LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Lakers have proven to be consistent at one thing to start the season: inconsistency. They’ve often displayed an inconsistent offense, defense, effort, and commitment through the first leg of the season.
While nobody predicted this season to start smoothly, people expected more than what they’ve seen. In a schedule that featured ample home games and opponents who likely won’t sniff the playoffs this year, the Lakers posted a pedestrian 8-7 record.
(Courtesy of NBA)
Yes, their superstar LeBron James missed many of those games. Yes, other key players have missed time as well, but there was enough talent on this Lakers team where they should have won more. Not to mention, you shouldn’t need LeBron to defeat the likes of the Oklahoma City Thunder (who erased two massive deficits to beat LA) or the Minnesota Timberwolves (who led by 30 at Staples Center).
We all understand the NBA regular season is long and arduous. However, this was the part of the schedule to build some equity, some confidence, and pile on some easy wins.
The Lakers haven’t done that. The problems from the first week of the season are the same issues they are having four weeks later with more convincing losses than convincing wins.
They’ve struggled to play consistent team defense with seemingly no buy-in to their defensive schemes. They are prone to a heavy amount of turnovers (see Russell Westbrook). They tend to blow large leads rather quickly and easily. Their offense is too dependent on three-point shooting. They don’t close out quarters well, and the third quarter has been their Achilles heal where many games have gotten away from them.
Worse than that, the performances have often been soft. When things haven’t gone their way, the team gets caught in an ugly downward spiral, and there seems to be little fight back at times.
The frustration and anger can be felt from superstar Anthony Davis and head coach Frank Vogel. After a recent blowout loss to Minnesota at home, Davis ripped into the team saying, “We Suck” and acknowledging this group doesn’t have the makings of a championship team yet.
The normally-positive Vogel was clearly upset after the loss to the Chicago Bulls with extremely short answers with the media in the postgame presser.
(Courtesy of Snake hunting Story)
If you are a Lakers fan, as angry as you must be especially with their efforts during home games, you must acknowledge that it’s a little early to be pressing the panic button and pointing fingers.
Many have already pointed fingers at Vogel for questionable rotations and schemes, at Davis for not leading the team well during James’ injury absence, and at Westbrook for the excessive turnovers and looking like a poor fit.
The loss against the Bulls, where DeMar DeRozan dropped an efficient 38 points on the Lakers’ heads, got people questioning whether the front office made the right decision in trading for Westbrook over DeRozan, who thought coming to LA was a “done deal.” Time will tell on that one.
While some may argue it’s too early to play the blame game, others might ask if they were just a .500 team with a home-heavy schedule and lowly opponents, what’s going to happen now that the schedule gets tougher and features more road games.
These next few weeks will be a challenge for the Lakers even as they continue to get healthier with Talen Horton-Tucker recently returning to the lineup and hopefully LeBron coming back on this upcoming road trip.
THT and King James won’t be the ultimate elixir to all the Lakers’ woes, but maybe they can help fix some of them.
One thing is for sure. Everything must improve for the Lakers. Their offense needs to be better organized. Their defense needs to be tougher. More importantly, stop making excuses like injuries and the fact ‘it’s early’ in the year.
The honeymoon period is over for the Lakers, the patience is wearing thin. These games all matter and now is the time to step up and show some championship-caliber grit and effort.
