Hot-takes based on one pre-season game thread

[TheHartBreakKid]

I can't surely be the only one who makes some predictions based on one pre season game and more often than not get proven wrong very quickly. This thread is meant to be lighthearted. I think we all know that it's absurd to make conclusions based on one game. THAT said, I'm really curious to hear everyone's hottakes For example....it was either our first preseason game with Swaggy P or the first one that I watched...but I actually believed he's going to be a great player that year and way more fun to watch than frustrating. I was proven wrong before the Preseason ended. I made this it's own thread because I want to be able to find it by the end of the year to revisit how wrong/right I/everyone else was. Feel free this post to the game thread if you think that's where it belongs


So based on last night's game, what are everyone's premature predictions?

Here are mine:


Positive-

Rondo will be beloved by the Laker fanbase by the end of this year and we'll all want him back.

Mcgee will frustrate us with his bonehead plays but he'll still have the best season of his career...maybe not statistically, but he will have a bigger role in any of those warrior teams, and he'll play way better winning/efficient basketball than any of his pre-warrior teams. Bascially, we won't be able to keep him for the minimum because many teams will want him for relatively big roles.

Our balanced approach will really help Lebron get the rest that he needs and the workload that he should have to extend his career. Basically, I think we'll be the least Lebron dependent Lebron team of his career in terms of playstyle, even though we are far from the most talented.

Us laker fans will be much higher on Kuz at the end of this season compared to the end of last season. I think we obviously love Kuz, but a lot of aren't optimistic about his potential growth due to his age/playstyle. I think this year he'll show enough to make us think he has allstar potential. The rest of the NBA fanbase will laugh at us and be ignorant about this because his improvements as a playmaker might not necessarily show up in the statline. But we'll see it.


Negatives-

Lance will fall out of favor with Luke and ride the bench (or we'll all be frustrated with Luke for not benching him). He actually had a good game yesterday....I say this because his playstyle didn't fit well with how we are trying to play, even though he had a good game. I think his bad games will frustrate everyone to the point that we would rather have Hart, and maybe even Svi getting all of his minutes.

Lebron will take a noticeable athletic drop this year- Of course he isn't the same as he was 5-8 years ago, but this has been a gradual process that I don't think you can attribute to any year. I think this year, the drop will be noticeable. I think he'll be as great as ever, and a best player of the league type candidate, but I think athletically, we'll notice the drop this season.

Beasley just won't in well. He won't be a distraction and he'll give great effort, but we won't be wanting him to play as much as he probably will.




Notice that KCP sucking wasn't in my negative hottakes even though he was terrible last night, and Ingram wasn't in my positive takes even though he was very solid last night. I think KCP will have many crap games like last night, but he'll have more better-end of last year type games. I also simply aren't confident about B.I as much as I would like to be. He's obviously still improving, a great talent, and a very good player already, and he seemed to fit in great off the ball last night, but I'm still not as confident in him fitting in well this year as others may be. ( and I'm a huge BI fan, I think would have averaged 20/5/5 this year if we had the same team as last year)





Let's hear them hot takes.

[TylersLakers]

My predictions:

- Kuzma is the second leading scorer, over 20 PPG. Wins 6th man of the year.
- Ingram finishes in the Top 5 for defensive player of the year
- McGee leads the league in FG percentage

I agree with you about Rondo, James' athleticism, and Stephenson.

[Marionettetc]

Haven't had a chance to watch the game yet, but based on the highlights I like the activity of our squad.

Really enjoyed Javale's hustle and I'm already a Rondo fan. Brightest season in years - I'm looking forward to it!

[Landsberger]

I can't make any judgements on what I saw other than to say that there was rust, miscommunication and poor team recognition on both ends....... and that I fully expected that. Every fan should btw.... it was the first preseason game after the team was essentially made over for the 3rd year in a row.....

Rondo showed what he is and my guess is that McGee will not have a game like that again for a month or more.

