The Lakers' Season after Starting 1-4

http://www.latimes.com/sports/basketball/nba/lakers/la-sp-lakers-jazz-20121108,0,7744851.story

http://www.latimes.com/sports/basketball/nba/lakers/la-sp-lakers-fyi-20121106,0,4702581.story

The Lakers still have work to do to play up to their capabilities.
Right now turnovers are their #1 issue.
They are second to worst in the league in turnover differential.
They are shooting the ball well and lead the league in rebounding differential.

As we all should know, games in November and December have no bearing on how teams will play later in the season.

The Lakers along with a number of teams are under-achieving.
Denver started 0-3 and then won their last two against lottery teams.
Boston is 2-2 but their only two wins were against a lottery bound team in Washington who has played without their best two players. It would be a pretty safe assumption to say that if Wall and Nene were in the lineup, Boston would be 0-4 with the way they have played.
OKC's two wins came against lottery teams.
Brooklyn is giving up 11.3 ppg more then they are scoring.

The top teams will be there at the end of the season.
They have too much talent not to win the majority of their games.

TJ,

Talent is nice. But the early games have shown that talent without chemistry is like a battery without a catalyst of some kind. Teams with holdover chemistry (Heat, San Antonio) are starting off relatively well. Teams getting used to one another and/or (especially the Lakers) learning a new system are more in struggling mode. I believe the talent will remain relatively constant over the course of the season. Which means the point of difference will be the chemistry, as applied to the talent.

Sam

Sam,

When a team adds two new starters along with a new offense, it will take time for chemistry occur on the court. Then, factor in Nash's injury, Kobe's foot injury and Howard getting himself back in shape, you can see reasons why the Lakers are 1-4.

Poor transition defense and turnovers are symptoms of poor chemistry.
The Lakers shooting and rebounding should continue to be their strong points throughout the year.

TJ,

You're right about the strength of the Lakers' shooting and rebounding. However, without a giant leap in terms of chemistry, I don't believe those two elements will be enough. It's possible that Mike Brown will make his mark as a coach (for better or worse) based on how the team comes together and perseveres in areas other than shooting and rebounding.

I understand the effect of two new Lakers starters. We have two in Boston. I understand the impact of injuries. The Celtics have written the book on that subject. I'm not trying to criticize the Lakers or wish them ill. I'm simply stating what I believe to be facts. I've actually submitted at least as many negative comments about the Celtics this season.

Sam

cowens/oldschool wrote:tj

I stand by what I claimed on the first Laker thread, this year will be a major disappointment for Laker fans, they have no team speed, cannot run, cannot play good transition defense, no perimeter defense, which causes too many breakdowns, no depth, too many minutes for the starters who except for Howard are all 34 or older. They can defend the post with Howard and Gasol, but its a different league now, I don't see them overcoming all these problems. Theres too many young speedy points and SG's that can attack or get whatever they want on the perimeter against them. Dallas is 4-1 without Dirk, because of the emergence of OJ Mayo and their new players fit and have chemistry, Laker parts don't fit.

cow

cow,

I expect you to have this opinion about the Lakers as you have always been a Lakers basher.
MWP and Gasol are 32, not 34.
Yes, Kobe is 34 but do you want to name a better shooting guard in the NBA?

Dallas is 4-1 but that means nothing about how they will finish.
The Knicks are 3-0 but what are the chances that they will be a top 4 team in the east?
The Knicks are the oldest team in the history of the NBA.

If the Lakers had Steve Blake as their starting pg the rest of the year, I would agree that they are not a championship caliber team.

If the Lakers win 10 in a row in January I doubt you will come on this forum and say that you were wrong.

sam wrote:TJ,

You're right about the strength of the Lakers' shooting and rebounding. However, without a giant leap in terms of chemistry, I don't believe those two elements will be enough. It's possible that Mike Brown will make his mark as a coach (for better or worse) based on how the team comes together and perseveres in areas other than shooting and rebounding.

I understand the effect of two new Lakers starters. We have two in Boston. I understand the impact of injuries. The Celtics have written the book on that subject. I'm not trying to criticize the Lakers or wish them ill. I'm simply stating what I believe to be facts. I've actually submitted at least as many negative comments about the Celtics this season.

Sam

Sam,

Through 5 games the Lakers don't have much chemistry.
I don't think the lack of chemistry will continue for an extended period and I would be surprised if you think the Lakers chemistry problems can't be solved.

Mike Brown could be taking the easy way out and scrap the hybrid princeton offense, but he will continue to work through it.
Of course, with Nash being out, the success of their new offense will be slow developing.

