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Los Angeles Lakers Head Coach: Darvin Ham He's a first time NBA head coach, although he's not new to coaching by any means. He's "paid his dues" as an assistant for several NBA teams (including the Lakers) and also headed summer and G league teams. Further, he's a former firey NBA player that was famous for doing literal rim breaking dunks. He seems to be a pretty player-friendly coach and his goal is to get a team that was not engaged with its coaching last year to engage with it and actually run the offense. It's actually--albeit with a few innovative twists--the same offense the Lakers ran last year, but don't tell anyone as Vogel's offense was often a scapegoat last year, even though it was just the same offense LeBron has ran nearly every year of his career but like 1.5 years in Miami. One change Ham is making to the defense. Vogel's defense, although mainly drop based, had a decent amount of switching and was willing to concede some three pointers. This year, at least in theory, the defense is supposed to be basically man defense, long gone from the NBA. The guys seemed to enjoy it in the early preseason, although the Timberwolves showed how difficult it can be to run this sort of defense now as in truth the offense almost always dictates the matchups they want. We'll see how it goes. Gone: The old follks: Ariza, Bazemore, Dwight, Avery Bradley, Wayne Ellington are for sure gone. There was some talk of Melo joining the team for the last roster spot but he also seems to be gone. Young players: Malik Monk played himself into a very nice contract with the Kings. THT was traded for by the Jazz Stanley Roberts was the league minimum player the Jazz requested in the Pat Bev trade. This is a blow to the Lakers because he was secretly the Lakers 3rd best player last year if you believe basketball-reference.com lineup data. Returning: Lebron James - Lebron Anthony Davis - Seems to be moving great in preseason Russell Westbrook - Had a couple good preseason games as far as activity, had one bad one and people published a bunch of videos to embarrass him. Lakers will experiment with him coming off the bench in their last preseason game. I don't expect it to be the way going forward. Weynen Gabriel - Lanky high energy player who has a high basketball IQ, as long as the ball isn't in his hands and then all bets are off. Austin Reaves - Lebron's pet project last year. It looked like he turned Austin into a capable role player last year although in preseason Austin Reaves looks terrible so who can say if it worked. Kendrick Nunn - I promise you I watched him play a single preseason game last year. But he's back this year and looks to be back to his 'five good games every ten games but you don't know the order of those good games" self. New Vets - Immediately Hurt: Troy Brown Jr, Dennis Schroder, Juan Toscano-Anderson, Lonnie Walker IV Damian Jones - Returning Laker who is very compatible with LeBron. Hasn't looked very good with the bench units so far but we'll see what happens Thomas Bryant- Returning Laker who famously had great chemistry with Russ in Washington. Recovering from an ACL injury though so not moving around so great at the moment. Pat Bev - Media makes a lot of memes about him, often for good reason. He's a very capable backup guard though who plays okay offense and hard nose, annoying defense and is the type of guy you like if he's on your team. Matt Ryan - Looks to be the final roster spot recipient. Buddy Hield 2.0 basically. Rookies: Max Christie - Slasher that the Lakers think can be a great defender and be taught to shoot. Promising preseason development but he's far away. Scotty Pippen JR (2-way) - Scottie Pippen's son. Does not appear to be a good basketball player yet but there's potential that they may get out of him in the G league. Cole Swider (2-way) - Three point gunner in college with enough height to allegedly play PF. His body has already dramatically changed since summer league although he still doesn't quite have the athleticism to stay on the floor in the NBA. Likely Starting Lineup: Westbrook/Nunn/LeBron/Davis/Gabriel . But who can say. Last year the injuries and covid forced a record number of NBA lineups and the team never got its feet under it. Bench Rotation: Pat Bev, Troy Brown, JTA, Schroder, Lonnie Walker and Thomas Bryant and maybe Damian Jones are expected to get a lot of minutes. In a world where this team is good they'd probably reduce the rotation a bit but I think they are going to struggle to find consistent lineups Projection: AD looks good. LeBron is coasting but had a casual 27 point half. If they can get anything from anyone else this team can compete for a six seed. An injury to either of those two dudes though that lasts more than a couple games will be a disaster. Maybe still a play-in by defaulut due to many tanking teams but we'll see. What if there's a trade? All bad, won't help:
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Oct 14, 2022 19:28
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 15:54 |
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