Wesley Johnson can't hit the side of a barn with his shot. He is athletic though. Nick Young has to stray from his current path to becoming the next JR Smith. The Lakers (and a lot of NBA teams) should have taken Beasley in my opinion. They worked him out, I couldn't imagine he is much worse than Wesley Johnson. So what if he smokes pot. Jordan Hill is their bright spot of their season. He really reformed his game and is a legit baller now.
As expected, Kobe played the role of play maker the last 2 games and shot less and the result? The lakers won. This game, Kobe back to his shoot first mode and the result? Loss.
so everytime he gets a double double, he can just intentionally turn the ball over 10 times and get a triple double? cool ****
The Lakers got beat by a superior, more energetic team on the 2nd half of back to back. They had a lead but it was built on the back of super hot 3 point shooting and those are the least sustainable leads in basketball. Once they stopped hitting, WAS came back quickly. The game was a 4 point game with like 3 minute left, but it wasn't really close. The Lakers only got close when the two teams' benches were in. Once the Wiz subbed their starters back in, they pulled away. Washington just killed the Lakers with transition buckets and 2nd chance points. Lin's 0 for 10 did not help, but the Lakers were getting their asses handed to them with him on the bench, too. It's another one of these nights when the Lakers bigs just look exposed.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Report: Celtics' Rajon Rondo high on Lakers' list of free-agent targets <a href="http://t.co/IJAolIAQro">http://t.co/IJAolIAQro</a></p>— CBS Sports NBA (@CBSSportsNBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBSSportsNBA/status/540900763233300480">December 5, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I don't see a ball dominant point guard and Kobe working well together. If the current Lakers team added Rondo without losing anything they are still likely a lottery team.
I agree with this sentiment. Nick Young (ala Kobe-light) is best suited for 6th man role, since playing alongside Kobe is redundant. Same can be said for Lin. Too many players on the Lakers need the ball in their hands. I may be wrong, but I don't think Rondo and Kobe's playing styles are a good fit for eachother. Rondo dominating the ball would relegate Kobe to a catch and shoot or catch and finish type of player, which is not really Kobe's style. If Kobe has the ball in his hands, Rondo is a pretty terrible shooter, from mid-range and from 3s, so nothing more needs to be said about that. The ideal type of PG to play along Kobe is someone like Derek Fisher. Solid defender at PG, and most importantly someone who can knock down 3 pointers and jumpshots. tl dr: Kobe doesn't need a star PG. He needs a star Center.
The dream acquisition of available free agents for the Lakers for next year would have to be Omer Asik/Marc Gasol and Lamarcus Aldridge/Kevin Love. A defensive center and a star Power forward. I don't really see why any of those guys would want to go to the Lakers over their other options though. Pelicans didn't give up a number one pick to the Rockets just to rent Asik for a year, and I expect Gasol, Aldridge and Love will all resign with their current teams. Even if they didn't the Lakers would not be among the most attractive alternatives if they were looking to move to a winner.
Of course, the Lakers management has to ask themselves how long Kobe will last. If they are not building for the post-Kobe era, they are stupid. The strange thing is, even though Rondo is only 28, I've been seeing him as an old player since a couple of years ago. Maybe it's because of all his injuries.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm sitting back, relaxing with a beer, and watching the Lakers crash and burn. All the while, the Rockets are rising to the top! It's a good season so far.
The Lakers are just fulfilling their inevitable destiny of decline upon the passing of the great Dr. Buss. Hiring D'Antoni when PJax was available (and preferred by Dwight), the insane Kobe contract, and then some bad luck with injuries have left the team a wreck. As for the current Lakers, they were going to be terrible regardless of who was coaching, however Byron Scott is one of the weaker coaches in the NBA. Aside from his complete lack of offensive and defensive schemes, there is Scott's opposition to the shooting of the 3 point shot. That's a great strategy if you're living in 1985, not so good in the modern NBA where every Elite team in the league uses the 3 point shot aggressively to both create space and allow for a 2nd scoring option when they can't get a shot at the rim. The funny part is that the Lakers offense would be dramatically better if they spaced properly for 3 point shooting simply due to opening up driving lanes, increasing distances for defenses to rotate and cover, and give post up players more room to operate before a help defender can double team. As a team the Lakers shoot 18.1 3 pointers per game... the 6th least in the NBA. However, they actually shoot the 5th fewest 3 pointers per 100 possessions (20.9%). To put that in perspective, the 15th ranked team (Utah) shoots 26.5% from 3... that's a full 32.5% more 3 pointers than the Lakers. And Houston shoots 42.4% from 3... or more than double the number of 3 pointers per 100 possessions than the Lakers. Byron Scott would argue that it's about the "right people" taking those shots, however there are minimal player or ball movement to create 3 point shots, or even player spacing to allow the team to maximize the shooting of the 3 pointers. Given that the Lakers shoot 33.8% from 3 as a team (19th in the NBA) but only shoot 47.3% from 2 as a team (24th in the NBA), that 33.8% would actually yield 50.7% EFG, in other words they would most likely not lose minimal scoring punch but actually improve their scoring efficiency by taking a decent number of 3 pointers. However, none of this would make much difference for the Lakers other than making them suck a bit less (and hurt their chances in the lottery), so I doubt there will be any substantial changes forthcoming even if Byron Scott had the slightest clue of what he was doing. Unfortunate situation for Kobe and Co in that Byron will make most of them look worse than they actually are as players. However, the Lakers ownership hasn't exactly been stellar over the past few years. Just look at their coaching hires... Brown, D'Antoni (Over PJax), and now Byron Scott. Considering in the past 2 years we've seen teams hire Quin Snyder, David Blatt, Brett Brown, Jason Kidd, Brad Stevens, Steve Kerr, Mike Budenholzer, Lionel Hollins and Doc Rivers, that the Lakers would hire Byron Scott tells us just about everything we need to know about the Lakers FO. On the bright side, we all get to watch this slow motion car crash for much of the foreseeable future.
was bummed the Chargers were losing so switched over to the Laker game b/c e. Instantly made me feel better watching that team crash and burn. Byron Scott makes McHale look like a genius. What a mess of a team
