Aloha

The Lakers have shown interest in the Pacers Holiday a 6’ 6” 3 and D guy that play both wing positions. But I came across this.

Holiday is one of the many players the Pacers are believed to be shopping in trade, but his vaccination status could make a team (such as the Los Angeles Lakers) less inclined to make an offer.

One league source on a top-10 team guessed that Holiday might get vaccinated if he had a chance to join a contender. But a source close to Holiday acknowledged that vaccination status could be an impediment.

Would be a good add but not if won’t get vaccinated.

Aloha,

After watching the issues we had with Ish and scary Terry, it was clear to me that LeBron and AD’s injuries were not the only ones that severely impacted this team. Now Austin is a promising young defender but it was painfully apparent that he doesn’t have the quickness to hang with players as quick as Ish. And it was folly believing that THT was going to come in and be a defender as good as Alex or THT. While THT has shown enough flashes of defensive ability, it’s rare for a 21 year old to become a defensive stalwart. That usually takes several years.

It’s easy to see, considering Russ is not much of defender that Nunn would have been playing the Bradley role on this team. Avery has taken a lot of heat from some, but we were lucky he fell into our lap, there was no plan B and without Avery, it could have been worse against some of the quick guards in the NBA. While Malik has some quickness and has shown some defensive improvement, at only 23 he also has a lot to learn.

So to me I think of Nunn as our secret weapon. It’s tough when you can’t defend the opposing point guard with your own point guard, but Thats our situation with Russ as our point guard. With our lack of trading chips, Nunn could be our best mid season acquisition. He is quick, a good defender and a 3 level scorer. I know we dangled him in the trade offer for Grant, which made sense but I doubt he’s been part of a package for a lesser player. I mean it would be disastrous to have a Westbrook/Buddy starting backcourt. It would be like a sieve that would make AD’s life miserable. It would also be a lot to ask of a 33 year old Eric Gordon to stay with guys like , Tre, Ja and Steph.

For us to even have a chance, it’s going to take more than just LeBron and AD being healthy, we are going to need Nunn as well. Hopefully he will be returning soon enough to find a rhythm before the play offs.

Aloha,

Russell Westbrook is the single most frustrating Laker I have ever followed. He helped bury us in the first and dug us out in the 2nd half. Then he puts up a 3 at the buzzer. The floor was spread and he took the 3.
🤷‍♂️

It’s really hard to have any kind of rhythm as a team with the rotation shuffled all the time and it did hurt us, especially in the first quarter. So that’s why it was so fun to watch these guys battle when they could have given up.

It was great to see Bazemore hit some shots. For awhile he couldn’t make a layup. Hopefully this gives him a little of the confidence he clearly had lost back.

Austin had a nice bounce back game. He had trouble defending Ish but over all he was real solid. And it was good to see him finally hit a couple of 3’s.

There was some very questionable coaching moves, the biggest being going with DJ over Dwight. I think we win the game if Dwight starts. DJ’s 6 missed free throws killed us.

That blocking call on THT that resulted in a 3 point play have may have been one of the worst calls I have seen this year. It was even challenged. That turned out to be a huge bad call that may have cost us the game.

Ellington went 3 for 5 from 3. Hit his last 2 and never got another shot. This is a season long frustration for me. Our inability to look for our shooters. Steph Curry might only get five 3’s a game on this team.

One thing that won’t show up on the stat sheet. Stanley set great after great pick to free Russ. He might be the best at setting picks on the team.

It was a great team effort game. They kept knocking us down and we kept getting up.

Aloha

Oh well, this should be interesting, AD, LeBron and Malik are all out today. What else is new.

Dan Woike
@DanWoikeSports
Source confirms Stanley Johnson will sign for the rest of the 2021-22 season with a team option for next year. Lakers keep a young, athletic defender who has 100 percent earned his spot on the roster

Aloha,

While it was clear that this team still has a lot of work to do, with AD back we caught a glimpse of what this team can be going forward. Having AD back changes everything. Yes he was naturally rusty. He needs to get his wind, legs and timing back but just having him in the middle was a game changer. Besides the 4 blocks and multiple altered shots, he turned a lot of guys away from me he rim and seamlessly was able to switch everything. He challenged several 3 point attempts that helped hold the Nets to only 27% from 3. A few other thoughts.

LeBron continues to amaze on offense but he is still impacting the game on defense. He demonstrated again why I’m against adding another center like Turner. His days of being able to defend wings and 3’s on a consistent level are past him. But when he plays the 4 or 5 he sits back and plays free safety with steals and off ball help. With AD back this is Lebrons best role.

