The Venting Thread

[Pythagoras]

Randle and Clarkson need to play more. Luke needs to stop messing around and shorten the rotation to get those guys 28 min a night. This team is WAY better when those guys are on the floor.

I don't need to see Brewer for 12 min a game.
I don't need to see Nance for 24 min a game (18 is more than enough for a guy who plays like he does).
I don't really want to see Josh Hart for 14 min just yet.

Not only are Randle and Nance more talented than those guys but they both bring elements to the team that we desperately need right now.

The good news? There's still plenty of time to turn it around. The Nuggets were sitting at 14-23 at one point last year before going on a run and finishing with 40 wins. I definitely feel like this team has the potential for that kind of run, they just have to hang tough and weather this storm.

[TylersLakers]

I can't! Mine would be a poster call out hahah.

Long story short, stop the overreaction everywhere...rookies players and rookie coaches on the job learning.. we'll be better for it in the long run.

That's my ultimate hope as well, that it's just rough because young coaches and young players are growing together. I do believe Luke is too smart of a guy not to adjust. But I just hope we don't trade young assets and get nothing in return when/if we strike out in free agency.

[CoachD]

Denvers roster is crap.. I would take our roster over their roster 100 times out of 100. And I dont think im being a homer in saying so.

You are definitely being a homer.

PG Jamal Murray / Mudiay
Murray is an evolving young star and is better than Clarkson and Ball.

SG Gary Harris / Beasley
Harris would be the Lakers best player

SF Chandler / Barton
While I like Ingrim, he's not as reliable as either of these guys yet.

PF Millsap / Faried / Lyles
Faried is a defensive liability, but he's still better than Kuzma in that regard.

C Jokic is easily one of the top players at his position and objectively is top 15 in the NBA.

[Pythagoras]

You are definitely being a homer.

I don't think Denver's roster is crap but your assessments are way off.

PG Jamal Murray / Mudiay
Murray is an evolving young star and is better than Clarkson and Ball.

Murray is better than Ball and has more value than Clarkson due to age and upside, but calling him an evolving young star is an incredibly loose definition of "star", and he's certainly not better than Clarkson yet.

SG Gary Harris / Beasley
Harris would be the Lakers best player

I like Harris and he would be the Lakers best guard, but no, he most certainly wouldn't be their best player.

SF Chandler / Barton
While I like Ingrim, he's not as reliable as either of these guys yet.

Ingram is so much better than Chandler already its not even funny. I do like Barton though, and he's having a nice year, but before the year is out Ingram will have surpassed him by a good bit too.

PF Millsap / Faried / Lyles
Faried is a defensive liability, but he's still better than Kuzma in that regard.

Yeah, again no. I'd take Kuzma and Randle over any one of those guys, although with Millsap its at least debatable I'll admit.

C Jokic is easily one of the top players at his position and objectively is top 15 in the NBA.

This was probably your only truly accurate statement.

[TylersLakers]

You are definitely being a homer.

I don't think Denver's roster is crap but your assessments are way off.

PG Jamal Murray / Mudiay
Murray is an evolving young star and is better than Clarkson and Ball.

Murray is better than Ball and has more value than Clarkson due to age and upside, but calling him an evolving young star is an incredibly loose definition of "star", and he's certainly not better than Clarkson yet.

SG Gary Harris / Beasley
Harris would be the Lakers best player

I like Harris and he would be the Lakers best guard, but no, he most certainly wouldn't be their best player.

SF Chandler / Barton
While I like Ingrim, he's not as reliable as either of these guys yet.

Ingram is so much better than Chandler already its not even funny. I do like Barton though, and he's having a nice year, but before the year is out Ingram will have surpassed him by a good bit too.

PF Millsap / Faried / Lyles
Faried is a defensive liability, but he's still better than Kuzma in that regard.

Yeah, again no. I'd take Kuzma and Randle over any one of those guys, although with Millsap its at least debatable I'll admit.

C Jokic is easily one of the top players at his position and objectively is top 15 in the NBA.

This was probably your only truly accurate statement.

I gotta disagree with you, my friend. I would take Jokic over any player on this team. Millsap is better than anyone currently on this roster. We all knew Jamal Murray was going to be a great shooter/scorer in the NBA. I would take Wilson Chandler and Barton on this team in a heart beat. As a matter of fact, he's a free agent this off-season. If we strike out on the big fish, I would instantly throw him a good sized contract. If we finished this off-season acquiring Paul George, Will Barton and re-signing Julius Randle, I'd be a happy camper.

Harris is underrated and one of the emerging players in the league.

Don't underestimate Denver. If they're healthy and given time, they're gonna be really good. I'm shocked at the start they had.

