Pre-Season GM 1: Lakers vs Warriors - Win

[dockingsched]

Did not like Bradley out there.

Caruso looked very good.

We watched different games. Bradley makes the defense work. His ball pressure makes it easy to choke off passing lanes. He can afford to do it with the length behind him. I’ll take around 24 minutes of that all season.

Yeah, felt the same.

Anyway, if matchups allow it or call for it, I’d love to see Caruso/Bradley/Green/James/Davis. Bet that would be the Lakers best lineup possible this season.

[Landsberger]

Caruso needs to get some time with a group that will actually be on the floor during a game before we can make any assessment on him. He basically played with a garbage time/G-league group last night against a garbage time/G-league group. Not sure anyone can translate that to anything meaningful.

He had some good moments and some not so good moments. To me he is looking like a spot/match up guy and a great guy to have in case of an injury but maybe not a rotational player unless he can grow in a few areas. Tough to tell......

[stan francisco]

AD: Beast. Prime KAJ with point guard skills.
LBJ: Beast. Looked engaged on defense!
DG: Green looked good.
RR: I’m still a big fan if how he plays the game.
AC: Poised, like end of last season. Good D. Few mistakes.
AB: Looked like he regained energy. Good D.
JMG: Played really well.
DH: Meh. Hopefully he’ll get in rhythm soon.

Norvell, Daniels, Cacok, all the rest as expected.

[snaquille oatmeal]

Not a big fan of the cacock

[TylersLakers]

I hope they play LeBron and AD a few minutes each in China and then put them on ice for the season.

[MAMBAEMD]

Lebron is going to try to defer all the spotlight to AD, but let’s not forget that the offense is going to go as Lebron goes. Everything starts with him, he’s the most important piece.

Agree.
The offense goes as LBJ goes but so does the defense.

[tamaraw08]

Caruso needs to get some time with a group that will actually be on the floor during a game before we can make any assessment on him. He basically played with a garbage time/G-league group last night against a garbage time/G-league group. Not sure anyone can translate that to anything meaningful.

He had some good moments and some not so good moments. To me he is looking like a spot/match up guy and a great guy to have in case of an injury but maybe not a rotational player unless he can grow in a few areas. Tough to tell......

I agree about Alex needing to play with the Vets. Caruso IMO has the least glaring weakness. Rondo is smart and savvy, the best passer etc etc but he can't shoot and not a great defender. Yes, he make a couple of 3's but those are wide open ones where his defender simply sagged down to clog the middle for the bigs to operate that his combo plus and minus with Lebron was a - 5.4 pts together last year.
Cook and Daniels can shoot but can't defend. Bradley can defend but his jumpers are still shaky IMO.
Vogel loves to focus on defense, that is why Bradley got to start. He gets into foul trouble then he turns to his veteran PG. Yes, he has a high BB IQ, maybe smarter than Vogel but again....

[tamaraw08]

I hope they play LeBron and AD a few minutes each in China and then put them on ice for the season.

Hell no, I hope not. I am going to their game vs the WArriors on the 14th.

[stan francisco]

The season starts with the Clippers. They will come out swinging. All their role players looked good yesterday, albeit against Shanghai Sharks.

I want LeBron and AD to be up to 24-30 minutes together in at least one game. Just to gel.

LeBron is perhaps our most important player but I think AD will be dubbed world’s number one after this season.

[iamworthy]

Size wise, what teams can match up with the Lakers?

[TwoStarz]

For the first time since I started watching and religiously following this team, I found no joy in watching Lebron and AD play. I’ve never really liked Lebron but respected his game. AD is someone I’ve never been a fan of, for whatever reason. Nothing about this team feels organic and I find no joy in these players accomplishing anything together.

Gone be a long year...maybe the winning will fix some of this...hopefully

[Ball so hard]

Caruso needs to get some time with a group that will actually be on the floor during a game before we can make any assessment on him. He basically played with a garbage time/G-league group last night against a garbage time/G-league group. Not sure anyone can translate that to anything meaningful.

He had some good moments and some not so good moments. To me he is looking like a spot/match up guy and a great guy to have in case of an injury but maybe not a rotational player unless he can grow in a few areas. Tough to tell......

I agree about Alex needing to play with the Vets. Caruso IMO has the least glaring weakness. Rondo is smart and savvy, the best passer etc etc but he can't shoot and not a great defender. Yes, he make a couple of 3's but those are wide open ones where his defender simply sagged down to clog the middle for the bigs to operate that his combo plus and minus with Lebron was a - 5.4 pts together last year.
Cook and Daniels can shoot but can't defend. Bradley can defend but his jumpers are still shaky IMO.
Vogel loves to focus on defense, that is why Bradley got to start. He gets into foul trouble then he turns to his veteran PG. Yes, he has a high BB IQ, maybe smarter than Vogel but again....

