Lakers are 9-10. Who's to blame?

[LesGrossman]

First of all this means nothing regarding the championship race. But in a nutshell, discussing the early disappointing results, almost all of the named reasons fall back on LeBron.
1. He is old and plays no defense but insists to be "the man" and play heavy minutes. You cant compensate 4-5 when it happens so much.
2. Whatever negativity his stans bring up towards his all star team mates, namely AD, Russ and Melo, to prop him up, must ultimately also fall on him because this roster is EXACTLY what he wanted it to be. Same applies to the coach. He is known to have HC removed and his hand puppets installed, so please dont blame anyone else.
3. Injuries (of LeBron) - see above. Old guys tend to be more injured.
4. LeBron heavy offense - as has been the case in previous teams, LeBron refuses to play off the ball. The whole offensive system is constructed on the premise that he dominates to ball 20 seconds. What happens if you remove him? The offense crumbles and fails. Whose fauilt is it? Bron fanboys like to bring up how unsuccessful his teams are in his absence, as if this was a computer game and not a complex team with a thick playbook on offense and defense. If Bron wouldnt insist to be PG on offense and invisible on defense, this wouldnt happen. The way it is, those guys play by ear when he isnt there. Also his fault.

Just as a thought: If they would be 16-3 by now, whom would we praise? Westbrook? AD? Pelinka? History has shown that Bron, his beat writers, stans and other influencers tend to take all credit for success and turn invisible when things go downhill.

[BNM]

Lebron teams always get off to slow starts. They will be fine.

After 19 games last season, they were 14-5, ended up the 7th seed and got bounced easily in the 1st round by PHO. Not a slow start, not "fine".

After 19 games in 2018-19, they were 11-8, finished 10th in the West and missed the playoffs. Not a slow start, not "fine".

And please don't play the injury excuse. This is the natural result of assembling a geriatric roster full of players with significant injury histories.

LeBron is now in his 4th season with the Lakers. He has had one healthy season - the one that had a four and a half month rest break in the middle due to COVID. In 2018-19 he missed 33% of his team's games. Last season he missed 37.5% of his team's games. So far this season, he's missed 58% of his team's games.

Anthony Davis has been a walking injury his entire NBA career. He's missed 21% of his teams' games over the course of his career. Over the last 3+ seasons, he's missed nearly 30% if his teams' games.

So, when your two best players have missed significant time due to injuries over the last 3+ season, the solution is not to sign a bunch of old, injured players to fill out your roster. I keep hearing how much better the Lakers will be when Trevor Ariza is available. Newsflash, Ariza is nearly as old as LeBron, missed 58% of his team's games last season and was flat out terrible in the playoffs.

Injuries are an unfortunate part of the game, but the Lakers current situation isn't a case of bad luck, it's a case of bad planning. They constructed a very old roster full of guys with significant injury histories.

[Sedale Threatt]

It feels like they chose players for their names, not their games. They have a lot of guys who are famous to casual fans, but they don’t seem well matched in term of their roles on the team.

It's not really that so much as, once you bring in a third guy making max dollars you're pretty much taking anybody you can get because you have almost no money left. It would have been the same issue had they signed Kawhi Leonard a couple of years ago. With the obvious distinction being, at least you're getting Kawhi Leonard instead of Russell Westbrook.

[BNM]

In terms of blame, plenty to go around. I divide it up petty much equally between LeBron and Pelinka. LeBron for thinking Russell Westbrook and his ridiculous contract was the missing piece of a championship run and Pelinka for capitulating and allowing a player to do his job for him.

Ironically, even though I've never been a fan of his game, I don't blame Russ at all. He is EXACTLY what we all knew he was: a poor shooting, ball dominant player eating up $44 million in cap space who makes monumentally bad decisions with the game on the line. When someone shows you who they are BELIEVE THEM. Nope, this isn't Russ' fault. It's LeBron's and Pelinka's fault for thinking Russ isn't what he clearly is.

[wickywack]

If I'm counting correctly, last year's Lakers were 30-15 with Lebron and 12-15 without him. Is this season really that different? I don't think any realistic alternative roster would be doing significantly better this year given Lebron's injuries.

The Lakers goal should be (a) making the postseason and (b) getting Lebron and AD as healthy as possible by the postseason. It looks likely that they will accomplish (a) (at least as a play-in). Their primary focus should be (b). If those guys aren't ready to go, the rest of the roster just doesn't matter. As of now, they're doing ok. They're in the play-in despite fairly small contributions from Lebron so far.

[VanWest82]

Any list that doesn't start with Lebron is suffering from a pretty massive Halo effect. He was the one driving the big off season decisions. He's the one who's making 40M and missing over half the games leaving Russ and AD to carry the load.

