Jazzfan1971 and Floppymoose's season preview - The Lakers

[jazzfan1971]

29 - Los Angeles Lakers

Projected Depth Chart
----------------------------

PG - Jeremy Lin, Steve Nash, Clarkson?
SG - Kobe Bryant, Nick Young
SF - Wesley Johnson, Xavier Henry
PF - Carlos Boozer, Julius Randle, Ryan Kelly
C - Jordan Hill, Ed Davis, Robert Sacre

Trading Block: Expiring contract. If someone is looking to clear cap room and is willing to pay the price I think the Lakers would be happy to help.

Position Battle: Carlos Boozer vs. Julius Randle. In the run up to the draft I often thought that Randle would end up being a player a lot like Boozer. It's interesting that they could be fighting for minutes this season. I don't think it would take much out of Randle to gain the starting job.

Mystery Man: Jordan Hill. Hill has played in 259 NBA games, of which he's only started in 52. Last year he started 9 games at center giving about 17 points, 10 rebounds, 1.7 blocks, 1 steal, and 1.6 assists. I'm not sure he can keep that up over the course of a season, but, then again someone has to put up stats on the Lakers so who knows?

Floppymusings:
I like the Lin pickup. And Kobe is going to singlehandedly win a few close games in the 4th like he always does. I actually don't believe my win/loss projection below - I think they will 'overachieve'. But they are still going to be the worst team in the west regardless.

Jazzfanramblings:
Has beens, shoulda beens, and never weres. I'm not sure if that's a quote or just something I made up, but, it's what bubbled to the top of my mind when I was looking at the Lakers roster. Kobe, Nash, and Boozer are the has beens. MVP and Allstar level players who just aren't what they used to be anymore. They have a nice collection of players that shoulda been as well. All of Johnson, Henry, Hill, and Davis were guys that I liked coming out of college who just never seemed to reach the level I had hoped for them. And of course the never weres, every team has a collection of those guys. It's definitely a motley crew. And I'm not entirely sure how it will perform on the court. The potential is there to be good, if everything goes just so. But, there is also the potential to just be a dumpster fire.

Myself, I have them fighting with the Jazz for worst record in the West. I think it's all about next year for the Lakers at any rate. They'll be looking at a nice draft pick and a boatload of cap room to surround or supplant Kobe next year. That's the reason I'm leaning more towards dumpster fire. But, if the plan is that then why throw money at Boozer, even for a year? So, I really don't have a good feel for what they are trying to do. It seems a bit directionless to me.

Projected record - 15/67

[EArl]

So you're saying we will get 12 less wins compared to last year when everyone on the team was riddled with injury. I don't buy it. At worst this lakers team gets 30-35 win.

[jazzfan1971]

I'll let Floppy field that question, the rankings are his baby.

[Nowitness]

Wow, interesting rankings-wise, IMO they'll finish better than the Jazz, T-Wolves, and possibly the Kings.

[dockingsched]

15 wins? Is this suppose to be taken seriously?

[XtotheDeezy]

I don't see how we're worse than the Jazz, Kings, and T-Wolves. Call me an optimistic Laker fan, but I see ourselves in the same tier as Denver.

[carlquincy]

Reasoning is sound, but projection is bad...

I think there is a good chance Lakers would start out strong but eventually runs out of steam and drop out of playoff contention.

30-35 wins.

[spaceballer]

They'll be looking at a nice draft pick and a boatload of cap room to surround or supplant Kobe next year.

I think you're wrong about the draft pick.

The Lakers don't have their draft pick unless it lands in the top 5 (would require competing with the Philly Super Tanking Sixers and the Leastern Conference as well as lucky lotto balls). And while it may end up there, a team with Kobe and the moves they made (like trying to add talent by bidding on amnestied players) indicates they're not trying to deliberately tank. Even with a terrible team last year, they failed to get a top 5 pick. With Kobe coming back, this team should be improved from last year, even if not much. So if they failed to get top 5 last year, there's no reason an equal or better team this year will land in the top 5. The only way to 100% guarantee a top 5 pick (and thus keeping their pick) would be finishing with a bottom 2 record (stiff competition from Sixers in the Leastern Conference and other super tankers). So that means the pick goes to the Suns, most likely, and trying to tank would only deliver the number 6 pick to the Suns or something. So the Lakers are unlikely to keep their pick, thus no reason to do a half-hearted tank job.

They do possess Houston's conditional pick, but that depends on Houston's record and is irrelevant to how the Lakers perform.

[Imon]

I think the Lakers will do better than last year although not by much - maybe by just a handful of games.

That team they had last year was absolutely terrible.
The thing that I think a lot of people forget is that at the beginning of the season, I think 18 or 20 games in, the Lakers actually had a .500 record. Lots of people, including myself, were surprised at the Lakers 'overachievement.'
Basically, the Lakers won a large chunk of the games that they would win in the first quarter of the season then stunk it up for the rest.

[Wreckus13]

Lol @ 15 wins. That's absurd.

[jirojan]

lol.....i appreciate the effort put into this...but that whole thing is ridiculous

jordan hill mystery man? lol...hes basically a 32min 13/9 guy

lol @ 15 wins...how are they worse than last year?

