The Lebron '20 Thread (Pt. 5)

[nzahir]

No reason for LeBron to try and take over yet. This was one of those games where LeBron was testing the limits of his teammates and how up to the challenge they are.

They failed the test tonight, but hopefully this makes them realize they can't just count on LeBron to carry them for 20+ games... i rather have a wake up game like this than LeBron trying to win it solo.

Ya y not start trying when you are down 0-1 vs the hottest team in the league

Need aggressive Lebron tomorrow

What LAL must look at from a change standpoint:

Mcgee can't play 13 min a night right now. 6-8 min.

So either he starts for a bit and heads out, or we swap Kuzma/Kieff for him.

Or we start KCP, Kuzma, Lebron, AD, Mcgee

Kuzma has to be the teams 3rd best guy. He isn't perfect by and means, but to unlock our highest potential, he has to be out there

Dion needs to **** play, that was a joke Vogel. No other shot creators

KCP, Kuzma, Lebron, AD, Mcgee
AC, Dion, DG, Kieff, Dwight

Cook is the 11th guy if our "shooters" keep bricking

[limbo]

No reason for LeBron to try and take over yet. This was one of those games where LeBron was testing the limits of his teammates and how up to the challenge they are.

They failed the test tonight, but hopefully this makes them realize they can't just count on LeBron to carry them for 20+ games... i rather have a wake up game like this than LeBron trying to win it solo.

Ya y not start trying when you are down 0-1 vs the hottest team in the league

Need aggressive Lebron tomorrow

What LAL must look at from a change standpoint:

Mcgee can't play 13 min a night right now. 6-8 min.

So either he starts for a bit and heads out, or we swap Kuzma/Kieff for him.

Or we start KCP, Kuzma, Lebron, AD, Mcgee

Kuzma has to be the teams 3rd best guy. He isn't perfect by and means, but to unlock our highest potential, he has to be out there

Dion needs to **** play, that was a joke Vogel. No other shot creators

KCP, Kuzma, Lebron, AD, Mcgee
AC, Dion, DG, Kieff, Dwight

Cook is the 11th guy if our "shooters" keep bricking

Portland is not the 'hottest' team in the league, though Lillard as a player is up there currently.

Defense has been fine. LeBron and AD will be more aggressive on offense and shooters will do better than 15% behind the arc... that should be enough.

[yoyoboy]

Lillard with the way he’s playing right now honestly scares me even more than Steph did. Just like with Curry it feels like everything he shoots is going in and he’s willing to shoot them as soon as he crosses the logo, but Dame is even more trigger happy than Steph.

[NbaAllDay]

Lebron was looking good before the hiatus like he usually does right near 5he beginning of the playoffs. I've never really worried when he looks 'slower' at the start of the season. However the hiatus was effectively an end of season break. Imagine LBJ going into the playoffs in November in a normal year. He isnt close to being at full pace. So I worry that he just wont be able to get his legs like he is use to and it's the first time in a while I doubt his ability to be the best player.

[G35]

If the Lakers lose this series the worst part will be the Laker trolls who have never liked lebron who will say “Kobe would’ve done X!” regardless of the evidence. It’s already starting.

Pretty insecure about that legacy huh...shoulda stayed in the East.....

NOt insecure in the slightest. Just tired of the pathetic trolls.

You're a troll...and you know who you troll...but you take your cues from Lebron being extra sensitive and you can't take you what you dish out.

Kobe has been getting trolled pretty much his whole career and used it as motivation......

[dcstanley]

I don't see how they can remedy their shooting woes. They've been generating quality shots since they've entered the bubble-- they just aren't knocking them down. I guess they have to consider playing guys like Dudley, Dion, and Kieff more but I'm done expecting this rotation to knock down threes at a healthy clip.

[nzahir]

I don't see how they can remedy their shooting woes. They've been generating quality shots since they've entered the bubble-- they just aren't knocking them down. I guess they have to consider playing guys like Dudley, Dion, and Kieff more but I'm done expecting this rotation to knock down threes at a healthy clip.

They should be practicing heavily on shoot around

DG and KCP need to really dig in and focus

[Greyhound]

I don't see how they can remedy their shooting woes. They've been generating quality shots since they've entered the bubble-- they just aren't knocking them down. I guess they have to consider playing guys like Dudley, Dion, and Kieff more but I'm done expecting this rotation to knock down threes at a healthy clip.

