Age, and they don't have anyone who will commit to doing the less glamorous work that it takes to win. Who gives them any perimeter defense, deflections, or dives for loose balls? Their help defense is also ridiculously bad, which is again a reflection of their age and effort.
Cheap owner who refuses to spend money on players. It is a shame Kobe has wasted so many years with such a frugal management group.
Lol it doesn't even seem like they even tried to respect or listen. They've had 2 coaches before the Xmas break. Two! It's not like these coaches are bums, either. Coach Brown help led the Cavs to the Finals, along with multiple 50+ win seasons. Mike D coached many winning seasons in Phoenix. Sure they haven't won the big one, but they've coached some good teams. Why did those teams respect and listen to their coach and these Lakers, can't or won't? Players should be held accountable as well. Everyone shares some blame here. I remember when the Heat first got together and struggled a bit and people were saying the same thing about Spolestra. "They don't respect him....he doesn't know what he's doing" Well, he's still the coach over there. You didn't see them panic and start going through coaches like fat girls go through a buffet.
I thought it was interesting last night, albeit a very short snippet, that the part they showed of D'antoni in the huddle mic'd up was of him saying "we're scoring at will on these guys (long pause) ... we just have to get a couple of stops and we'll be right back in it." I know that there isn't a ton of great teaching that a coach can do in the middle of the game, but to me that seemed like a microcosm of D'antoni's career. Orchestrating an unstoppable offense and hoping for a couple of stops. I can only imagine that if JVG were in that huddle, he would have been barking about getting back in transition and defensive rotation.
At certain times it just looks like they don't have the actual foot speed to keep up with younger teams. Defense is will and discipline, but it looks like even when the Lakers are willing they don't get it done. A better tactitioner of the defensive end like JVG would probably adjust rotations to make sure you had some of the younge guys out there but D'Antoni seems unwilling to make those adjustments.
Three words Mike D'Antoni Side Note- Lakers don't have true fans most of them are bandwagons so who cares they can miss the playoffs for all I care Lakers Who? Red Nation > Purple & Gold Nation
Lakers are full of old players who's glory days are mostly over. They are past their prime. Needs to look for retirment home soon.
They main players are old and have alot of mileage. Pau has alot of mileage and Kobe and Nash have been in the league damn near 17 seasons. Ron is also err... I mean Metta, pretty old. Jamison is supposed to bet the main 6th man but he is pretty old The fact that a 40 year old is supposed to start at the pg position is ridiculous. This was a front loaded "dream team" that was poorly put together. It gets a lot of press because of the names and they are the Lakers-but once you get past the main guys, the supporting cast is a bunch of average bench warmers Chemistry or no chemistry, just too many old guys with too much mileage
Yaaay we all agree they are old. I was hoping for this before the season started I told a co worker so and it came trueeee
They have no leadership. That should come from the coach but Kobe wants so much to be the man that everything has to go through him. First it started with him shotjacking and leading the league in scoring, but the Lakers were awful. So then he decided to focus on as the "defensive doberman" and guard the other top players. He did a good job on Monta Ellis but then Wade lit him up so that experiment ended after two games. Then he decided to be "pass-be" and make Nash redundant. So Kobe uncharacteristically shared the ball for a couple of weeks and the Lakers did pretty well. During this time, Kobe made the following statement, "We are a low post team, we're a team that plays inside out. That's our identity." But then Kobe forgot that if he stopped scoring he'd never catch Kareem so he said "screw that" and he's back to the Chucker#24 we see today. #countonkobe
I don't buy the age argument. Boston and San Antonio have stars with serious mileage on their legs and they still have a commitment to defense. When Tmac and Yao first started getting injured, we were playing end-of-career David Wesley and Mutombo and were still top tier defensively. The Lakers aren't even running back full sprint on defense. I've seen a 4 on 1 fastbreak on them. The hustle clearly isn't there.
Dwight is still recovering. 3 different coaches this season = no cohesive system on offense or defense. People are still not comfortable playing with each other because rotations keep changing. Turnover rate is pretty high for a team that doesn't run that much. Basically the system sucks. Kobe is still dominating - he's still a top 3 SG. Nash's slide is because his role went from being playmaker at Phoenix, to handing the ball off and cutting in the Princeton to getting injured to becoming a spot up shooter to sharing playmaking duties with Kobe. Pau Gasol has been misused ever since Phil Jackson left - Mike Brown stuck him at the top of the key and D'Antoni stuck him on the bench. Now he's stuck on the bench in a suit. D'Antoni only uses an 8 man rotation so bench players now are basically Meeks, Jamison, and Blake. Had they picked Phil Jackson instead of D'Antoni and started running the triangle again, they'd look a lot better.
Zach Lowe wrote an very good analysis that answers the question: http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-t...ing-dwight-howards-defensive-woes-this-season
