Aloha,

For those thinking that the Lakers have the assets for a star, think again.

BREAKING: The Brooklyn Nets have agreed in principle on a trade to send F Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks for Bojan Bogdanovic, four unprotected first-round picks, a protected first-round pick via Bucks, an unprotected pick swap and a second-rounder, sources

Aloha,

Perhaps the Lakers have a Rob problem. Put your self in Hurley’s shoes. We all know about the stumbles prior to LeBron so I won’t cover those. Let’s start with LeBron. LeBron arrived we get off to a 20-14 start with a cast of young pups. We are decimated by injuries including LeBron, miss the playoffs and Luke is fired.

We hire Frank and land AD. We win a ring but over the next 2 years Rob dismantled a championship team. We are decimated by injuries again and Frank gets fired.

Darvin leads us to the conference finals his first year. We lose a hard caught series this year. We have injuries but the Nuggets are healthy. Darvin gets fired.

Not a great track record there. Pretty short leash. Now Rob will not fire himself. He will blame the coach. And Jeanie won’t fire him because he’s Kobe’s best friend. I would be very hesitant about walking into that myself. I’m sure Dan looked at that as well.

Aloha,

I don’t think the question is how can we get by the Nuggets any longer. The bigger question now is, how do we get by the TWolves next year.

Aloha,

If you didn’t know anything about the NBA and were forming an opinion based on the articles written about the Lakers one would conclude that the Lakers are not very good. One article called them a mess. Last nights game showed that the Lakers are a very good team. It’s just that they are battling a great team. One that has a good chance of repeating as champions.

The Lakers have led in all but 40 plus minutes of this series and I think that we are one Vanderbilt away from the series at least being tied 2-2. The Lakers have done a great job on Murray except for the 4th quarter of game 2. If Vando had been available I don’t see Murray doing what he did.

Without all of the injuries we sustained through the year we would have been at a top 6 team or even a top 4 team. The Nuggets have been together several years now to build that chemistry. Our current rotation started in February.

What would the Nuggets look like without Gordon or KCP? Thats what it’s like for the Lakers, missing an elite defender and rebounder in Vando.

There is all this speculation of what the Lakers need to do in the off season. Personally I think we are pretty close already. The Nuggets had a few years together. I would like to see what the Lakers could do with more time together with Vando.

The odds of us coming all the way back are long. And I question how effective Vando would be if he were to come back after missing all that time. Still if we can win in Denver it changes everything. And that’s not out of the question, we came close in game 2. It will require contributions from everyone again, especially Dlo and Austin. They need to hit those 3’s. Let’s also give them a little defensive credit they have made Murray work.

It will be tough to win on Monday but another sustained 4 quarter effort and we may head back to LA. Like LeBron said, one game at a time.

Aloha,

While we may still win a game or two, especially if DLO stays hot. I have a hard time believing that we can win 4 of the next 5. This game came down to one thing. An array of missed easy shots. Rui, AD, LeBron, DLO and Austin all missed an assortment of lay ups, put backs and easy baby jumpers. If we had made some of those we would have lead by more then 20 and would have done a better job of holding off the Nuggets run that everyone knew would come.

I believe the Nuggets will win the west and I think they beat Boston. The Lakers are a very good team but going up against the best you can’t miss so many bunnies. Those misses fueled the Nuggets comeback. And please be a coach Darvin. In no universe should AD get one shot in the 4th. Try running some plays will ya?

I still would have liked to see what this series would look like with a healthy squad. I mean, the Nuggets are. I’m sure Vando would have been very helpful in both games. Even Wood a very good rebounder would have helped. Both maybe back for game 3 but after so much missed time, I’m not expecting big contributions.

It’s not over till it’s over and we have for the most part played well, still like everyone says, we have to be perfect to beat the Nuggets and that’s hard to do.

Aloha,

Wow, LeBron had an amazing game. While a lot of the attention is going towards his offensive game, his defense was impressive as well.

The Lakers are a bad matchup for the Pels. Zion doesn’t have much of a perimeter game. He makes his living in the paint, overwhelming his opponents with his strength and athleticism inside. Now we all know that LeBron’s defense has fallen off, particularly on the perimeter. But with Zion you don’t have to worry about the perimeter. Lebron just waited for him. LeBron is one of the few players in the league that can match Zions strength inside. And when you have AD behind him, we effectively bottle Zion up and disrupted the Pels entire offense. And a shout out to Rui as well. At times he was on Zion and he also held his own. But then Rui is also extremely strong with a 7’ 2” wing span.

After the Grizzlies debacle I was really worried about our focus, but it was laser sharp, with everyone contributing. If we continue to play defense with this much energy we have a real chance at a run.