They should be practicing heavily on shoot around

DG and KCP need to really dig in and focus

Shooting seems to be off team wide. Several players look out of shape and overweight (Davis, McGee, Green, Dudley).

This leads me to wonder, what the hell are they doing in practice.

Vogel wasted the scrimmages and used them like a summer league (prioritizing THT, little freak, etc). He then wasted the seeding games and used them like a preseason. Meanwhile his regulars appear to be out of shape and out of sync.

Other coaches were ramping up the minutes of their players and cutting their rotations trying to get their key players in postseason shape. Vogel was resting players who were coming off of a multi month hiatus (as though the stoppage never happened and the players were still in mid season form).

He prioritized players like Waiters, Cook, Dudley and Smith during the seeding games.
All four of them combined played a grand total of 1 minute in the first playoff game.

He is slow to adjust his minutes distribution and lineups, regardless of how poorly certain players are performing. Their minutes and place in the lineup are set in stone.

This entire situation has been fumbled by him and I am hoping the team can overcome it.

Vogel is not a guy who has been there and his lack of championship level experience shows. This was a concern of mine coming into the bubble. My fear is that players like James and Rondo start to catch on to this and effectively David Blatt him.

[thebigbird]

Pretty insecure about that legacy huh...shoulda stayed in the East.....

NOt insecure in the slightest. Just tired of the pathetic trolls.

You're a troll...and you know who you troll...but you take your cues from Lebron being extra sensitive and you can't take you what you dish out.

Kobe has been getting trolled pretty much his whole career and used it as motivation......

You have 5400 and1s on 20k posts. Not sure that I'm the troll here.

[KTM_2813]

I don't see how they can remedy their shooting woes. They've been generating quality shots since they've entered the bubble-- they just aren't knocking them down. I guess they have to consider playing guys like Dudley, Dion, and Kieff more but I'm done expecting this rotation to knock down threes at a healthy clip.

They should be practicing heavily on shoot around

DG and KCP need to really dig in and focus

Shooting seems to be off team wide. Several players look out of shape and overweight (Davis, McGee, Green, Dudley).

This leads me to wonder, what the hell are they doing in practice.

Vogel wasted the scrimmages and used them like a summer league (prioritizing THT, little freak, etc). He then wasted the seeding games and used them like a preseason. Meanwhile his regulars appear to be out of shape and out of sync.

Other coaches were ramping up the minutes of their players and cutting their rotations trying to get their key players in postseason shape. Vogel was resting players who were coming off of a multi month hiatus (as though the stoppage never happened and the players were still in mid season form).

He prioritized players like Waiters, Cook, Dudley and Smith during the seeding games.
All four of them combined played a grand total of 1 minute in the first playoff game.

He is slow to adjust his minutes distribution and lineups, regardless of how poorly certain players are performing. Their minutes and place in the lineup are set in stone.

This entire situation has been fumbled by him and I am hoping the team can overcome it.

Vogel is not a guy who has been there and his lack of championship level experience shows. This was a concern of mine coming into the bubble. My fear is that players like James and Rondo start to catch onto this and effectively David Blatt him.

I agree. The Lakers didn't play competitive basketball for four months, and then when the season resumed, they... decided to basically not play competitive basketball until the playoffs. To be fair, a lot of other teams took this approach as well, but Los Angeles was especially nonchalant. Between how badly he handled the bubble, and now with the bad rotations in the playoffs, I'm genuinely concerned about Vogel as a coach. He does certain things extremely well, namely defense and morale building, but he also seems to do some things very poorly. Against the Blazers, the Lakers should still be able to win as long as their shooting gets marginally better... But that's not a guarantee. And if they do advance, they'll need to fix a lot of other problems to keep going.

[nzahir]

I don't see how they can remedy their shooting woes. They've been generating quality shots since they've entered the bubble-- they just aren't knocking them down. I guess they have to consider playing guys like Dudley, Dion, and Kieff more but I'm done expecting this rotation to knock down threes at a healthy clip.

They should be practicing heavily on shoot around

DG and KCP need to really dig in and focus

Shooting seems to be off team wide. Several players look out of shape and overweight (Davis, McGee, Green, Dudley).

This leads me to wonder, what the hell are they doing in practice.

Vogel wasted the scrimmages and used them like a summer league (prioritizing THT, little freak, etc). He then wasted the seeding games and used them like a preseason. Meanwhile his regulars appear to be out of shape and out of sync.

