We have the talent but we don’t have the coach to maximize our talent. Also it’s still early.
If I’m pinning it on one thing and nothing else, it’s injuries. That isn’t the only issue, but if forced to pick only one, it’s that.
Missing Vando has been unbelievably damaging to the team, and Rui’s absence hurt too. With Vando I’m confident we win at least one more game, maybe two, and Rui chips one in as well.
That said, Ham’s been nothing short of a disgrace to basketball, and his complete schematic ineptitude has cost us at last a game or two.
It’s a huge work in progress. The shooting is (suddenly?) regressing to the mean, the 5-out offense is starting to see more opportunities for drives off closeouts and LeBron, and we’re still fitting players into roles. Compared to how we started the season, we’ve seen Wood at the 4 and Rui at the 3, we’ve seen D’Lo/Austin staggered mins at the guard spot (instead of mins togeher), and we’ve seen Reddish step into a defensive role while making those corner 3s. We still haven’t seen Vando and, in the spare mins we’ve seen him, Gabe had been cold from 3.
Work in progress.
We’re literally 13 games into the season. This time last year the Grizzlies looked like “true contenders” and we were 2-10. The early season is not a reliable indicator for postseason aspirations.
Coaching
I think it’s growing pains of the early season coupled w/ injuries to 2 of our 3 best perimeter defenders. We are slowly slowly trending towards playing bigger w/ rui and Bron at the 3, prince at the 2, etc. the more we lean into that identity the better
Seriously? With a semi-healthy squad we’ve won four of the last five. Still two rotation guys injured. At the start of the season we had like four injured rotation guys. Darvin hasn’t been great but yall putting the sole blame on him is ridiculous.
Rebounding is probably #1. Especially offensive rebounding. It’s even worse than last year.
3 point shooting is a weakness, as usual. I thought this would be the year where the Lakers would become good at shooting. Having D’Lo all year, Reaves improving, plus the addition of Woods and Prince made me optimistic. But no, they’re still in the bottom third of the league (ranked #21). And this is with Lebron shooting better than ever, nearly 40%.
Also the Lakers don’t have a great ballhandler. D’Lo, Reaves, and Lebron aren’t too good against pressure. Lakers end up turning the ball over more than other teams.
Finally, Lakers need to play better on the road. 2-5 on the road.
Things they’re good at: Defense and getting free throw attempts. And playing well at home where they’re 5-1.
The fact that “AD lackluster play” is even an option proves your a causal. He’s had like two bad games. Nevertheless, the biggest issues seems to be shooting and lack of guards who can provide rim pressure. Coaching also isn’t great
