my feeling on this season for the lakers

[tamaraw08]

Eh.. I don't know if Rob could have done any better than he did last window on face value, especially from the cap/picks/tradable salary position we were in. We had the perfect off season, and got the marquee FA available in the buyout. Hindsight's obviously 20:20. But his job isn't easy.

I honestly thought Lebron would heal and round off into his peak around the WCF, when we would've been favourites, and had us as favourites to win anyhow. How many of you didn't?

Let's not forget how many things went wrong this playoffs -
- Shooting
- AD's injury
- Lebron still kinda hobbled @ about 60-70%

Just one of these is enough to break the camel's back. Tough break!

I trust Rob to make things right again. He's proven to be an astute man so far. No reason to doubt him.

The AD injury for me is the most crucial one bec they just didn't miss his 28-32pt production, they badly missed his ability to play the center position where he would have easily switched to the perimeter and at the same time help and recover and man those pick and rollers. I also felt the whole team just got discouraged seeing him go down.
Lebron at 90-95% would have helped but bec nobody can hit shots, Suns would have easily sagged and crowd the paint and prevent him from slashing hard.
I can't help but cringe at emotional fans clamoring to dump guys like Wes Matthews bec this guy played tough defense with a 3.6 Mil price tag. I mean who could have done better with that kind of salary?

[lazybatman]

Eh.. I don't know if Rob could have done any better than he did last window on face value, especially from the cap/picks/tradable salary position we were in. We had the perfect off season, and got the marquee FA available in the buyout. Hindsight's obviously 20:20. But his job isn't easy.

I honestly thought Lebron would heal and round off into his peak around the WCF, when we would've been favourites, and had us as favourites to win anyhow. How many of you didn't?

Let's not forget how many things went wrong this playoffs -
- Shooting
- AD's injury
- Lebron still kinda hobbled @ about 60-70%

Just one of these is enough to break the camel's back. Tough break!

I trust Rob to make things right again. He's proven to be an astute man so far. No reason to doubt him.

The AD injury for me is the most crucial one bec they just didn't miss his 28-32pt production, they badly missed his ability to play the center position where he would have easily switched to the perimeter and at the same time help and recover and man those pick and rollers. I also felt the whole team just got discouraged seeing him go down.
Lebron at 90-95% would have helped but bec nobody can hit shots, Suns would have easily sagged and crowd the paint and prevent him from slashing hard.
I can't help but cringe at emotional fans clamoring to dump guys like Wes Matthews bec this guy played tough defense with a 3.6 Mil price tag. I mean who could have done better with that kind of salary?

Agree entirely.

Let's not be hypocrites and call Rob a failure now that Trez, Dennis and Drum didn't work out. They are super star role players and will remain excellent signings, given the lack of pieces Lakers had, with no open cap space. It was bad luck, simple as that.

[LAKESHOW]

We cannot judge the Pelinka moves in its entirety and its totality due to the injuries. Bron was out. AD was out. So who can really say one way or another.
All I will say is this. When we faced a juggernaut assignment at the center position, that is Jokivic, Dwight stepped up to the plate, and took on the challenge. Wasn't perfect, but he pestered and threw himself into the job. Made an accounting of himself. However, in the Phoenix series, I thought Drummond and our 5s got out played thoroughly. Dont @ me with stats. Just from the eyeball test, the center position, Drummond, gasol and Harrell was non existent.
But again,, injuries played a major factor there as well. AD was huge when in. But thats my only critique, the 5.

[Vae Victus]

In retrospect, getting Blake Griffin and Jeremy Lin as buyout or late season additions, woulda made a much larger difference than Drummond and BMac. Rondo woulda been a better addition, but i dont think the team had the assets to go get him, Lin otoh woulda been a free signing on a 10day.