Laker fans are expecting huge jumps in development and I hope they don't get disappointed when it's more refinement than a jump. This team isn't complete and roles will take some time to finalize. That said we have more to be excited about than we've had in a long time.

My hope for the rest of pre-season is no injuries and enough time by the core 8-9 to get some sort of rhythm before the games mean something.

[iamworthy]

My first thought was, wow Denver looks really good.

[TKainZero]

Denver is a good team with nice depth

Jokic really can do whatever he wants vs the lakers

I really wish Wagner was playing

[KobeBryant24]

You nailed it

[Ball so hard]

BI - It appears he will fit better into the starting unit than I initially thought. I didn't notice any difference in his game from a skill/talent standpoint. However, he does appear to be much more confident on the court. It also appears he will struggle at the FT line again, which is very disappointing. Why can't any of our young guys shoot FTs. Hart is the only exception.

Rondo - He was an excellent addition. I really don't care if he starts or come off the bench; I think he will do well in either unit. I thought he, along with the rest of the team's defense was poor. He may be the difference between the Lakers getting a 3rd seed as opposed to a 6th or 7th seed. The 2nd unit needs a leader badly... sorry neither Hart nor Lance is the answer here.

Lebron - He looked like he was barely trying. I think Bron will be Bron when it matters. On the defensive side it appears he will be a liability this year.

Kuzma - He looked like he forced things a bit during this game. I think he's better suited for the starting lineup, preferably at the 3 or 4. While he does appear stronger, he's nowhere near ready to play the 5 spot. Offensively I think he will be similar to last year - no significant improvements. Defensively I think he will be much improved. I liked his effort and intensity on the defensive end during this game. His role is in direct conflict with BI's, which is not a good thing for him. It pains me to say this, but I think one of them will have to go at some point.

Lance - He should see little to no action. I think this signing will be proved to be a mistake. He's essentially playing the same role as Hart. Hart needs the experience so i'm unsure how this will play out.

Hart - Very solid player. I think his defense is solid against certain positions. His overall defense is overrated around here. I think his best position is at the 3, especially on the defensive side. He reminds me of a young MWP the way he uses his strength and body on defense. As mentioned above, he should get all of Lance's minutes.

McGee - Played very well but probably played too many minutes. I think he will be extremely effective in short bursts.

Zubac - Time to cut him loose. I'm honestly not sure why they picked up his option. Luke was extremely reluctant to use him last year and I doubt that will change this year. We're even experimenting with having Kuz play some 5... Lebron will play some 5, Beasely, Mcgee, etc. Where does that leave Zubac?

Pope - Let's not pretend as if we don't know he's been inconsistent his whole career. He is what he is. Pope will have more good than bad days on the court. I think he'll be fine. I still think he fits perfectly with Lebron.

Beasley - I think he will make a solid backup 5. I certainly prefer Beasley playing minutes at the 5 than Kuz.

Svi - Will likely spend most of the year in the D League. Would love to see him get a few spot minutes, but there's simply no room for him. There are simply way too many mouths to feed at this point.

Luke - As I've said it before, this will be the make or break year for him. 3 years is an adequate amount of time to judge a coach. If the Lakers underachieve this year, I think we should at least begin to talk about a replacement.

[Beethoven]

I have a man crush on rondo. Do they still say that ? Anyways I just love this guy's passion and wisdom and leadership. I always said this, I hated this guy when he was green, but wanted him ever since there were talks of him since couple seasons ago. I hope he retires w us, would like him to show up as a true Laker at all the laker events llike Pat, Phil, and Jerry , and Horry etc still does.

[Vae Victus]

After watching both the Lakers and Pelicans pre-season games, i'm just pissed we didnt force Randle to take the qualifying offer, or force him to re-sign with us on a 1 year deal (where he's tradeble with his bird rights transferable). If some team threw a big offer sheet at him, then so be it, we decline, so as to preserve 2019 cap, but the fact that we renounced him and didnt even try to hold him for cheap just pisses me off to no end.

