(LOCK THREAD) The LeBron James- 23-24 NBA Thread - 40K POINTS+(Part 1)(NO INSULTING)

[zimpy27]

This team only can score if AD and Bron go balls to the wall, just not enough shot creation on the team

Yep, this is why DLo has had such good impact stats.

Lakers need playmaking or an offensive system in lieu of that, they haven't got a system out of Ham.

[JVL]

Christmas for Lebron haters is lasting pretty long.

This Lakers team outside Lebron and AD is horrendous.

[trickshot]

They give up wide open looks because Ham refuses to guard the 3PT line. He learned this from Budenholzer. Insane strategy to do when you have AD

From the very beginning when it became clear his defensive philosophies didn't respect or understand modern shooting defense. Only the most lethal offensive tool in today's game. This isn't an Nba ready coach. Ham is a big part of why Lakers have the worst floor to ceiling ratio in a while. Your stars can't save you all 82 games.

Same as bud. I'm sure this style of "defense" looks familiar to Laker fans by now. PTSD anyone? This is where he learnt it.

Watch on YouTube

[Colbinii]

Y'all complaining about a coach when you have 2 Top 100 players and 2 low-end starters in Reaves/Dlo and a bunch of 8th/9th best rotation guys like Prince, Vando, Rui, ect.

Quit blaming the coach. Your team has no depth and no talent outside of LeBron/AD.

[Heej]

Christmas for Lebron haters is lasting pretty long.

This Lakers team outside Lebron and AD is horrendous.

Only thing that'll end it is LeBron leaving at the end of the season and going to Philly like he should've. Only other place I'd really like is Indiana

[Ian Scuffling]

Y'all complaining about a coach when you have 2 Top 100 players and 2 low-end starters in Reaves/Dlo and a bunch of 8th/9th best rotation guys like Prince, Vando, Rui, ect.

Quit blaming the coach. Your team has no depth and no talent outside of LeBron/AD.

While you are correct, both things can, and seem to be, true. I blame Pelinka for it all. Maybe, he really doesn't want James to get his fifth

[rk2023]

I hope the Thunder get AD in the event James leaves. He deserves to age into championship situations and great talent around him.

One of the most underrated : overhated players of this generation, and he’s due for some resume / legacy boosts.

[tone wone]

Maybe you just can't have your top 2 scorers be primary rim threats 1st.

No matter what they do they'll always face packed paints. Teams first priority will always be to keep those two away from the rim.

By in large they do a good job of creating just enough space for AD to attack mismatches but for LeBron it feels impossible. AD being a quick hitting, grab n go scorer allows for him to better attack those slither of space. Lebron though, will never be able to just hunt mismatches the way he did 2016-2018. He's just too deliberate. He gets a mismatch on the wing and waits beat and bam there's 3 defenders sitting in his lap on the strong side.

This team can't just ever flow into good offense

[dcstanley]

Didn't bother watching the game but I see Reaves had an efficient 19 points, 12 assists, only 1 TO and still finished with a team worst -23. Has his defense become that much of an issue?

[reddyplayerone]

Didn't bother watching the game but I see Reaves had an efficient 19 points, 12 assists, only 1 TO and still finished with a team worst -23. Has his defense become that much of an issue?

Austin's struggles are a huge reason why the Lakers are in the position they're in now.

He was bad enough that nobody really made any noise when Ham benched him at the beginning of the year, and it's only in the past month that he's really started to find his stride offensively: less possessions being lost to his aimless dribbling in the hopes the refs will bail him out.

Even then, he's still only producing at about the same level he was last year, and it's pretty clear this roster was constructed with the idea that he would have improved more than he seems to have.

Then there's his defense, which yeah, it's not good. He's about the same level of defender as D'Lo is, and like I guess D'Lo has improved incrementally on that side of the ball so far this year, but nobody is confusing either him or Austin for stoppers.

This is what makes all of the criticisms of Ham so humorous or outright frustrating. Like, he has to play someone at all 5 positions on the court, and right now this Lakers team has a collection of guards and wings whose limited skillsets just aren't meshing, whether due to injury or underperformance or both.

D'Lo and Austin are the 2 best playmakers on the team outside of Bron and AD, and neither of them are very good defensively. So, Ham has to try to get some D out of guys like Cam Reddish or Taurean Prince, but they're both extremely limited offensively. Ham NEEDS to play a guy like Vando, who can guard nearly anyone on the court at a given time, but then that lineup is playing 4 on 5 offensively, or worse if he's on the court with Reddish.