Blake provides above average spacing as a big and elite playmaking from the high post. Blake + AD combo lets Blake playmake from the high post and let AD do all the finishing, if Lebron was sitting. Also having Blake would allow for Harrell more mins at the C, since Blake can space the floor. Getting Drummond basically didnt help the team much as his D wasnt that good and he provides zero spacing and thus made Harrell utterly redundant, turning Drummond's addition completely pointless as Harrell then proceeded to get DNP as Gasol's playmaking skillset was more sorely needed.

Lin provides another playmaking PG just in case Shroeder doesnt have his A or B game (which sadly was a large chunk of the 2nd half of the season) and helps give the team another player who can make plays if the primary playmaker (Lebron or Shroeder if one is sitting) gets swarmed under by traps. We clearly saw that if Shroeder cant get his scoring on, he's completely useless with no other skills to fall back on, while getting targeted on D due to his lack of size. He was elite 6th man in OKC cuz he had ZERO playmaking duties as CP3 and SEGA handled all of it. Adding BMac to the plethora of non playmaking wings basically meant he didnt do much either than spot up and wait for the ball, also it stole more developmental minutes from THT.

I feel if we had gotten those two instead of who we got, we coulda weathered the LBJ+AD injury time alot better. The team literally had no playmakers other than Marc and thus we saw completely and utterly disjointed mess of an offense. Better off keeping Danny Green and not burning that FRP and used it for a different trade. By having a more balanced team during LBJ + AD injury time, coulda won a few more games and thus keeping LBJ and AD from rushing back so soon which led to them both getting worn down so much by the playoffs.

The team is just so dreadfully short on playmaking that Marc Gasol was basically the only other playmaker after Lebron. THT was the only other wing who might be able to develop some playmaking, but he ended up getting benched. Caruso, KCP, and Matthews are what they, which are cutters and spot up shooters.

The team really needs to address the lack of playmaking, otherwise its making Lebron work too hard as teams just constantly build a wall in the paint and there's no other players who can make the proper secondary pass or attacking a breakdown off of Lebron's attack.

Edit: Also having no PnR guards really made Harrell useless for the team. He NEEDS a PnR partner to unlock his game, which the team lacked so badly.

[Kilroy]

My feeling is that it's been a really long time since I've seen a really good, complete game of Lakers basketball... There were several in the bubble, and a couple this season, but I would love to be able to watch a Lakers team that is just rolling, again... No more injuries, no more try out lineups, no more weird rotations, just solid performances night in and night out, and a record that shows it...

I have no interest in watching another season where the team, fully healthy, plays completely different against the same team on 2 different nights... This whole, coasting through the reg season, shooting for slightly above 500 ball, and counting on our ability to take it to another level in the playoffs, is annoying to such a degree as to make me irritated with myself for giving a ****.

I think this team can be dominant with just some minor tweeks... They could also be dominant with a major overhaul... They just need to decide who they are... And I don't really care which they choose, but it's time to start giving a complete **** about it, and stop saving up turds for the playoffs that you might not even get a chance to unload...

[TylersLakers]

This season breaks down to two things:

1) There was a 71-day "off-season" from the day the Lakers won the Championship until they played their first regular season game against the Clippers. That's it. So they basically had a 5-6 week off-season before reporting to training camp. Because they won a Championship and spent 100+ days in a bubble, Anthony Davis got out of shape. And I don't blame him one bit for that happening. He was already starting to break down towards the end of the bubble when it came to his achilles/calf if you remember the playoff game against Denver and again in the NBA Finals against Miami. This was a guy who really could have benefitted from 2+ months of rest, followed by a 2-3 month build up process.

When training camp started, he wasn't in shape. He was heavy and when a guy that size and that long is out of shape and heavy and trying to play NBA basketball every other day, there's not going to be good results. You could see those first 6 weeks of the season. He had games where he'd turn it on every now and again but for the most part, he was largely "meh." Let me just go through some games.

vs Clippers: 31 minutes, 18 points, 7 rebounds, 0 blocks
vs Portland: 13 points, 10 rebounds, 0 blocks
- 3 straight games to open the season with 0 blocks
- 6/7 games under 20 points from January 12th-Jan 23rd
- Missed 2 straight Oklahoma City games because of achilles/calf soreness. Had the final nail in the coffin 5 days later.