Positive effort and energy was on display most of the game. We need this every game.

Our switching defense does allow for more offensive rebounds. But 18 offensive is ridiculous. This has to be cleaned up. Those rebounds along with Westbrooks turnovers that led to 10 points is the only reason that the Nets were able to hang around. It’s frustrating when you play blow out basketball only to give up all those 2nd chances.

Lunch pail basketball. Austin and Stanley both put on their hard hats and went to work. Austin’s assists, rebounds and defense was a game changer. And Stanley played his usual hard nosed defense with seamless switching 1 through 5. Today is Stanley’s last day of his 10 day. They better sign this kid. Ariza didn’t see the floor because of his effort. You are not going to get that out Trevor.

Isn’t it amazing how good things happen when you actually look for your 3 point shooters? Malik was 6 for 12, that was with 2 percentage busters that he had to take. And Melo was 3 for 7. We don’t have to trade for a 3 point shooter, we just have to utilize the ones we have.

Malik was a +14, Austin +13 and Stanley + 10. The only old guys with pluses was Melo +15 and LeBron +10. This actually been trending this easy for awhile with our younger players having the stronger +/- If you don’t count Bazemore 3 minutes of garbage time 5 of our 9 guys were 28 and younger. That mix of of young and old is what this team needs to employ going forward.

Aloha,

While Frank is under a lot of heat, some of it well deserved, I still look at Rob as the biggest culprit, outside of injuries for our poor play. We run a LeBron centric offense. And in a LeBron centric offense the goal is to find the open man. When it’s Melo, Malik, Wayne or even Avery, great. But it’s often Russ, THT, Trevor and Austin. Not so great. LeBron centric offenses never feature volume 3 point shooters. I was not in favor of the Buddy trade because of this and was foolish to believe this would change this year when we brought in shooters this year. Also thinking that Russ would change the approach was wrong headed as well. Rob should have known this, I mean I did and I’m just a lowly blogger.

What makes LeBron centric line ups work is defense. Rob should have know this as well but our defense was traded away or let walk. When you look at our guard play, the best rated defense is Bazemore and Russ at around 110 and it goes down from there bottoming out with Austin at 114. Now it has hurt not having AD in the middle because everyone gets beat in the NBA but we were without him for long stretch last year and still were able to maintain that number one rated defense. Rob never took any of this into consideration when he traded for Russ.

So what can be done. Well of AD coming back will be huge but it won’t matter without us playing harder as a team.

I don’t think we we will be able to land any meaningful players with our assets. because of the play in tournament and the decreased odds of landing a top 3 pick, there are very few names on the market and a lot of competition for the names from teams with more to offer. As far as the buy out market, I’m not hearing any rumors at all about who will be let go. In past years one already had an idea about several players.

The good news is we have an opportunity to add two impact players. The first is Stanley. He MUST be offered that 15 roster spot. If a trade or a buyout player surfaces, we a couple of guys we can cut. If Jeanie is worried about the tax then she will be just as responsible as Rob and Frank.

You also have to look at Nunn as a mid season acquisition. He was a big part of the plan coming into the season. He defends and he is a 3 level scorer. All Nunn has to do is play as well as he has in the past., he doesn’t even need to improve. A starting line up with LeBron, Russ, AD, Stanley and Nunn give us a younger more athletic starting 5 and upgrades our defense, which is a must with a LeBron centric offEnse. Our bench would also have a mix of youth and vets with a lot of fire power in Malik and Melo.

This is what continues to give me a little hope. Hopefully the front office won’t blow it and Frank will realize that we have played some of our best ball with the kids and not stubbornly give some of vets more minutes then they deserve.

Aloha,

Well I posted before the game that if we came out with the same energy that we did against the Magic, we would lose. We gave up 69 points in that first half. You can’t do that against a good team. And we did. We played some defense in the 2nd half and only gave up 44 but it was too little to late. Just a few thoughts:

Shooting 28% from 3 is never good. And the Heat shot 45% but that only translated into 4 more 3’s. But the problem was that we shot 40 3’s 7 more then the Heat. That was the killer.

But the even more telling stat to me was assists. The Heat had 30 to our 20. LeBron and Russ combined for 13 assists while Butler had 12 by himself.

I wonder what our record is when LeBron shoots a lot of 3’s and misses. Sure he scored 33 but was 1 for 8 from 3 and just 4 assists. It hurts us when LeBron settles that much from 3.

