Aloha,

Well day one is over, and for the Lakers, as David Byrne of the Talking Heads would say “Same as it always was”

Aloha

Trying to keep up with all the updates hitting my phone. Apparently the Lakers are pursuing everyone in the NBA. lol.

Aloha,

so Lebron would be willing to take a pay cut for Klay Thompson. At the full MLE, Klay is probably worth it, if he can still defend at a reasonable level. But is he really the answer? We have good 3 point shooting and under JJ they will get more looks from 3. lebron is one of the grearest ever to play but as a GM he has been terrible. There is a long list of failed aquistions that Lebron pushed for. anyone remember Westbrook? if he were smart he would realize that splitting the MLE amomg a couple of solid role players would be more benieficial than signing one aging former star. i wont be mad if it happens, I just think we could do better than adding Klay.

Aloha,

I was looking at our roster. If Cam and Hayes opt in, that gives us 12 players under contract. I believe the Lakers will bring back Max. He showed some upside and is definitely better than anyone we will land at 55. That’s 13. Unless we use that pick to move up into the early 2nd round for a back up big, should we even use that pick? Everyone is talking about us taking Bronny but he’s a project that will spend most of the year in the G league. If we draft him we are now at 14 players. With one spot left. Now I’m not sure how the new CBA works but there is a rule that prevents you from bundling minimum contracts. Not sure if it applies to the first apron or the 2nd. While the Lakers are looking to make trades, it’s no better than 50/50 they find one. Using 55 on a project doesn’t seem like a smart move.

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,

Pretty simple. AD tweets his shoulder and score one point in the 2nd half. 9 missed free throws. Ball game. Not much else to say.

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,

Both Tom and Jamie had great posts breaking down the series. Here are a few things I will be watching.

1.AD’s back. He was visibly laboring against the Pels. For the Lakers to have a chance AD has to be as close to 100% as possible this time of year. He needs to score and rebound to negate what the Joker will do.

2. DLO. Like everyone else I think DLO is key. Now he doesn’t have to be great, just decent. If he were decent last year we may have won.

3. The bench. This is a possible advantage that isn’t getting a lot of attention. Last year Bruce Brown and Jeff Green were huge for the Nuggets. While a couple of young guys have stepped up, they still are not as impactful. Gabe, Prince and Spencer are all experienced vets that should give us the advantage. Gabe in particular could be huge. I’ve been impressed with his defense since he’s returned. The last game he found his shot, if that continues he could play important role, especially defending Murray.

4. The starters defense. Both DLO and Austin have slow feet. They will never become lock down defenders but they are becoming better in a team scheme. DLO in particular has been better on that side of the ball with steals, deflections and the occasional sneaky blind side block. I think AD has to guard the Joker much of the time straight up. The Joker shines when you send doubles. The last time we played the Nuggets we did a good job on Murray but we left Porter Jr open and he went 10 for 10 five of which were 3’s. Ball game. Let the Joker score 35, just don’t let other guys beat us.

5. Rui. Rui has grown a lot over the last few months on both sides of the ball. Defensively he has become one of the best defenders on the team. He’s also been good on the boards which I thought was the weakest part of his game. And can we please the guy a few more shots? He’s our best shooter. Rarely have I seen a guy that shoots as well as Rui get under 10 shots a game. And from 3 he’s shooting 42%.

6. The first 2 games. It’s simple. Win one and I think we can win the series. Lose both and we lose the series.