Other coaches were ramping up the minutes of their players and cutting their rotations trying to get their key players in postseason shape. Vogel was resting players who were coming off of a multi month hiatus (as though the stoppage never happened and the players were still in mid season form).

He prioritized players like Waiters, Cook, Dudley and Smith during the seeding games.
All four of them combined played a grand total of 1 minute in the first playoff game.

He is slow to adjust his minutes distribution and lineups, regardless of how poorly certain players are performing. Their minutes and place in the lineup are set in stone.

This entire situation has been fumbled by him and I am hoping the team can overcome it.

Vogel is not a guy who has been there and his lack of championship level experience shows. This was a concern of mine coming into the bubble. My fear is that players like James and Rondo start to catch onto this and effectively David Blatt him.

Guys missing open looks isn't on Vogel
Guys being lazy **** pieces of **** isn't on Vogel

I think testing out guys like Dion, JR, and Cook was fine. Dion showed good flashes and should be playing, we desperately needed it. Also, we started to play those guys when our starting guys couldn't' hit **** ****.

There was no reason to risk an injury before the real games started, but these guys have to pick up the effort and make open 3s.

This summer is going to be very interesting. Regardless of what happens, multiple guys need to go.
DG, Mcgee, and maybe even KCP. Cook can go too.

Need to bring in guys who can shoot and some dynamic scoring guard:
Schroeder or Mills are somewhat realistic pg's. Rose is too, but can't shoot, play d, and injury concerns. If he comes, need to move on from AC (not sure I would do that).

Bjelica would be a nice trade as well

These moves are considering we don't collapse this rd or next. If we do, get ready for the cp3 rumors to really ramp up.

I would actually expect him to be a Laker if we dont play competitive in rd 3

[trickshot]

Missed watching his haters rally in excitement after falling behind in a series

[trex_8063]

Missed watching his haters rally in excitement after falling behind in a series

2-3 months ago (when they were just getting plans for resuming the season worked out [and when the last view anyone had of the Lakers they were downright scary]), there were posters preemptively saying that the playoffs this year [and whoever won them] would forever have an asterisk next to them.

However, if the Lakers fall in the first round [or ANY round prior to the finals], these same people will forthwith [and forever] cite this year's playoffs as carrying the full/normal measure of relevance as any other year.

[Baski]

With this type of half court attack, you have to be all time best playoff defense and I don't see it

True to an extent. I do think they won't have another game as bad as this offensively though. That lowers the bar for how good defensively they have to be. They won't be 2019-2020 Raptors good, but this rag tag group of scrappers has the potential to really dig in and completely shut opponents down, especially at the rim. It'll come down to the effort of their 2 best players.

You're right in the sense that they have to leave it all on the floor especially defensively this PS if they wanna win the title. Like "lock **** up and eat the key" kinda commitment. Cos their offense won't cut it against the top teams.

Against the Blazers, yes. That's probably their worst offensive game. But against good teams they would probably be in the range of [i]82-90 ortg in the half court. This team has one shot creator and hilariously bad at shooting jump shots. I mean, they aren't running sets of curls and DHOs, these guys can't make stationary shots from corners

Yikes! I think that's a little pessimistic. Only team I think is capable of doing that is the Raptors.

Edit:
Oh I see you meant just halfcourt. Yeah I can see that

[Greyhound]

They should be practicing heavily on shoot around

DG and KCP need to really dig in and focus

Shooting seems to be off team wide. Several players look out of shape and overweight (Davis, McGee, Green, Dudley).

This leads me to wonder, what the hell are they doing in practice.

Vogel wasted the scrimmages and used them like a summer league (prioritizing THT, little freak, etc). He then wasted the seeding games and used them like a preseason. Meanwhile his regulars appear to be out of shape and out of sync.

Other coaches were ramping up the minutes of their players and cutting their rotations trying to get their key players in postseason shape. Vogel was resting players who were coming off of a multi month hiatus (as though the stoppage never happened and the players were still in mid season form).

He prioritized players like Waiters, Cook, Dudley and Smith during the seeding games.
All four of them combined played a grand total of 1 minute in the first playoff game.

He is slow to adjust his minutes distribution and lineups, regardless of how poorly certain players are performing. Their minutes and place in the lineup are set in stone.