Nothing is guaranteed, but the Lakers should be given allowances to develop chemistry and continuity. They have Nash out, Dwight still recovering from back surgery, and Kobe nursing a foot ailment. In addition to Nash and Howard, new players on the roster include Antawn Jamison, Jodie Meeks, and Chris Duhon (I'm not sure how much Duhon will play, but that's around half of their regular rotation). They're implementing a new offense that is drastically different from typical NBA offenses.

Given all that, their slow start is not surprising. We'll see how they're doing in January or February. To make a final judgment on them based on these first few games seems premature.

In my ongoing struggle with my purple-and-gold goggled friend Will, I told him last summer that the Lakers needed a good backup point guard because Nash was too old and slow to "bet the ranch on" and Blake was an NBA eye-sore. I'm looking very sagacious now.

Howard's coming back from back surgery. That takes time, just as it took KG time to come all the way back from his knee surgery. Besides, LA gave up Bynum for Howard, they can't give up on him now even if they wanted to. They don't and they shouldn't.

I think Mike Brown is right, to focus on drilling the troops on the Princeton Offense and win/losses be damned. In the end, it will pay off. HOWEVER, Sam is dead-on when he talks about chemistry, and if you're drilling troops who won't be playing much together because the key player in the Princeton Offense, the starting point guard, is out then you're doing a bit of a cha-cha (two steps forward, two steps back) and I just don't see Blake as having the skills to run the Princeton and if the current player playing point can't run the Princeton then how effective can that drilling be? Still, TJ is also very, very right when he points out November and December are not as important as April and May.

Another argument I have with Will is regarding the quality of the Lakers bench. I'm starting to look more and more like Einstein every second, not that that's necessarily a good thing. He was called "the smartest person of the 20th century", but Errol Flynn he was not. Jordan Hill, though, did have 12 boards in just 23 minutes. I like Hill a lot. Not a good shooting night for him, but he was a big reason why the Lakers had 48 boards on the night. I'd kill for the Celtics to get 48 boards.

11 assists for the Lakers. 1 from Blake. I cannot stand Blake, just flat-out cannot stand him. Ok, I feel better now that I've said that. I need to meditate and get some of this aggression I feel towards Blake out of me. I've done some bad things in my life, which I need to atone for. If I'm not careful and don't start creating positive thoughts and actions, I might come back in my next life as Steve Blake. Who needs Hell when you can scare children with that?

If the Lakers are looking at a problem now, that may carry forward into April and May, it's that Kobe is playing heavier minutes than he should be. He played 37 minutes last night and is averaging 37mpg for the season so far. That's too many. The two Lakers who must be healthy and fresh come the playoffs are Kobe and Nash and both of them should be playing somewhere in the 30-32mpg range. TJ's right when he says it's a long season. It sure is, and both of them are older players whose bodies won't heal as quickly as younger players. Kobe is telling all the nattering nabobs of negativism to shut up and relax because it's early and wins/losses don't matter now, but he's playing like they do. And Mike Brown obviously doesn't have the juice, credibility or respect from Kobe to be able to tell him to sit more than Kobe is willing to sit. Which has never been very much.


bob


.

Is the Princeton offense a good one to begin with? Will it work in the NBA?

Certainly you have time to get better in November more so than May BUT............... that said when the numbers begin to line up at the end of the year for seeding purposes a loss now counts every bit as much as a loss in May. They really are not meaningless.

And Bob I don't think you want to look like Einstein............. he's been dead for a few years and I assume your very much alive. ( just don't let Steve Blake read your posts) Ah hell if he tries to shoot you he'd miss anyway.

Bob, I just gotta wonder, did Steve Blake steal your car, forge your ID, rape your children, or your dog (or both), drink milk straight from the jug out of your fridge, track mud on your new carpet or burn your house down or something?

beat

bobheckler wrote:In my ongoing struggle with my purple-and-gold goggled friend Will, I told him last summer that the Lakers needed a good backup point guard because Nash was too old and slow to "bet the ranch on" and Blake was an NBA eye-sore. I'm looking very sagacious now.

Howard's coming back from back surgery. That takes time, just as it took KG time to come all the way back from his knee surgery. Besides, LA gave up Bynum for Howard, they can't give up on him now even if they wanted to. They don't and they shouldn't.