Trevor looks washed.. 0 from 5 from 3 and 4 turnovers in just 15 minutes. And it would be different if he was playing lock down defense. He’s not. I wouldn’t be surprised if improved some but Stanley is playing so much better. And he brings young legs to the party.

I did love the comeback. We were down by 23 with 9 minutes to go when THT and Stanley game in. Along with Avery They both played terrific defense, they tag teamed Butler who only managed two free throws and no assists in those last 9 minutes. Both Bradley and THT also hit big 3 point shots.

Stanley not only continues to make a case to be signed for the rest of this year and next, but he should be starting ahead of Trevor.

I wonder if Austin has hit the rookie wall. He really hasn’t done much on either side of the ball over the last 5 games.

It’s a lot to ask of Wayne when you rarely play him and then put him in to hopefully hit some 3’s. He was 1 for 2 but that was 1 shot every 5 minutes he played. He’s a shooter, if you are going to put him in the game, get him shots.

We still can have a great road trip but not if we are not going to come out with energy and play hard for the entire game.

Great news!

Aloha,

Okay I must admit that I was frustrated by the end of the first half. If it weren’t for being gifted that last basket, we have been down by 10. Same ole same ole, we came out flat against a bad team. I told myself that it’s not unusual for a bad team, especially one with good young players to give a better team a tough time in the first half, so I decided to not change the channel and watch the 2nd half and I’m glad I did. For the First the first time in a while I was right. We inserted Stanley, brought the D and rode Melo’s surge. Just a few things that caught my attention.

Stanley Johnson had a great game. Besides his solid defense he went 3 for 4 from 3 with a total of 11 points. He also had 5 boards, 2 assists, a block and a steal in 22 minutes. I don’t expect Stanley to become a volume 3 point shooter but if he can continue to knock down wide open looks, it would be huge. It was reported that as expected the Pistons turned down the Lakers trade offer. So Stanley maybe the best we can do at the forward. Unless Trevor dramatically improves, I would like to see Stanley start. We better not let him walk or I might boycott the rest of the season.

Russ had a nice bounce back game. It seemed to me that he slowed down and was more under control then he has been for awhile.There was only a couple of boneheaded plays, like the shot on top of the backboard. He might consider giving that shot up. If he can just play under control from here on, it will be huge.

Okay Malik got 2 three point shots today. Better then the one he got last game. I still can’t understand this at all.

Melo had another explosion, 23 points in 17 minutes. Like I’ve said before Melo seems to either be hot or cold, doesn’t seem like anything in between.

Aloha

We sucked against the Pacers but not as bad as the Warriors. Pacers just beat the Warriors without LeVert, Brogdon or Sabonis. 😂

Aloha

Looking at our next 7 games, there are several crucial games.

Must wins
Magic
Nets (no Durant or Irving)
Hawks
Trail Blazers

One upset win from remaining teams
Heat
Hornets
76ers

That would be 5 and 2 and would go a long way in righting the ship. AD could be back for the 76ers or Hornets. That could help get that extra win.

Aloha

I’m going to keep this short. We still suck. We are not going to win many games when our superstars are -20 (LeBron) and -18 (Russ).

LeBron looked tired in the 2nd half. 1-4 from 3 and 4 for 12 overall. And one of those makes was an uncontested lay up wit 3 seconds left.

It was nice to see Russ knock down some 3’s but my goodness he was 1 for 11 inside the arch and 1 for 9 in the paint. He only had 1 turnovers but only 3 assists and a couple of boards. Along with poor defense. Buba was right when he pointed out that Russ has been less effective since cutting down on his turnovers.

How can Malik play 28 minutes and they only find him for 0ne 3? Sorry but that on the coaching staff. A scorer like Malik should get more then 6 shots in 28 minutes. Another example of why I have never believed that a volume 3 point shooter could help this team. They don’t look for shooters unless it’s maybe Melo who was odor 5 from 3.

The bright spot was THT who has quietly been putting together a decent month. He had 20 and a team high 7 assists.in 25 minutes. He was also a +12 for the game. It will never happen but Frank should start THT at PG. he would do a better job than Russ. One last thought. On a night where we were killed in the paint and on the boards, Dwight got 13 minutes. He had 7 boards in his run. The first was the only quarter we won and it happened to be the quarter where he got most of his minutes. Again Frank failed to make proper in game adjustments, with the exception of sitting Russ in the 4th because he was killing us. The Pacers out scored us 14 to 6 in the 4 minutes Russ played in the 4th.

This road trip could be brutal. Somehow we will have to pull it together and at least break even. Right now I don’t know if they can.