roster because effort and execution will defeat talent every time. Or the fucking Clippers who, once they bought into Lue’s vision, have rocketed up the standing despite injuries to key players. The issues with this team are, by snd large, top down driven. There are some roster weaknesses, especially with our drafted players, but those are small compared to the issues with the front office and how we play defense on a philosophical level. Don’t see a tweak trade changing that.