While I'm not a fan of Rondo's fit either, I don't think he's nearly as bad as many here make him out to be. I also don't think Caruso is the answer either. Even though it's only been one game (also listen to what the players and Vogel is saying), it does appear Rondo will be an integral part of this team. I think we should all get used to Rondo playing more than most of us would like. I don't like Rondo playing with Lebron at all, but I do like what he brings to the second unit as well as playing with AD whenever Vogel decides to Stagger the minutes of AD and Lebron.

[Ball so hard]

Size wise, what teams can match up with the Lakers?

6ers and Bucks will likely be tough.

[Kilroy]

For the first time since I started watching and religiously following this team, I found no joy in watching Lebron and AD play. I’ve never really liked Lebron but respected his game. AD is someone I’ve never been a fan of, for whatever reason. Nothing about this team feels organic and I find no joy in these players accomplishing anything together.

Gone be a long year...maybe the winning will fix some of this...hopefully

I'm not a huge fan of LeBron either, but I'm not sure how you can't find joy in the way he and AD play together... Especially if you were a fan of Kobe/Shaq... It's really not a whole lot different.

Honestly, they were electrifying in that game... I miss some of the young guys too, but cmon...

The most I can give that post is two stars...

[Kilroy]

Size wise, what teams can match up with the Lakers?

6ers and Bucks will likely be tough.

Agreed, and those teams will be tough... I'm not too worried though about them. I think the Sixers are going to struggle this year with chemistry. I think Simmons and Embiid may be getting a little tired of sharing the spotlight with each other, and year after year of getting close but not winning it all, is going to start grinding on them. They're young too, and Embiid at least is a little immature...

I think the Bucks over-achieved last season... Giannis is a smaller version of Davis with no jump shot. I think they're going to try to rely heavily on him again this year and teams will have figured him out a little more.

I don't think it's going to be a team that matches up size wise with us that's going to be the team (or couple teams) that have the formula to give us headaches. It's just going to be that team with a weird matchup combination... Maybe the Nuggets, or a team like Portland or something that just fits in our natural weaknesses.
I'm intentionally not mentioning that other team in LA because I don't want to speak it into existence, but they might have the formula too... They're going to test LeBrons defense like maybe no other team in the league.

[Ball so hard]

Size wise, what teams can match up with the Lakers?

6ers and Bucks will likely be tough.

Agreed, and those teams will be tough... I'm not too worried though about them. I think the Sixers are going to struggle this year with chemistry. I think Simmons and Embiid may be getting a little tired of sharing the spotlight with each other, and year after year of getting close but not winning it all, is going to start grinding on them. They're young too, and Embiid at least is a little immature...

I think the Bucks over-achieved last season... Giannis is a smaller version of Davis with no jump shot. I think they're going to try to rely heavily on him again this year and teams will have figured him out a little more.

I don't think it's going to be a team that matches up size wise with us that's going to be the team (or couple teams) that have the formula to give us headaches. It's just going to be that team with a weird matchup combination... Maybe the Nuggets, or a team like Portland or something that just fits in our natural weaknesses.
I'm intentionally not mentioning that other team in LA because I don't want to speak it into existence, but they might have the formula too... They're going to test LeBrons defense like maybe no other team in the league.

Yea, i'm also afraid of Houston. Say what you want about Russ's fit next to Harden...i'm not sure we have a single player on our roster that can slow either of these two down. It will likely take a great defensive game plan to slow down these two. These two have the potential to put our guys in foul trouble. They have two players (Tucker and Capela) that should be adequate at defending AD. They have no answer for Lebron.

[Landsberger]

Caruso needs to get some time with a group that will actually be on the floor during a game before we can make any assessment on him. He basically played with a garbage time/G-league group last night against a garbage time/G-league group. Not sure anyone can translate that to anything meaningful.

He had some good moments and some not so good moments. To me he is looking like a spot/match up guy and a great guy to have in case of an injury but maybe not a rotational player unless he can grow in a few areas. Tough to tell......

I agree about Alex needing to play with the Vets. Caruso IMO has the least glaring weakness. Rondo is smart and savvy, the best passer etc etc but he can't shoot and not a great defender. Yes, he make a couple of 3's but those are wide open ones where his defender simply sagged down to clog the middle for the bigs to operate that his combo plus and minus with Lebron was a - 5.4 pts together last year.
Cook and Daniels can shoot but can't defend. Bradley can defend but his jumpers are still shaky IMO.
Vogel loves to focus on defense, that is why Bradley got to start. He gets into foul trouble then he turns to his veteran PG. Yes, he has a high BB IQ, maybe smarter than Vogel but again....