[giberish]

Looking around the WC, Lin is a bottom-5 starting PG, while whoever starts at SF/PF/C will all be bottom-3. That's pretty bleak. Their depth only looks good in that there isn't much drop-off from their starters, but most of their starters are 9-10th men on a competitive team. IMO this is the worst roster Kobe's ever played on (Lamar Odom by himself made those post-Shaq teams better than this).

15 wins is too low though. Only Philly and Milwaukee approached that last year. Some years 20 wins is the bottom of the league (Philly should go under that this year, but no-one else). Anywhere from 20-35 wins, with 25-30 the most likely range. I'd put them between Utah and Sacramento in the WC bottom tier.

It'll be interesting at the end of the year if they tank extra hard to try and keep their pick (they'd have to be bottom-2 to be sure, but 3rd or 4th have good odds to stay bottom-5 after the lotto), or they decide that they've lost their pick and push for competitiveness (while some teams around them tank).

[42uptop]

"Worst team in the west" is crazy fmpov, and this is coming from someone who thinks Randle is garbage and Boozer is washed up. Kobe is still capable of playing at a very high level. Lin and Hill are both good starters when they have a coach that doesn't inexplicably throw them in the doghouse. And as much as I dislike him, Nick Young is a decent 6th man. Unless you're telling me this team is going to be plagued by injuries I see at least 25 wins. They will be better than Minnesota, Sacramento, and Utah.

[MountainDrew]

Lakers' situation is really not looking good though. They are no where near a playoff team, but they might JUST squeek out enough wins to lose their pick to Phoenix. And they can't tell Kobe they want to tank when he's still playing. This franchise is on the way down.

15 wins definitely seems too low.

[Hoopstar23]

I really think if they stay healthy I think the Lakers get the 8th seed in the West I see career years from Lin and Hill and Kobe being Kobe

[floppymoose]

I will likely tweak the win totals.... I don't much believe 15 wins either. But I do predict last in the west.

[ceiling raiser]

Really not looking forward to seeing any of Lin or Boozer this season. Ugh...

[RollingWave]

I have mixed thoughts on them, they won't be GOOD, in the sense of actually being meaningful in the playoff or anything, but anything between "horrible" to "surprisingly decent" is plausible. they have enough unknown that a Phoenix Suns situation is not that improbable.

One can look at it this way, last year, Kobe played virtually no game, the year before he was a 10 win player, Pau played 60 game and had lower win share than Jeremy Lin and Carlos Boozer, looking it from that prospective you already seen glimps of a 40 win team, of course, it will rarely turn out like that.

I personally think their most important key to not sucking would be to simply not play Carlos Boozer, like.. almost at all. because not only is there a tremendous overlap of skills between him and Jordan Hill, he is a slow plodder on a team mostly built to run.

That is the odd identity crisis you see with this mix of guys, If you look at a lineup of say.. Lin / Young / Kelly / Davis / Hill , you'll immediately think of them as a team that's going to run very heavily in transition and pick and roll, yet the same team also will feature a ton of Kobe Byrant and possibly Carlos Boozer, it doesn't make that much sense.

The key to all this is of course, Byron Scott, which doesn't instill too much confidence in most folks, since he has been known to be an unimaginative offensive coach that relies entirely on his star guard to make things happen, and despite a reputation of a defensive coach, has not actually built a good defensively team in over a decade now, his interviews sounds very dubious as he mutter a bunch of stuff about running the Princeton Offence (good luck doing that with exactly zero above average passing bigs and a bunch of dubious bball IQ wings) I guess they can't out right suck offensively because if all else fails they probably just do 100% Kobe isos. which at least have a pretty high floor, albeit also a low ceiling. (assuming he's healthy though.)

The positive of course is that sometimes these coaches evolve over time, and Scott certainly didn't look like he was begged to come coach the Lakers (if anything, it's the other way around.) so hopefully he has some serious incentive to evolve as a coach.

We'll see, I think the Lakers are one of the harder team to peg this year, I could see them as high as 45 win in a everything go right situation, and obviously could also fall apart, but they have enough veterans to make it unlikely to fall that much below where it was last year.

In short, I think they'll do well if (assuming health of course.)
1. generally keep things simple on offense
2. MOAR RYAN KELLY and Ed Davis
3. Less to no Carlos Boozer and Wes Johnson

They'll suck if
1. Carlos Boozer starts most games.
2. Ed Davis and Ryan Kelly never sees the floor
3. Them actually trying hard to run a Princeton offense.

[Ace626]

LOL

Your predictions are terrible, your analyst is terrible, your entire view on basketball is just bad.
Next time you decide to include your names in a title of a topic, in the attempts of making your opinion sound credible, at least make your post somewhat knowledgeable

Ofcourse, this is all the opinion of just two regular users, but how about we put some money on this? $100 Lakers rank 12+ in the west, anything below I lose, if they do end up getting the worst seed, ill cough up $300

Lets make it happen

[floppymoose]

I've won several money bets on realgm, and the other party has paid zero times. Feel free to make your own standings prediction, though. We can compare at the end of the season and see who did better.