Aloha,

The Lakers hada huge night and didn’t even play. The Kings lost to the Celtics but the Celtics almost blew it. They pulled their starters out at the 6 minute mark and the Kings went on a 21 to 2 run and lost by one. If the Celtics lost this game I would hate them even more than I already do. We are now tied with the Kings but because of the tie breaker we need to win one more game than the Kings. With all their injuries and some tough games left we are right there.

The Pels also lost to the Spurs. They are ahead of us by only one game. We currently hold the tie break with one game remaining with them. They also have injuries and some tough games remaining. If we beat them in the last game again we only need to win one more than them.

The Warriors also lost to Dallas without Luka. We now are a full two games ahead of them.
Their schedule is easier than ours, so our last game with them will be huge.

The last game that mattered was the Suns TWolves game. Unfortunately that one isn’t going as well. The Twolves are down 13 at the beginning of the 4th. We hold the tie break with the Suns, so we would need to win two more games then the Suns, which probably would require us winning out. The Suns schedule is tough but they are playing well.

Of course the 6th would be ideal. I think we would have a better chance for a deep run if we could finish 6th. LeBron would get 6 days of rest, as would Austin. He admitted he’s dealing with fatigue. After the long playoff run, the summer with team USA and playing every game this year. Yes he could use
The time off. Finally it give Vando 6 more days to ramp up which would be huge.

Oh, we did clinch a play in today as well. But that was pretty much a given. Still the 7th or 8th is still very achievable but we need to keep winning.

Aloha,

The road trip is over and 5-1 is a very good result. While it wasn’t always pretty, a 6 game roady with 2 back to backs does not lend itself to perfection.

LeBron and AD have both ramped up their games and are playing at a high level. When those two play like this we always have a chance.

Darvin’s handling of Rui still baffles me. He scored 19 on 9 for 12 shooting with 7 boards in 27 minutes. 7 less than any other starter. He was a plus 21and played some good defense. He was generally off the floor when the Wiz made their runs. I just don’t get it.

If we are going to make any noise in the playoffs we will need more production from the 2nd unit. I think Darvin will need to mix up the rotations some and stop having say 4 reserves with one star.

Vando is working out and could be available for the last couple of games. While that’s good news, I think it could be a while before he could give us quality minutes.

At one point we were 25 and 25 in the 9th seed. Now we are 44 and 33 in the 9th seed. Pretty frustrating.

I still think it’s possible to get out of the 9th spot. If we can win our last 5 we might have a shot at the 6th. And the scenarios are not a stretch. The Pels would need to go 4 and 2 and the Kings 4 and 3. Both have key injured players with some tough games coming up. The Kings have a very tough back to back against the Celtics and Knicks. Hoping the Celtics don’t start resting their stars yet. As for the Suns they also would need to go 4 and 2. They also have a tough schedule. They got a little lucky when they played the Nuggets without Murray. It only takes one of the 3 to slip to get out of the 9th. That is if we keep winning.

Aloha,

Well the playoffs are not even here yet and the click bait crew is already posting trade scenarios for the Lakers. Everyone seems to think we need a third star. And most of the names mentioned are offensive players, even though after a slow start our offense is rolling.

Since February 1st we are 18 and 8 with 10 wins coming against playoff teams. That roughly equates to a 68 win season over 82 games. And even. More note worthy was the fact that Vando and Vincent each played in just one game. Both of them were being counted on as important role players for this team.

The problem with trades for stars is they cost a lot. While you may strengthen one position you can weaken your team by losing quality role players. I am still under the impression that this team is much better than their record. The amount of injuries along with some truly baffling rotations have contributed to where we are now.

I’m am still a fan of depth over a third star. Look at the Nuggets. They are 6 and 11 when a star sits because they have no depth. The Suns are fighting for their playoff lives because of one star being out a lot. On the other hand the Lakers are 6 and 4 when LeBron sits. They have had problems when AD has missed games but that’s primarily because we don’t have quality depth behind him.

Some say we need better perimeter defense but our two best perimeter defenders have hardly played. Vando being out has also hurt our rebounding.

When you look at recent champions they all have a few years of continuity. Our core only came together at the trade deadline last year and got us to the conference finals. Austin, Rui and Vando haven’t even reached their prime years yet. I’m watching both Austin and Rui grow. Rui in particular has really elevated his game since becoming a starter. While Austin was fatigued from a summer with Team USA early on, he has rebounded nicely. I would hate to give up either at this point.

I think ultimately our off season will depend on how we look in the post season. It’s not easy to win a ring after only being together a year. I would love to run this group back and give them another year to grow as a team and as individual players. I would like to try and improve around the edges. With LeBron and AD’s injury histories I don’t believe 3 stars and no depth is the right path forward.