2) LeBron's high ankle sprain caused by Solomon Hill diving at his legs. A poster posted above a game against the Cavs and how different LeBron's body looked then as compared to how he looked when he came back. There's a clear difference between those two players. He was in the discussion for MVP.

When this team was healthy at the start of the season, we looked good. If Davis didn't get hurt initially and he just got in shape as the season went on (and what he hoped for), and Solomon Hill doesn't dive at LeBron's legs, we have a completely different team. Think back to those first 27 games. Even with a really inconsistent AD, the pieces fit. Schroder's aggressive D was hounding people, he was diving on the floor for loose balls, etc. Harrell was coming off the bench and doing Harrell things. Go watch the highlights of the home game they had against Denver when the Lakers won by 21 points.

This team needs a few tweaks and everyone coming into the season healthy, rested and in shape. We need to be slow with LeBron and AD the first few months. We need more shooting. We need to have a serious discussion with AD about opening up the offense more and him playing a LOT more 5. Our rotations need to be better. When LeBron's off the court, Dennis Schroder and AD need to be on the court together developing a big time pick-and-roll game. I saw way too many times where we'd want to get THT minutes as a lead creator and LeBron and Schroder would be on the bench together. That can't happen. I don't think there's a single place on the roster for THT next year. He's one of 3 assets this team has, along with Kuzma and our first round pick. We have to hit a home run on those three assets and come up with 2 big-time rotation players. They don't need to be stars, but they do have to be productive and fit with LeBron & AD. That's Kuzma's biggest problem - he plays the exact same position that they're forcing Anthony Davis to play and where LeBron is best at.

This isn't that tough to understand.

[Eric Bieniemy]

Harrell and Davis aren't a good fit. Davis can play off Harrell, Harrell can't play off Davis, whish is more important.

Morris is the better fit. They NEVER needed Harrell in the first place.

I like his game, but Morris is a better fit.

[TylersLakers]

Eh.. I don't know if Rob could have done any better than he did last window on face value, especially from the cap/picks/tradable salary position we were in. We had the perfect off season, and got the marquee FA available in the buyout. Hindsight's obviously 20:20. But his job isn't easy.

I honestly thought Lebron would heal and round off into his peak around the WCF, when we would've been favourites, and had us as favourites to win anyhow. How many of you didn't?

Let's not forget how many things went wrong this playoffs -
- Shooting
- AD's injury
- Lebron still kinda hobbled @ about 60-70%

Just one of these is enough to break the camel's back. Tough break!

I trust Rob to make things right again. He's proven to be an astute man so far. No reason to doubt him.

The AD injury for me is the most crucial one bec they just didn't miss his 28-32pt production, they badly missed his ability to play the center position where he would have easily switched to the perimeter and at the same time help and recover and man those pick and rollers. I also felt the whole team just got discouraged seeing him go down.
Lebron at 90-95% would have helped but bec nobody can hit shots, Suns would have easily sagged and crowd the paint and prevent him from slashing hard.
I can't help but cringe at emotional fans clamoring to dump guys like Wes Matthews bec this guy played tough defense with a 3.6 Mil price tag. I mean who could have done better with that kind of salary?

Great post. We have the ability to sign Wes Matthews again to basically the same contract without dipping into our mini-MLE. If we don't bring him back and he's willing to return with that cost.. I'll be pretty disgusted.

[Eric Bieniemy]

Wes Matthews is a great guy to resign.

In a perfect world, Davis would start at center and James at PF which would open up a ton of minutes for 3&D dudes like Matthews, Caruso, and a third guy they sign for cheap (someone "like" Harkless).