I think Mike Brown is right, to focus on drilling the troops on the Princeton Offense and win/losses be damned. In the end, it will pay off. HOWEVER, Sam is dead-on when he talks about chemistry, and if you're drilling troops who won't be playing much together because the key player in the Princeton Offense, the starting point guard, is out then you're doing a bit of a cha-cha (two steps forward, two steps back) and I just don't see Blake as having the skills to run the Princeton and if the current player playing point can't run the Princeton then how effective can that drilling be? Still, TJ is also very, very right when he points out November and December are not as important as April and May.

Another argument I have with Will is regarding the quality of the Lakers bench. I'm starting to look more and more like Einstein every second, not that that's necessarily a good thing. He was called "the smartest person of the 20th century", but Errol Flynn he was not. Jordan Hill, though, did have 12 boards in just 23 minutes. I like Hill a lot. Not a good shooting night for him, but he was a big reason why the Lakers had 48 boards on the night. I'd kill for the Celtics to get 48 boards.

11 assists for the Lakers. 1 from Blake. I cannot stand Blake, just flat-out cannot stand him. Ok, I feel better now that I've said that. I need to meditate and get some of this aggression I feel towards Blake out of me. I've done some bad things in my life, which I need to atone for. If I'm not careful and don't start creating positive thoughts and actions, I might come back in my next life as Steve Blake. Who needs Hell when you can scare children with that?

If the Lakers are looking at a problem now, that may carry forward into April and May, it's that Kobe is playing heavier minutes than he should be. He played 37 minutes last night and is averaging 37mpg for the season so far. That's too many. The two Lakers who must be healthy and fresh come the playoffs are Kobe and Nash and both of them should be playing somewhere in the 30-32mpg range. TJ's right when he says it's a long season. It sure is, and both of them are older players whose bodies won't heal as quickly as younger players. Kobe is telling all the nattering nabobs of negativism to shut up and relax because it's early and wins/losses don't matter now, but he's playing like they do. And Mike Brown obviously doesn't have the juice, credibility or respect from Kobe to be able to tell him to sit more than Kobe is willing to sit. Which has never been very much.


bob


.

bob,

You shared many good and valid points.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts about the Lakers.

Here's a few areas where I disagree with you.
If Nash is healthy, the back up point guard is not critical.
The Lakers won 5 titles with Fisher as their starting pg, and the back up pg for those years was who?
I myself am having a hard time remembering. It really didn't matter who it was.
LA could upgrade their pg position today by signing either West or Fisher. Yes, I believe Fisher is an upgrade over Blake.
Outside of last nights game, LA has been happy with the progress Darius Morris has been making.
Even though Blake and Duhon stink, I can't see anyway LA just releases Blake.
With the supertax penalty coming next year, releasing Blake will probably cost LA $19m.
He has a salary of $4m and the tax could be $15m.
It is better for LA to trade Blake this summer.
Some team will take his $4m expiring contract and $3m in cash from the Lakers for that teams 2018 top 55 protected 2nd round draft pick.

Assists for the Lakers aren't nearly as valuable to LA as they are to other teams.
Kobe and Dwight often score off of the dribble which doesn't give an assist to the player that passed them the ball.
Kobe and Gasol will quite often lead the team in assists.

I think the Lakers bench will be fine in time.
Jordan Hill is an excellent 3rd big man off of the bench.
He is 6th in the NBA with over 19 rbs/48 minutes.
Jamison is a proven scorer.
Meeks and Ebanks should be fine backing up the sg position.
I even like LA's 4th big man Sacre. He is 7 feet, is strong and has a very nice touch.
Regarding benches, I fail to see why so much emphasis is put on teams benches.
We hear people talk about the bench scoring for one team vs. another team.
Do we ever see statistics or have conversations about how many poionts the starters had against the other teams starters?
Championships are won by the starters with some help from the bench.
Miami's 4 best offensive and defensive players (James, Wade, Bosh and Battier) were all starters and they didn't have any bench players that you knew would score double digits every game.

Brown does dictate Kobe's minutes but if Kobe feels he needs to stay in, then he will waive Brown off.
He did the same exact thing with Phil Jackson.
Once LA gets onto a roll, Kobe's minutes will go down.
They have been a team that is pretty desperate for victories (or a victory).
Despite playing 37 mpg Kobe is shooting 56% from the field and is averaging 6.2 fewer shots per game compared to last year.
He is trying very hard to be more efficient with the time that he is on the court.

beat wrote:Certainly you have time to get better in November more so than May BUT............... that said when the numbers begin to line up at the end of the year for seeding purposes a loss now counts every bit as much as a loss in May. They really are not meaningless.