[XXBKXX]

Lopez is terrible maybe just give Thomas Bryant some of his minutes

When does Luke get to the point where instead of playing Lopez, we play Zubac/Bryant?

My main problem with that question when I ask myself that is why not now? This year shouldn't be about the playoffs. If the playoffs come, great. If not, oh well. It should be about developing the youth and putting them in positions to be successful. If all goes well, Lopez will not be here next year. And to make things worse, instead of giving back-up and spot minutes to Bryant or Zubac, it's going to Bogut!

If I was Earvin Johnson, I'd do the following:

- Waive Tyler Ennis, Andrew Bogut
- Sign Deron Williams, Mike Dunleavy -- Two veterans in positions of need. Both are quality 3PT shooters.
- If trade opportunities come up with Larry Nance, seriously evaluate them.
- Lonzo/Clarkson/Ingram/Kuzma/Randle as the starting group, with KCP/Lopez (for now)/Hart/Nance off the bench. If Nance is dealt, that opens up spot minutes for someone like Dunleavy/Zubac/Bryant.

I disagree... if the ultimate goal is to sign 2 max Free Agents next year then the main objective should be to make our team be as attractive as possible so free agents can CHOOSE to come here. The best way to do that is rack up as many wins as we can. Finishing 2 games above 500 and making the playoffs as the 8th seed does that imo. Selling an 8th seed team is an easier pitch to a 28 yo FA as opposed to being a bottom 3 team again.

Second on our priorities is developing the young core. However this cannot come at the expense of winning though. There's a way to moderately develop our kids without throwing games away.. For instance, we don't need to give Josh Hart 30 mins a game. However, we CAN and SHOULD start Kuzma. How we go about threading the needle on those two priorities is up to Luke to figure out. Because we do have enough talent to be a 500 team this year.

[thankyouKOBE]

I firmly believe Randle and Kuzma should be getting more playing time than Josh Hart (who had like 20 minutes the other night), Nance, KCP, Clarkson, etc. Brewer did well against Booker, but other than special defensive opportunities, he should be on the bench. You have to give Lonzo the right players around him, up-tempo. It's not that difficult?

Has anybody seen the Lakers roll out this lineup? Lopez/Randle/Kuzma/Ingram/Ball? Or maybe Lopez/Randle/Ingram (Kuzma)/Clarkson/Ball?

I like KCP, but he's been dodgy so far other than that good game he had recently. Ball has been so bad lately that if he's having a crappy night, Clarkson should be in for him.

[Landsberger]

The Bogut signing is very puzzling to me. At this point in his career he's at best a "security big" to back up an injury prone center on a true contender. He has no business on a young and developing team.

Zubac has the basic fundamentals to develop into a decent pro IMHO. He showed some flashes last year at 19 of a decent offensive game. It seems that his year he's being relegated to mop up duty behind Lopez and Bogut. I don't get that. Sure he'd struggle at times but having him just sit there isn't going to help us find out if he's a keeper or if not then increase his value to someone else.

I have an affinity for Pro's with a complete fundamental game. For a 19 year old he's pretty far advanced. I think he can develop into a mismatch type of player off the bench for us in the right situation. Right now he has no situation.

[XXBKXX]

You are definitely being a homer.

Disagree.

I don't think Denver's players are performing as well as you think they are.

PG
Murray(14/2/2)
Mudiay(10/3/3)
**Clarkson (15/3/3)
**Ball (9/7/7)

SG
Gary Harris (15/3/3)
Barton (15/5/3)
**KCP (14/5/2)

Forwards
W Chandler (9/4/3)
Milsap (15/6/3)
Faried (7/5/0.5)
Lyles (5/3/0.5)
** Ingram (16/6/3)
** Kuzma (17/7/2)
** Randle (12/7/2)
** Nance (9/7/1)

Center
Jokic (15/10/5)
Plumlee (6/5/2)
** Lopez (13/5/2)
** Randle (12/7/2)

PG : you can call it a wash based on output. Murray is a streaky shooter and looking at his game log is very inconsistent. Can be a good talent but he's not having a better year than Clarkson. Ball gets more assists than both murray/mudiay combined.

SG: probably Denver's strongest position from an overall perspective however Harris isn't putting up that much more than KCP right now. Our drop off is when we sub in J Hart or Brewer at SG.

Forwards : definitely Lakers strongest position to no surprise. Both BI and Kuzma are outperforming milsap/Chandler. That's before we even get to talk about Randle (in only 20 mins/game) and Nance's defense.

Center: Jokic is a stud but he's not killing Brook. On paper this SHOULD be at least a wash as Brook has averaged 20/7 last two seasons and is typically a consistent 20/6 player. I think we can all agree Luke just isn't using him right. Can't make him a predominantly faceup center. He's decent at shooting but make no mistake about it, his bread and butter is still in the post. Need to get him more touches in the paint.