Randle was just straight man handling fools in both preseason games, just like he did all last season, and woulda been the PERFECT smallball 5 that we seem to be so intent on running this year. Watching Kuz defend Jokic in the post literally made me cringe, when we already had a much better in house option that we let go due to some petty agent bull between Pelinka and Mintz.

Not having Lonzo totally disrupted team flow, that we saw developing last year. Rondo will be a fine backup who can keep him the intensity and flow for the 2nd unit. Not too worried on that front. Hardly surprising to see the team so disjointed, after adding so many new playrs and missing the starting PG.

Having more athletes 1-4 is very nice, cuz after watching last year giving Caruso and Wear major mins really made me wanna gouge my eyes out. Our 5 situation is a goddamn shambles, which we all saw from Day 1, why didnt we goddamn get the other Klutch client in Nerlens Noel, he friggin signed for the minimum in OKC to be a BACKUP for crying out loud.

[TKainZero]

It hurt seeing Randle in a plea uniform

I though he would be the perfect run the floor small ball 5 center as well. And would have made up for any lack of toughness.

[Ball so hard]

Randle is history folks. Time to move on. What makes you so sure Randle would not have caused locker room issues if he were forced to play for the QO.

[Landsberger]

Russell, Randle and Clarkson are gone.... Don't really care what they do except us and then I hope they don't do much.

The FO didn't see a future for them here in what they are trying to do. That simple.

[stan francisco]

I can't surely be the only one who makes some predictions based on one pre season game and more often than not get proven wrong very quickly. This thread is meant to be lighthearted. I think we all know that it's absurd to make conclusions based on one game. THAT said, I'm really curious to hear everyone's hottakes For example....it was either our first preseason game with Swaggy P or the first one that I watched...but I actually believed he's going to be a great player that year and way more fun to watch than frustrating. I was proven wrong before the Preseason ended. I made this it's own thread because I want to be able to find it by the end of the year to revisit how wrong/right I/everyone else was. Feel free this post to the game thread if you think that's where it belongs


So based on last night's game, what are everyone's premature predictions?

Here are mine:


Positive-

Rondo will be beloved by the Laker fanbase by the end of this year and we'll all want him back.

Mcgee will frustrate us with his bonehead plays but he'll still have the best season of his career...maybe not statistically, but he will have a bigger role in any of those warrior teams, and he'll play way better winning/efficient basketball than any of his pre-warrior teams. Bascially, we won't be able to keep him for the minimum because many teams will want him for relatively big roles.

Our balanced approach will really help Lebron get the rest that he needs and the workload that he should have to extend his career. Basically, I think we'll be the least Lebron dependent Lebron team of his career in terms of playstyle, even though we are far from the most talented.

Us laker fans will be much higher on Kuz at the end of this season compared to the end of last season. I think we obviously love Kuz, but a lot of aren't optimistic about his potential growth due to his age/playstyle. I think this year he'll show enough to make us think he has allstar potential. The rest of the NBA fanbase will laugh at us and be ignorant about this because his improvements as a playmaker might not necessarily show up in the statline. But we'll see it.


Negatives-

Lance will fall out of favor with Luke and ride the bench (or we'll all be frustrated with Luke for not benching him). He actually had a good game yesterday....I say this because his playstyle didn't fit well with how we are trying to play, even though he had a good game. I think his bad games will frustrate everyone to the point that we would rather have Hart, and maybe even Svi getting all of his minutes.

Lebron will take a noticeable athletic drop this year- Of course he isn't the same as he was 5-8 years ago, but this has been a gradual process that I don't think you can attribute to any year. I think this year, the drop will be noticeable. I think he'll be as great as ever, and a best player of the league type candidate, but I think athletically, we'll notice the drop this season.

Beasley just won't in well. He won't be a distraction and he'll give great effort, but we won't be wanting him to play as much as he probably will.