The Lakers don't have a coaching issue. The coaching seemed to be fine when it got them to the WCF last summer. They have either a talent issue or a performance issue, if not both.

[Cavsfansince84]

Y'all complaining about a coach when you have 2 Top 100 players and 2 low-end starters in Reaves/Dlo and a bunch of 8th/9th best rotation guys like Prince, Vando, Rui, ect.

Quit blaming the coach. Your team has no depth and no talent outside of LeBron/AD.

Keep in mind this is the LeBron James thread. Not the Lakers general thread. So not all of us are huge Lakers fans so much as we don't mind seeing the Lakers do well because of LeBron. Having said that, Ham and Pelinka are both largely to blame imo. The players themselves also need to do better. There's plenty of blame to go around for a team that should be at least a few games better imo. They've completely fallen apart since winning the ist.

[Colbinii]

Y'all complaining about a coach when you have 2 Top 100 players and 2 low-end starters in Reaves/Dlo and a bunch of 8th/9th best rotation guys like Prince, Vando, Rui, ect.

Quit blaming the coach. Your team has no depth and no talent outside of LeBron/AD.

Keep in mind this is the LeBron James thread. Not the Lakers general thread. So not all of us are huge Lakers fans so much as we don't mind seeing the Lakers do well because of LeBron. Having said that, Ham and Pelinka are both largely to blame imo. The players themselves also need to do better. There's plenty of blame to go around for a team that should be at least a few games better imo. They've completely fallen apart since winning the ist.

What do you think this teams ceiling is as currently constructed?

[Cavsfansince84]

What do you think this teams ceiling is as currently constructed?

idk. I mean if you mean in terms of rs wins it's probably being in the play in and going from there. Part of how a team does in a season is a coach managing role players though. They aren't always consistent from season to season and a coach has to be able to find that groove with them. The Lakers have probably already lost 3-4 games purely because their role players shot around 30% from the floor(which is everyone minus LeBron/AD). Who is to blame for that? idk. It's not all on Ham but he's part of the puzzle. Way more so than LeBron and AD are. Pelinka is the bigger culprit though going into this season I think most people saw the Lakers as a top 4 team in the west. So plenty of blame to go around and I think at this point we are all expecting a couple trades to try and right the ship and then if you have a healthy big 2 in the playoffs you still like your chances since a lot of these western teams are very unproven in the postseason.

[TroubleS0me]

Read on Twitter

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[Mos_Heat]

What do you think this teams ceiling is as currently constructed?

idk. I mean if you mean in terms of rs wins it's probably being in the play in and going from there. Part of how a team does in a season is a coach managing role players though. They aren't always consistent from season to season and a coach has to be able to find that groove with them. The Lakers have probably already lost 3-4 games purely because their role players shot around 30% from the floor(which is everyone minus LeBron/AD). Who is to blame for that? idk. It's not all on Ham but he's part of the puzzle. Way more so than LeBron and AD are. Pelinka is the bigger culprit though going into this season I think most people saw the Lakers as a top 4 team in the west. So plenty of blame to go around and I think at this point we are all expecting a couple trades to try and right the ship and then if you have a healthy big 2 in the playoffs you still like your chances since a lot of these western teams are very unproven in the postseason.

That's their main problem. I myself for whatever reason thought they could win 46-48 games. Like Colbinii said their roster is mostly filled with career journeymen, a couple of borderline starters and 2 top 15( but neither is top 5) players

[Fadeaway_J]

What do you think this teams ceiling is as currently constructed?

idk. I mean if you mean in terms of rs wins it's probably being in the play in and going from there. Part of how a team does in a season is a coach managing role players though. They aren't always consistent from season to season and a coach has to be able to find that groove with them. The Lakers have probably already lost 3-4 games purely because their role players shot around 30% from the floor(which is everyone minus LeBron/AD). Who is to blame for that? idk. It's not all on Ham but he's part of the puzzle. Way more so than LeBron and AD are. Pelinka is the bigger culprit though going into this season I think most people saw the Lakers as a top 4 team in the west. So plenty of blame to go around and I think at this point we are all expecting a couple trades to try and right the ship and then if you have a healthy big 2 in the playoffs you still like your chances since a lot of these western teams are very unproven in the postseason.