Overall I cant see how one could make the argument that Denvers roster dwarfs ours... I would definitely still take our roster over there's every time. BI and Kuzma alone is better than what Denver has. Especially if Luke figures out how to use Brook as he's supposed to be our best player giving us 20 a night. Our bench is also better than Denver's -- I don't think anyone would argue with that?

Either way, what sticks out the most to me in this comparison is that you would think that both teams would have similar records based on output/personnel but Denver is clearly out playing Lakers overall.. This is a clear knock against Luke. Luke needs to find ways to maximize the talent we have on the team. Because we do have a decent team....We are underperforming and SHOULD have more wins and be around the 500 mark as opposed to 8-14..

[SlimShady83]

Didn't want to start a new thread so thought I'd ask this here

Q) Since this team is actually quite young (youngest in NBA close to it??) I'm curious to know is it worth having set plays and an actual offense - I think this team might be better off running freestyle maybe a couple set plays here and there. And just concentrate more on Defense as our "Team Defense" is pretty good most games. Once you have the Defense down then maybe work on the offense rather then trying to do both things at once for such a young team???

[Spanish_Laker]

Where is the Official Lottery Watch thread? That one has been my favorite since 2013.

[SashaTheMachine]

I don’t play 2k anymore cause of you, Lakers.

[kobe808lak]

I'm pissed we been tanking for years and the only guy left that looks like an actual building block is Ingram. No Franchise changing talents though unfortunately.

[Laker_Kid]

The Bogut signing is very puzzling to me. At this point in his career he's at best a "security big" to back up an injury prone center on a true contender. He has no business on a young and developing team.

I like Bogut as vet presence though. But at the same time, I think I’ve seen enough of him to say that Zubac should get his minutes. I actually think he’d play well with the second unit.

[OzCastiel]

It's obvious why Lonzo is playing over other guys in 4th quarters. But do you think them not wanting to pay randle is why they're fooling with his minutes and making it seem like he's on some sort of punishment for bad behavior half the time? Earvin hasn't shown to be much of a basketball exec but he definitely knows how to manage money

[Kilroy]

Luke loves the hell out of Nance... He got the starting gig based on some arbitrary scoring in practice whiteboard thing they track... And Luke goes out of his way to gush about his rather pedestrian performances this season, to the point of literally cheering for him on the sidelines...
Nance was irredeemably terrible his first game back from injury for instance... A game where Ingram, Randle, JC and KCP all played well... Lukes comment? "I thought Nance was the best player on the floor tonight, honestly."
That's why Randle's PT has been cut drastically...
Now, that could all be part of some elaborate scheme to get his asking price down... In fact I suggested the same thing early in the season... But the longer it goes, the more I just think it's one of those things where a coach falls in love with a given player and can't see that he's not as good as he thinks he is...

I also think they discussed an extension with Randle this summer and hoped to convince him to sign on the cheap to help the cap situation... But Randle and his Agent weren't having it... That's pure speculation.

It has nothing to do with Lonzo Ball IMO... Lonzo's playing because he's supposed to be the future face of the franchise... Nothing more.

[Pythagoras]

I'm pissed we been tanking for years and the only guy left that looks like an actual building block is Ingram. No Franchise changing talents though unfortunately.

That’s a little over dramatic don’t you think?

Randle/Kuzma/Ingram is a solid core, with Ingram looking like a perennial all star out of that group. It’s not Randle’s fault that Magic doesn’t apparently apprciate that he’s developed into a nice young player.

Then you also add Clarkson and Nance who are nice complimentary pieces.

The problem is that there’s not much around them.

Ball is having an historically awful season offensively.
BroLo is underperforming.
KCP is only slightly below average.

Compound that problem with Luke underplaying to of his weapons in Randle and Clarkson, and that’s why you get the disappointing start to the season.

[TylersLakers]

http://www.forumblueandgold.com/2017/12/06/laker-film-room-podcast-lets-talk-luke/

This is a great podcast to listen to when it comes to Luke Walton. Two guys' opinions who I respect a whole lot. And Pete is in there at practices asking Luke questions like the other beat writers.

[Beethoven]

My assessment at this time is that both luke and ball are small fishes in a big pond and are both deer-in-the-headlights , so we gotta do similar moves with both, move them to the assistant coach position and to the bench , respectively. How? Dunno. But this has to be a big fix in our chronic problem now.

[Laker_Kid]

My assessment at this time is that both luke and ball are small fishes in a big pond and are both deer-in-the-headlights , so we gotta do similar moves with both, move them to the assistant coach position and to the bench , respectively. How? Dunno. But this has to be a big fix in our chronic problem now.

there's no chance of that happening.