Notice that KCP sucking wasn't in my negative hottakes even though he was terrible last night, and Ingram wasn't in my positive takes even though he was very solid last night. I think KCP will have many crap games like last night, but he'll have more better-end of last year type games. I also simply aren't confident about B.I as much as I would like to be. He's obviously still improving, a great talent, and a very good player already, and he seemed to fit in great off the ball last night, but I'm still not as confident in him fitting in well this year as others may be. ( and I'm a huge BI fan, I think would have averaged 20/5/5 this year if we had the same team as last year)





Let's hear them hot takes.

I agree w almost all of that, wholeheartedly.

But I doubt that LBJ’s physique will start to decline very much at all this year. His physique has defied all normalcy from day one.

KCP will play defense well and shoot well next to LBJ but I do think he will be in a trade for a big this season.

Ingram will blow up this season.

Stat filler predictions, top three
PPG: LBJ, BI, KK
APG: RR, LBJ, LB
RPG: JH, JMG, LBJ
SPG: RR, LB, BI
FG%: guards AC, wings LBJ, bigs JMG
3FG%: SM, JH, KK

[Vae Victus]

Randle is history folks. Time to move on. What makes you so sure Randle would not have caused locker room issues if he were forced to play for the QO.

Cuz if he wants to get paid next year as a UFA, he needs to stfu and play hard like a good soldier. Considering the team is committed to going hardcore smallball Randle woulda easily gotten like 30 mins of PT, which is more than enough time for him to establish his value, thereby keeping him quiet and happy enough to not create a locker room problem. On the chance that LAL doesnt sign a top flight FA and Randle has shown his worth as

Russell, Randle and Clarkson are gone.... Don't really care what they do except us and then I hope they don't do much.

The FO didn't see a future for them here in what they are trying to do. That simple.

DLo was a disappointment and was wisely traded before his trade value tanked further

Clarkson was always a no D chucker that Kupcake and ShortBuss stupidly extended and Maginka luckily pawned off

Randle IMHO is the biggest blemish so far. He was a player we had for 4 years and finally saw him blossom into a very usable player despite his deficiencies in size, outside shooting, and rim protection. When we're finally gonna go into a smallball system that will maximize his value and we let him go.

Yea, i'm just bitter since we didnt maximize his value, in either in our current or in future trade.

[Landsberger]

Yea, i'm just bitter since we didnt maximize his value, in either in our current or in future trade.

Didn't we try to trade him at the deadline with no takers? We were trying to attach trash to him but if memory serves there wasn't a lot of demand.

To me, Randle is a single dimension player who showed his most motivation in a contract year. He really never improved his shot from any of the recorded distances in 4 years.... rather he just took more from areas where he was strong (at the rim). I would have taken him back for what he was signed for however it was fairly obvious that the FO didn't want him or didn't want him enough to not have additional max slots available. He'll have a decent career IMO but I think it will have to be the right system for him to go much further.

Russell hasn't really progressed much either (I only saw him a few times last year) from what I've seen. He's progressively playing fewer and fewer games on a "sore knee" that I don't believe has every been acutely injured that I can recall. His risk/reward was low if for no other reason than that.

Clarkson was a player for a different system. He's going to be a spark off the bench guy for the rest of his career. Nothing more. I appreciated the effort he gave regardless of the results.

I care more about the crew we have and how they will mesh..... hopefully Luke has it figured out and is going to surprise the league in the regular season because it looks very familiar right now.

[zimpy27]

It's been 3 games now.

Rondo (Lonzo), Hart, Ingram, LeBron and JaVale looks like it will work well. Kuzma seems the most out of step but he will likely get it or become the bench leader..

If I think about the free agency pool, AD and KD would be the best fit for this team if you were to add one player to make them contenders.

[stan francisco]

Clarkson is a poor man’s JR Smith. Buh-bye.
Nance Jr, I miss. Didn’t shoot threes, traded.
Randle, I miss. Didn’t shoot threes, traded.

There must’ve been something against the grain about Randle’s personality. Nothing else explains how we let a guy go who put up a 36-15(?) game against LBJ and Love etc. He would’ve been the perfect five for our current system. On paper, disregarding off-court chemistry.