[zuju]

We have some new players last season in the like of Mathews, Harrells, Gasol, AD2 and Ben Mclemore.

Rob looked smart to assemble an upgraded team with a variety of skill sets and stole the reigning 6th man of the year from the clippers.

Yet, It seemed to me that Rob did not really communicate with / fully understand Frank. We all know that Frank would only play guys who are capable defenders. Harrell was exposed last season in the playoff and he was the one who make me feel comfortable even we have to face the clippers in the playoff cause James and AD can hunt him anytime for points. Frank simply does not want any weak spots to get exposed. It should be rather obvious to Rob before he signed Harrell? The signing of Ben Mclemore is another similar example. We needed more 3 pt shooting ability on the team. Again, he did not have any significant minutes in the playoff at all.

That said, when Rob tried to sign / trade for someone, shall he communicate more with Frank and adapt to his philosophy more? On the other hand, is Frank to sturbun to not play these players?

I always think what if we signed TT instead of Harrell to MLE last off season, he will be very useful and fit much better with AD. If we signed Lance Stephsenon instead of Mclemore, he may have provided some shooting to the team as well as some ball handling duties when Schoder played so awful.

And this is a very important issue going forward in this offseason and the future trade deadlines and offseasons.

[Kilroy]

If there's one single big takeaway from our season, not only for the Lakers, but also for the rest of the league, it's that if you have a championship winning team, and the only way you can sign free agents on to ring chase the next year, is to promise them starting roles... Pass... Hard.

[BEazy]

Besides the obvious injuries to AD and LBJ, shooting was the biggest reason why we had these offensive droughts. When guys can't get their own by dribble penetration and they can't shoot it's a recipe for disaster. Rob must address this issue or I don't see us going to the Finals next year.

[danfantastk32]

4. no system was in place for the offense when lakers didnt have lbj or ad for a limited time.....

Anyways this season had alot of problems and i for one do not trust vogel with his coaching. we won a ring but now i believe it to be more based on talent and less on coaching.

Your gonna run into problems when 2 players gobble up 75% of the salary, and then go down. Not much a Coach can do with that.

I am an AD guy....but I put alot of this season on him. People keep bringing up what a super-short offseason we had...well AD managed to get fat in that time, so it couldn't have been too short! What a great message that sends to the team, eh?

This team is 2 superstars taking up all the salary, and then whatever scraps Rob can put around them. Older veterans...Guys ring-chasing. People like Dwight who are looking for a second chance in the league. It's gonna be a mish-mash each year. And if we get anything less than 100% out of our two main players, then you can pretty much call it a day. I don't care who's coaching.

If I'm Rob, I would do whatever it takes to get that 3rd guy. They are gonna need it. AD is not the Rock we hoped he'd be, and Lebron is clearly on the descent now. KCP is great one night, absolutely gone the next. Kuz needs to go play elsewhere. He's not a fit with Lebron. THT has value, and should be moved to get that 3rd player.

If they don't wanna move THT....then what the hell are we doing? Can't have one foot in - one foot out. Not gonna win. Rob needs to ship out all young assets and get a 3rd player, and completely commit to this 1-2 year window with Lebron - AD...or else We need to ship AD and Lebron to teams they will accept, and start the next chapter.

[tamaraw08]

4. no system was in place for the offense when lakers didnt have lbj or ad for a limited time.....

Anyways this season had alot of problems and i for one do not trust vogel with his coaching. we won a ring but now i believe it to be more based on talent and less on coaching.

Your gonna run into problems when 2 players gobble up 75% of the salary, and then go down. Not much a Coach can do with that.

I am an AD guy....but I put alot of this season on him. People keep bringing up what a super-short offseason we had...well AD managed to get fat in that time, so it couldn't have been too short! What a great message that sends to the team, eh?

This team is 2 superstars taking up all the salary, and then whatever scraps Rob can put around them. Older veterans...Guys ring-chasing. People like Dwight who are looking for a second chance in the league. It's gonna be a mish-mash each year. And if we get anything less than 100% out of our two main players, then you can pretty much call it a day. I don't care who's coaching.