[BenoUdrihFTL]

Peak LeBron derangement going on in this thread. He’s played 8 games and they’re 5-3 in those games. Of course the team is going to look like trash when the best player has missed 58% of the season. They’ve also been missing several rotation players. But, it’s easier to just spout about ‘LeGM.’

5-3 is a 51 win pace over 82 games for a team that's supposed to contend. AD and Russ have played in all of those games and 6 of 8 were at home, 3 of those 5 wins have come vs the tanking Rockets and Pistons, the other 2 came vs fringe playoff teams Memphis and Cleveland. Not great

I mean those are indeed the games that Lebron played in...

Well they're not the only games LeBron has played in. He also played vs Golden State, Phoenix and Boston. Lakers were 0-3 those games with a -39 points differential. Overall they have a -7 points differential in games with LeBron. Not great

[timO]

Davis not destroying other teams, with 30 or 40 points without Lebron.

He is suppossed in his prime, and is a 24-10 meh player.

[Soulyss]

LeGM + Pelinka are both culpable...

[Lalouie]

i'm gonna defend my man

you cannot blame rw. you know what you'r getting EXACTLY when you play russ and you take the good with the bad. there is no more overt and transparent player than westbrook. he gives you exactly what you're expecting.

[seren]

Father time. Same team ten year ago would be 19-0

[Triple M]

Why does someone deserve blame? Assigning blame after 20 games doesn't make sense to me.

Also, the exact reasons why they are struggling now probably goes back to his they constructed their championship team. I always thought it was known that LAs window was a small one. Their recent moves were an attempt to keep it open, but I don't blame them for trying, and you can't blame them for being successful a few years ago.

[BNM]

Peak LeBron derangement going on in this thread. He’s played 8 games and they’re 5-3 in those games. Of course the team is going to look like trash when the best player has missed 58% of the season. They’ve also been missing several rotation players. But, it’s easier to just spout about ‘LeGM.’

Can we please stop pretending that beating MEM (by 3), Hou twice (including once by 2), CLE and DET, all at home, all with LeBron, AD and Westbrook in the line up, is some sort of significant accomplishment?

Looking "like trash" when two of your highly paid superstars haven't missed a game and you've played one of the easiest, most home friend, most rest advantaged schedules in the league is not a good indicator of future success.

When you still have two max contract players who haven't missed a game and you lose twice to OKC and get blown out by MIN, that's not a good look. When you have a losing record, in spite of a ridiculously easy schedule, playing 12 of the first 15 at home, and AD and Westbrook playing in all 19 games, what was the point of getting Russ in the first place? Wasn't he supposed to be the third star that could help carry the team during the regular season when LeBron or AD were out?

Name one other team in the league with two healthy max contract players and a losing record. DEN, in spite of Murray missing the entire season (so far), MPJ missing half their games, Jokic missing the last four and having a MUCH tougher schedule than the Lakers, actually have a better record.

The Lakers are massively underachieving WRT to expectations and schedule, even without LeBron. This is the part of the schedule where they should be racking up easy wins against cupcake opponents, yet they have a losing record. Yes, they will be better once LeBron is back, but the schedule also gets much tougher.

[SeniorWalker]

i'm gonna defend my man

That you, Shannon Sharpe?

[Up-And-Coming]

The squad is not a good fit and seems to need Lebron to play right now. Westbrook played better last game but then AD had an off-night. Our defense is actually getting better but the 3 point shooting has been hit and miss.

[Lalouie]

i'm gonna defend my man

That you, Shannon Sharpe?

not lebron...lol
my main ucla man!!!!

[Edrees]

Everyone plays a part.
Lebron - Not as healthy as he used to be.
Westbrook - too many turnovers, poor defense
AD - Doesn't always play like the Top10 player that he can play as. Somedays plays like a low end all star, if even that.
Vogel - plays DeAndre JOrdan more than 1 minute per game. Has some terrible lineups
Jeanie Buss and other Lakers owners- Let Caruso go
Pelinka - signed a bunch of players who can't play D
OKC - Cost us 2 wins, would be 11-8 right now.

[Johnny Bball]

The guy that demanded they trade away their depth for Westbrook and that set up the firts meeting. James.

[Tracymcgoaty]

The guy that demanded they trade away their depth for Westbrook and that set up the firts meeting. James.

AD-Lebron-Pelinka all had a hand in that happening. Lets not blame it all on one guy.

[Johnny Bball]

The guy that demanded they trade away their depth for Westbrook and that set up the firts meeting. James.

AD-Lebron-Pelinka all had a hand in that happening. Lets not blame it all on one guy.

The one guy set it up before free agency and Pelinka sure as **** was not there as it was just players, or its tampering.