This entire situation has been fumbled by him and I am hoping the team can overcome it.

Vogel is not a guy who has been there and his lack of championship level experience shows. This was a concern of mine coming into the bubble. My fear is that players like James and Rondo start to catch onto this and effectively David Blatt him.

Guys missing open looks isn't on Vogel
Guys being lazy **** pieces of **** isn't on Vogel

I think testing out guys like Dion, JR, and Cook was fine. Dion showed good flashes and should be playing, we desperately needed it. Also, we started to play those guys when our starting guys couldn't' hit **** ****.

There was no reason to risk an injury before the real games started, but these guys have to pick up the effort and make open 3s.

This summer is going to be very interesting. Regardless of what happens, multiple guys need to go.
DG, Mcgee, and maybe even KCP. Cook can go too.

Need to bring in guys who can shoot and some dynamic scoring guard:
Schroeder or Mills are somewhat realistic pg's. Rose is too, but can't shoot, play d, and injury concerns. If he comes, need to move on from AC (not sure I would do that).

Bjelica would be a nice trade as well

These moves are considering we don't collapse this rd or next. If we do, get ready for the cp3 rumors to really ramp up.

I would actually expect him to be a Laker if we dont play competitive in rd 3

We will just have to agree to disagree.

Vogel is not at fault for these things but he is in position to both influence and correct them. Be it emphasis in practice or repercussions in playing time.

Rivers, Spoelstra, McMillan, Nurse, D’Antoni and Carlisle are some coaches I thought handled the seeding games extremely well. They rested players some games, abbreviated their minutes in the last game or two, but for the most part they cut down their rotations and focused on giving their main players reps.

I don’t particularly care about offseason acquisitions at this time. We will cross that bridge when the time comes.

Hopefully later rather then sooner.

[Greyhound]

Missed watching his haters rally in excitement after falling behind in a series

2-3 months ago (when they were just getting plans for resuming the season worked out [and when the last view anyone had of the Lakers they were downright scary]), there were posters preemptively saying that the playoffs this year [and whoever won them] would forever have an asterisk next to them.

However, if the Lakers fall in the first round [or ANY round prior to the finals], these same people will forthwith [and forever] cite this year's playoffs as carrying the full/normal measure of relevance as any other year.

I agree.

If LeBron and the Lakers win, there will be talk of asterisk. If they fall, it will be LeBron failed again (3-7 jokes if he falls in the Finals).

That will happen.

[G35]

NOt insecure in the slightest. Just tired of the pathetic trolls.

You're a troll...and you know who you troll...but you take your cues from Lebron being extra sensitive and you can't take you what you dish out.

Kobe has been getting trolled pretty much his whole career and used it as motivation......

You have 5400 and1s on 20k posts. Not sure that I'm the troll here.

That is because I'm not searching for approval on the internet...I don't mind saying what is not popular. Unlike yourself who obviously is sensitive to what other people think.....

[G35]

Missed watching his haters rally in excitement after falling behind in a series

2-3 months ago (when they were just getting plans for resuming the season worked out [and when the last view anyone had of the Lakers they were downright scary]), there were posters preemptively saying that the playoffs this year [and whoever won them] would forever have an asterisk next to them.

However, if the Lakers fall in the first round [or ANY round prior to the finals], these same people will forthwith [and forever] cite this year's playoffs as carrying the full/normal measure of relevance as any other year.

I agree.

If LeBron and the Lakers win, there will be talk of asterisk. If they fall, it will be LeBron failed again (3-7 jokes if he falls in the Finals).

That will happen.

That is similar to this thinking, "Lebron can only enhance his legacy, nothing he does can hurt his standing."

Very convenient isn't it......

[JLei]

Another adjustment to add.

If McGee/ Howard are gonna play next to AD.

They need to Theis roll to the basket and not roll for the lob. Just clear Whiteside out of the way and go for tip ins. I.e. what they did to Lopez in that March game.

[Basileus777]

NOt insecure in the slightest. Just tired of the pathetic trolls.

You're a troll...and you know who you troll...but you take your cues from Lebron being extra sensitive and you can't take you what you dish out.

Kobe has been getting trolled pretty much his whole career and used it as motivation......

You have 5400 and1s on 20k posts. Not sure that I'm the troll here.

Do you think the and1 button always existed? Odd thing to even mention for someone who made most of their posts before there was an and1 button.