If I'm Rob, I would do whatever it takes to get that 3rd guy. They are gonna need it. AD is not the Rock we hoped he'd be, and Lebron is clearly on the descent now. KCP is great one night, absolutely gone the next. Kuz needs to go play elsewhere. He's not a fit with Lebron. THT has value, and should be moved to get that 3rd player.

If they don't wanna move THT....then what the hell are we doing? Can't have one foot in - one foot out. Not gonna win. Rob needs to ship out all young assets and get a 3rd player, and completely commit to this 1-2 year window with Lebron - AD...or else We need to ship AD and Lebron to teams they will accept, and start the next chapter.

Clippers lose Kawhi and the Clips didn't exactly falter without a 3rd star.
Same with Utah which lost Mitchell, Denver with Murray, Miami with Butler etc for a chunk of games in the regular season.
Dallas has ONE legit superstar and they ranked 8th in ORTG.
Even 2 seasons ago, Lakers ranked 11th with both Lebron and AD were relatively healthy, making them the lowest ranked team to win the ring the past 11 years or so.

[Ball so hard]

This season solidified Vogel's standing in my book as not a good but a great coach. It's truly remarkable he was able to keep the team a top rated defensive team despite all the injuries. Offensively our pieces do not fit great so he gets a slight pass on offense. It's obvious his strengths are on the defense. Not long ago many on this board were enamored with Luke Walton and thought he was good coach. Some even went as far as to call him a top 10 coach. Many here will criticize his rotations, but hey, visit any other forum on RealGM and you will see that just about every fan base criticize their coaches' rotations. We as fans are often emotionally invested in certain players and often think we know better. Of course Vogel's rotations aren't perfect. By and large I trust that he knows what he's doing and will get it right most of the times.

Schröder - He was an excellent addition at the time. It's now easy to say otherwise. Based on the season he had last year, very few could make a convincing argument as to why he should not start. His performance indicates he's good enough to start for at least half the teams in the league. Schröder was not very good this year. It would not be a stretch to say he was awful. No, THT is not the answer, at least not right now. Unless there's major improvements in his outside shooting, I think we should continue to bring him along slowly or trade him if the right opportunity presents itself. People complain about spacing, yet they're in favor of starting THT, a guy that 60% of his shot come from 10' or less. From 3pt range he shot an abysmal 28%. Has anyone noticed how teams started to defend THT late in the season? Any team that has their 4 (AD) and 1(THT) shooting sub 30% is destined to be a below average shooting team. I'm hoping we could get an upgrade that's a better fit over both Schröder and THT. I'm hoping we could somehow get Lowry.

Shortened season did not increase injuries. Most of the injuries that occurred are freak injuries, injuries to older players, injuries to players that or frequently injured. How to you prevent a player from jumping into Lebron's ankle? Do I even need to say anything about AD's injury history... he has over 50 injuries in his 9 year career. You could rest AD for 3/4 of the season and it would have little to no impact on whether or not he's injured upon his return.

I'm in favor of bringing back the core while upgrading at the 1 and 5. The 5 spot I think is a bigger need.

[tamaraw08]

This season solidified Vogel's standing in my book as not a good but a great coach. It's truly remarkable he was able to keep the team a top rated defensive team despite all the injuries. Offensively our pieces do not fit great so he gets a slight pass on offense. It's obvious his strengths are on the defense. Not long ago many on this board were enamored with Luke Walton and thought he was good coach. Some even went as far as to call him a top 10 coach. Many here will criticize his rotations, but hey, visit any other forum on RealGM and you will see that just about every fan base criticize their coaches' rotations. We as fans are often emotionally invested in certain players and often think we know better. Of course Vogel's rotations aren't perfect. By and large I trust that he knows what he's doing and will get it right most of the times.



