Defense and stagnant offense. The defense hasn’t found an identity this season and we haven’t seen the big hustle plays yet. I believe it will pick up once vando and Vincent are bag. They seem to be the guys who are the point of a attack defenders who funnel the ball handler towards AD for a double. Right now the lakers are relying on AR and it’s obviously not as effective and this game without AD showed how bad it can get. Once Vando and Vincent come back I think lakers settle around 10-13 on defensive ranking. Now if we look at the offense I think their are a few key issues. One being not enough pick and role. Russell is great at this and it’s a big part of his game but for some reason the bigs have struggled with this during the opening of this season. I think over time it will flow better. The second problem being the bench unit scoring. A lot of these players need help getting the ball and plain and simple the bench unit hasn’t had a point guard they are comfortable with. If we look at the rotation it seems like they haven’t gotten a chance to click because of the injuries. The one thing I have noticed tho is the lack of a pure scorer. The bench units best scorer is Rui but I feel like every good team has a scoring guard as the 6th/7th man. Someone who can be a streaky scorer and not always needed but when he’s hot he can take over a game. Look at a Jordan Clarkson or a Malik monk. Guys who can get their own bucket. I feel like that will be a trade target at the deadline. Overall I say at the end of this month we will know the big problems. It’s too early to truly know but man it ain’t looking like a title contender at the moment. Also hopefully Ham will run more created plays for players. It seems he tries to let the offense run on their own and it’s clunky right now because of that.