And Bob I don't think you want to look like Einstein............. he's been dead for a few years and I assume your very much alive. ( just don't let Steve Blake read your posts) Ah hell if he tries to shoot you he'd miss anyway.

Bob, I just gotta wonder, did Steve Blake steal your car, forge your ID, rape your children, or your dog (or both), drink milk straight from the jug out of your fridge, track mud on your new carpet or burn your house down or something?

beat

beat,

You are right that the games in November aren't meaningless because of your final seeding in your conference.

With that being said, when Boston was 23-21 last year with a little over a month left in the regular season, that record really meant very little when they were up 3-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals. Boston even had home court advantage going into game 6 by beating Miami in game 5 at Miami.

BUT we didn't have 7 because of the records !

beat

swedeinestonia wrote:Is the Princeton offense a good one to begin with? Will it work in the NBA?

The Lakers version of the Princeton offense looks/will look very little like Pete Carril's Princeton offense.
The Lakers version is truly a Hybrid or a Read offense.

There are a number of benefits of why it could benefit the Lakers.
1) It intentionally slows the game down. LA does not want to run with younger and more athletic teams.
2) It is an efficient offense if you have good passers. Nash, Kobe and Gasol are all excellent passers.
3) It provides open shots for one or more players who can knock down shots. When Ebanks, MWP and Hill are in the game at the same time, LA will probably focus less on this offense because they are not consistent shooters.
4) It is easy to transition from posession to posession from this offense to a pick and roll offense which LA should excel in with Nash, Gasol and Howard. LA knows the pick and roll offense could work but they don't want to be a one dimensional team like Phoenix was with Nash and the pick and roll.

beat wrote:BUT we didn't have 7 because of the records !

beat

They needed 7 because they lost in game 6 at home. Homecourt advantage was theirs when they walked onto the court for game 6.
If they couldn't win game 6 at home, would having game 7 at home have helped?

Many teams who win playoff series or the championship beat higher seeded teams.

Hi,
Frankly, I don't understand what all this fuss about LAL is about?
As others pointed out it's just the beginning of November, only 5 games into the season. It kind of reminds me Mia 2 years ago: they were loosing left and right and everybody was almost convinced that Spoelstra will be fired after the next loss. I'm not comparing those two teams, just saying that it may take quite some time for the LAL to come together.
OTOH, if they continue to struggle, if Nash is off (I hope not) for longer than 3-4 weeks I'm not sure they can make that giant leap in the mid-season to be in the forefront of the West and subsequently make a splash in the playoffs.

AK

I do think that the backup PG position is important because Nash was down to 31 minutes per game last season and certainly won't play more than that this season, leaving 17-18 minutes a game for the backup. That's more than a third of the game.

I've also heard one other point about the Princeton offense that makes sense -- that it doesn't leverage the established strengths of the Lakers' players. For example, Nash is outstanding in the pick and roll game, but that's not part of the Princeton offense, and neither is a clearout and post entry pass to Dwight. It may be that the Lakers are good enough to adapt, get comfortable with the system, and leverage their skills within the system, but at a minimum, it will take extra time to get to that point, and the worse case scenario is that the offense is the wrong one for the personnel they have.

I'm not that familiar with the Princeton offense, other than all the backdoor cuts that were made by actual Princeton (not NBA) players and that it's like the triangle in that it's based on reads, meaning that your actions are dictated by what the defense does rather than running set plays where players go to specific spots regardless of what the defense does. Again, it will take time to see how the experiment pans out.

Outside,

It certainly is an offense that's getting the attention of the NBA, with several teams trying it or experimenting with it for periods of time to some degree. Hard to say if it's something that will take root or just the flavor of the month. It is a more "natural" way to run an offense rather than trotting out the usual batch of often plodding plays.

For NBA players it's a big departure from what they've become used to, so for teams like the Lakers that go all in it's going to take time to see a payoff. They're probably doing it right though; commit to an offense rather than just poke at it.

If the Lakers begin to show success with it, it will probably be all over the place next year.

Regards

I know everything has to have a name nowadays. And I don't claim in-depth knowledge of the Princeton offense. But I'm wondering how that offense differs from having seven basic plays with multiple options for each play, resulting in numerous possible responses depending on the reading of the defense.

In each case, the key would seem to be how instantly and unanimously the team can read the defense and instinctively react in concert with one another. It will be interesting to see how well today's players are up to the challenge.

Sam

cowens/oldschool wrote:....so what has Princeton ever won?

They have probably won quite a number of academic awards.

Being born and raised in NJ, I watched Princeton over-achieve year after year with inferior talent on the basketball court.