I'm in favor of bringing back the core while upgrading at the 1 and 5. The 5 spot I think is a bigger need.

With regards to Luke Walton, I actually gave away his signed autograph the Lakers distributed for season pass holders several years back. I am convinced that Vogel is not a stupid coach, I too never questioned his rotations but I am very vocal about his lack of creativity in establishing good offensive sets that translate to high % shots, so I humbly request you to PLEASE indulge in educating me about the actual schemes he drew the past season aside from that redundant 2-5 screen-roll involving KCP on the right side. In a late game possession, I was impressed with that solid pick provided by Schroder which freed up AD for an easy lay up.....
Suns have that great and prolific screen/roll action which worked too even when CP3 was out. Portland with their horns set, Lue with his 5-out scheme that worked without Kawhi. What exactly did Frank used esp when Lebron is not on the court?
Lakers looked great on defense, but what helped them too is Vogel's refusal to use players who would be vulnerable to mismatches.

[LAKESHOW]

Vogel has a weakness. Its in his offensive schematics. Several times he's called timeouts. Drew up a play. And we came out of the time out confused and had a turnover. A turnover After a time out! You can also tell from his time out patterns. If we had an unlimited amount of timeouts, he would call one every 30 seconds.
We needed guys like a Rondo. Guys who can organize the offense on the floor. This was the genius of magic to bring in Rondo, when many questioned him.. The more playmaker types, the better. Bron cannot sustain that high level usage rate at his age. We need orchestrators.

[SweetTouch]

If healthy we would of gone 4 4 4 4 on these scrubs

That said Nets got injured too so it wasn’t meant to be

[LAKESHOW]

If healthy we would of gone 4 4 4 4 on these scrubs

That said Nets got injured too so it wasn’t meant to be

Thats what I'm sayin. We were 2 games away from a Phoenix Atlanta finals.
Child pleeeeeze. This injury crap screwed up our back to back season.

[Ball so hard]

This season solidified Vogel's standing in my book as not a good but a great coach. It's truly remarkable he was able to keep the team a top rated defensive team despite all the injuries. Offensively our pieces do not fit great so he gets a slight pass on offense. It's obvious his strengths are on the defense. Not long ago many on this board were enamored with Luke Walton and thought he was good coach. Some even went as far as to call him a top 10 coach. Many here will criticize his rotations, but hey, visit any other forum on RealGM and you will see that just about every fan base criticize their coaches' rotations. We as fans are often emotionally invested in certain players and often think we know better. Of course Vogel's rotations aren't perfect. By and large I trust that he knows what he's doing and will get it right most of the times.



I'm in favor of bringing back the core while upgrading at the 1 and 5. The 5 spot I think is a bigger need.

With regards to Luke Walton, I actually gave away his signed autograph the Lakers distributed for season pass holders several years back. I am convinced that Vogel is not a stupid coach, I too never questioned his rotations but I am very vocal about his lack of creativity in establishing good offensive sets that translate to high % shots, so I humbly request you to PLEASE indulge in educating me about the actual schemes he drew the past season aside from that redundant 2-5 screen-roll involving KCP on the right side. In a late game possession, I was impressed with that solid pick provided by Schroder which freed up AD for an easy lay up.....
Suns have that great and prolific screen/roll action which worked too even when CP3 was out. Portland with their horns set, Lue with his 5-out scheme that worked without Kawhi. What exactly did Frank used esp when Lebron is not on the court?
Lakers looked great on defense, but what helped them too is Vogel's refusal to use players who would be vulnerable to mismatches.

I really don't think we differ too much. I agree that his offensive sets weren't great. I gave him a slight pass on offense because I think even a strong offensive minded coach like, let's say D'antoni, would struggle with the group we had. Significant injuries and a shortened offseason only made his job considerably more difficult. Rest assured I'm not saying Vogel is some juggernaut on offense, however, I do think he's more than competent on that end.