I disagree with the idea that defense is individual and all of the individual "he's a good defender and he's not" stuff. Great defenses are executing a good system not 5 good individual defenders. Defense, more than any other aspect of the game, is a team effort. It will take time to create a great defense. We do have a lot more players this year that have been part of great defenses so we should see immediate improvements but one guy doesn't break a great defense.

Also.... do wide open 3's count less?

I couldn't care less about what Rondo/LeBron did last year. It has no relevance what so ever IMHO. Statistically (which is what I do for a living) there is no relevant data when you look at the personnel, game situations and so on.... Most of the players are gone who were part of those lineups... the system will be different.... the game situations will be different and so on.... Just not a fan of these statistics when there is no correlation. To say player A has a ± of X in a situation that doesn't correlate to the current situation is statistically meaningless because the variables that resulted in that ± of X are no longer consistent.

To Caruso, he needs some time with the groups that will play before we will see if he's the guy a lot here think he is. For me, he's shown some glimpses but in limited situations in meaningless games. I'd love it if he can displace everyone and become the starter but that seems a tall order based on what I've seen.

[snaquille oatmeal]

For the first time since I started watching and religiously following this team, I found no joy in watching Lebron and AD play. I’ve never really liked Lebron but respected his game. AD is someone I’ve never been a fan of, for whatever reason. Nothing about this team feels organic and I find no joy in these players accomplishing anything together.

Gone be a long year...maybe the winning will fix some of this...hopefully

I'm not a huge fan of LeBron either, but I'm not sure how you can't find joy in the way he and AD play together... Especially if you were a fan of Kobe/Shaq... It's really not a whole lot different.

Honestly, they were electrifying in that game... I miss some of the young guys too, but cmon...

The most I can give that post is two stars...

I miss the young guys too, but I got a big smile on my face when one of the commentators in the game basically said that we used to have 3 second pick first rounders and now we have 3 first pick first rounders in Lebron, Dwight, and AD. that just cured my ailments about the youngins.

[iamworthy]

I think LeBron and AD are significantly better than any other duo in the NBA. I'm more concerned with our health more than anything else.

[Kilroy]

6ers and Bucks will likely be tough.

Agreed, and those teams will be tough... I'm not too worried though about them. I think the Sixers are going to struggle this year with chemistry. I think Simmons and Embiid may be getting a little tired of sharing the spotlight with each other, and year after year of getting close but not winning it all, is going to start grinding on them. They're young too, and Embiid at least is a little immature...

I think the Bucks over-achieved last season... Giannis is a smaller version of Davis with no jump shot. I think they're going to try to rely heavily on him again this year and teams will have figured him out a little more.

I don't think it's going to be a team that matches up size wise with us that's going to be the team (or couple teams) that have the formula to give us headaches. It's just going to be that team with a weird matchup combination... Maybe the Nuggets, or a team like Portland or something that just fits in our natural weaknesses.
I'm intentionally not mentioning that other team in LA because I don't want to speak it into existence, but they might have the formula too... They're going to test LeBrons defense like maybe no other team in the league.

Yea, i'm also afraid of Houston. Say what you want about Russ's fit next to Harden...i'm not sure we have a single player on our roster that can slow either of these two down. It will likely take a great defensive game plan to slow down these two. These two have the potential to put our guys in foul trouble. They have two players (Tucker and Capela) that should be adequate at defending AD. They have no answer for Lebron.

That's a matchup where Davis may have to play a lot of C... I think if we throw AB, KCP and Green at Russ and Harden, with LeBron at PF and Davis at C, we can slow them down and still play to our strengths...

The thing is, like the Clips, adding a second guy that does the same things, isn't always a net-positive... They are going to have to figure out how to have a flowing offense that keeps both of them involved, or they're going to stagnate and end up hurting each other. One of the 2 of those teams is going to struggle.. I'm not sure which right now, but my money is on Houston. I think Harden is more interested in his individual stats than he is about his rings... I think last season was almost a perfect season for him... It's a matter of time before Westbrook's personality gets in the way.
In fact, I can't really think of a team that was successful with 2 ball dominant stars like that...

That said, for any of these teams, if we come out and play the right way, we can put all of them on their heels and force them to try to figure out how to slow us down instead of us slowing them down.

I mean, if Davis and Lebron are in sync and on fire, if McGee is active on both ends of the floor, if Green is 3 and D-ing efficiently, along with Bradley... We're going to be getting out in front early... Probably by double digits...