That's their main problem. I myself for whatever reason thought they could win 46-48 games. Like Colbinii said their roster is mostly filled with career journeymen, a couple of borderline starters and 2 top 15( but neither is top 5) players

I think a lot of us were fooled by the WCF run, which in hindsight was largely a result of the conference being unusually weak and/or injured. Also, I'd describe LeBron and AD as top 10 players who can still look like top 5 on a given night, which gives them a high game-to-game ceiling than their overall talent warrants.

I'm not going to tell you Ham has been blameless, but this team as is seems like a play-in team (just like last year) except without the potential for an extended run.

[The High Cyde]

Trade Bron to the Clips, y’all are dancing around this like it’s the plague lol it’s easily the best fit just by virtue of still being in LA and competing for titles, which is all he should be caring about. Bringing a title to the Clips would mean more than the Lakers one, cause it would be their first ever.
He has to be looking across the hall and seeing Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and James Harden playing together and competing in their mid to late prime with Ty Lue coaching. Win a ring with the Clips, retire as a Cav.

Dudes 40 years old, he shouldn’t have to be averaging 25/7/7 every night which is a testament of his greatness, but that’s also a FO failure, who had him for like half a decade now and still can’t surround him with shooting and ball handling lmao like that has to be self sabotage at this point.

But I understand he won’t, he should though. Obvious as balls really.

[tone wone]

The 48 win projections probably had AD and Lebron missing their usual 15-25 games built in. The fact that they've been so available and they're still losing is disastrous.

[tone wone]

idk. I mean if you mean in terms of rs wins it's probably being in the play in and going from there. Part of how a team does in a season is a coach managing role players though. They aren't always consistent from season to season and a coach has to be able to find that groove with them. The Lakers have probably already lost 3-4 games purely because their role players shot around 30% from the floor(which is everyone minus LeBron/AD). Who is to blame for that? idk. It's not all on Ham but he's part of the puzzle. Way more so than LeBron and AD are. Pelinka is the bigger culprit though going into this season I think most people saw the Lakers as a top 4 team in the west. So plenty of blame to go around and I think at this point we are all expecting a couple trades to try and right the ship and then if you have a healthy big 2 in the playoffs you still like your chances since a lot of these western teams are very unproven in the postseason.

That's their main problem. I myself for whatever reason thought they could win 46-48 games. Like Colbinii said their roster is mostly filled with career journeymen, a couple of borderline starters and 2 top 15( but neither is top 5) players

I think a lot of us were fooled by the WCF run, which in hindsight was largely a result of the conference being unusually weak and/or injured. Also, I'd describe LeBron and AD as top 10 players who can still look like top 5 on a given night, which gives them a high game-to-game ceiling than their overall talent warrants.

I'm not going to tell you Ham has been blameless, but this team as is seems like a play-in team (just like last year) except without the potential for an extended run.

I don't buy the idea that people were fooled into thinking this team had a higher ceiling than they've shown so far this year.

Lebron and AD are the only guys in their 30s. The next oldest is Prince at 29 and Wood at 28. After that its really a bunch of mid-20 somethings who are expericed enough to expect a baseline level of performance but still young enough to improve even if the improvemt is largely fit and role. That WCF was glimpse into guys fitting into roles

[Fadeaway_J]

That's their main problem. I myself for whatever reason thought they could win 46-48 games. Like Colbinii said their roster is mostly filled with career journeymen, a couple of borderline starters and 2 top 15( but neither is top 5) players

I think a lot of us were fooled by the WCF run, which in hindsight was largely a result of the conference being unusually weak and/or injured. Also, I'd describe LeBron and AD as top 10 players who can still look like top 5 on a given night, which gives them a high game-to-game ceiling than their overall talent warrants.

I'm not going to tell you Ham has been blameless, but this team as is seems like a play-in team (just like last year) except without the potential for an extended run.

I don't buy the idea that people were fooled into thinking this team had a higher ceiling than they've shown so far this year.

Lebron and AD are the only guys in their 30s. The next oldest is Prince at 29 and Wood at 28. After that its really a bunch of mid-20 somethings who are expericed enough to expect a baseline level of performance but still young enough to improve even if the improvemt is largely fit and role. That WCF was glimpse into guys fitting into roles

The ceiling is higher than 17-19, but I don't see it as much higher than a 6-8 seed.