The Lebron Thread | 2021 & Offseason

[MisterHibachi]

LMAO what was LeBron doing during those FTs?

Looked like he was talking with either Lue or Kawhi.

[MisterHibachi]

Damn, Heej you might have been right about the tease lol

what tease?

Lakers getting close but never actually taking the lead.

[dcstanley]

Caruso should never be the primary ball-handler.

[GSP]

its funny when Playoff P has games like this in the regular season b/c you know he cant replicate them when it matters in the playoffs

[MisterHibachi]

its funny when Playoff P has games like this in the regular season b/c you know he cant replicate them when it matters in the playoffs

Still very annoying seeing PG be good.

[Heej]

Yup, it's one of those games. Like that (ugh) Denver game that just completely turned at 99-96

I've noticed that happens a lot in these big comeback games. The team that claws back just never fully breaks the spell and the team that's up just keeps them at Bay here and there. Even if the Lakers do take the lead there's a lot more pressure on them to maintain it. Probably because you're at such a high tension mentally just to claw your way back that the pressure never subsides

Or the basketball Gods don't like that they didn't respect the game to start.

I think it depends how late the run is.

In that Denver game - they were just absolutely gassed and got deflated when they couldn't turn the tide.

Here, it's just early season doldrums and being unable to make pretty open shots. The Lakers had plenty in the tank, it was just the 2nd, and they probably have one last mini run, but I have no faith they'll take it.

That's a factor but the key idea to me is runs. Everyone knows basketball is a game of runs so the thing is when you do go on enough of a run to come back you can always expect the other team to get their little run in too if they're around the same level. So there's a lot of pressure in that once your run is up the other team gets to go on theirs. And that's what we saw happen tonight. Plus, no matter what time in the game it is if you're down 20 you have to empty a lot of the mental/willpower gas tank to claw your way back in, which leaves you with less willpower to absorb the runs later in the game.

But damn does ADs midrange look good lol. He's cash money. I really wish I didn't watch this game and have hope lol

[Greyhound]

I think the Lakers are going to need Schroder coming off the bench with Harrell for things to work.

He played well, but the lineups look clunky to me.

[Greyhound]

LeBron and Davis looked sluggish (and a bit out of shape) but that was expected. The concerning individuals to me were Gasol and Matthews. The two of them look fat and out of shape.

Unlike LeBron and Davis, the concern is that Gasol and Matthews could indeed be cooked.

[dcstanley]

I'll always be a fan of PG's game. He's a weird guy but he's such a smooth player and he's never really gotten credit for his performances against the Heat in the playoffs.

[freethedevil]

Its been a game gasols gonna be find

Gasol shoudl be mega coasted so he can goat inthe playoffs. If gasol plays lieke playoff gasol from the last two years its a wrap

[kayess]

If Matthews is cooked we may be in trouble

[TroubleS0me]

time to panic?

[nzahir]

Man I can't believe we lost Dwight for nothing

I liked how last year we had an identity of being big, physical, and very tough defensively

Feels like we lost the big and tough defensively part

We still can be physical and finish inside with Lebron, Trez, AD (when he wants to not be soft), and even Gasol (moreso physical on the defensive end

I will give everyone 15-20 games though

Really need Wes to give us something, didn't look good on D at all, even though his numbers had him as very good last year

Same goes for Marc

Trez played better than I expected, but how was his defense? I didn't pay enough attention and missed a good portion of the game

[MyUniBroDavis]

Man I can't believe we lost Dwight for nothing

I liked how last year we had an identity of being big, physical, and very tough defensively

Feels like we lost the big and tough defensively part

We still can be physical and finish inside with Lebron, Trez, AD (when he wants to not be soft), and even Gasol (moreso physical on the defensive end

I will give everyone 15-20 games though

Really need Wes to give us something, didn't look good on D at all, even though his numbers had him as very good last year

Same goes for Marc

Trez played better than I expected, but how was his defense? I didn't pay enough attention and missed a good portion of the game

Its game 1 people are gonna look out of place

Remember the clippers kept mostly the same squad, we basically overhauled ours

Harrells defense + schroders offense was promising, THT looked solid even with a few dumb fouls too. I mentioned ADs jumper was good aft he adjusted to it and it looked like that was the case even tho its just a game, he has so much confidence in it

[Heej]

Not gonna lie tho it's looking like choosing Gasol over Dwight might be a major mistake

[trickshot]

Dwight should have been retained though he and the old Lakers rarely looked consistently impressive against the Clippers either. Clippers know the loss doesn't mean much but they do seem to play the Lakers best in the regular season (by talent or inferiority complex). LeBron's point average in the tie also has to be really low by now.

Between yesterday and preseason it's clear the 2nd unit is offensively good making up deficits LeBron and the starters have opened with their general rusty play. Seems everybody in the starters is hesitant when the games start

[dcstanley]

Not gonna lie tho it's looking like choosing Gasol over Dwight might be a major mistake

Neither are playable in the playoffs against a team like the Clippers anyways. I think people forget how little value Dwight added in the playoffs.

[Firebird1]

offense looks ugly as ****

[MyUniBroDavis]

I dont think people realize were basically starting from square one

This team has alot of potential, and out bench overall was very strong.

It wasnt an amazing game 1 performance but Our guys arent at 100% yet with the short offseason, and our teams identity is different

Theres gonna be more creativity with what we do but our lineups, while theres more versatility its not as much we can throw anything out there and itll work. Itll take a bit more time to mesh, but there were alot of positives to take from the game

Its not just a new team, we had an identity offensively and defensively thats gonna be different, and were gonna see then make adjustments as the year goes on.

Harrell's defense looked good, AD can guard kawhi, schroder looks great and hes running p and r with bron which looks interesting

Marc didnt play great, i think you guys are getting waaay too reactive off of one game, we didnt use his passing as much, but we werent running 5 out offense till after he got into foul trouble or him doing that passing, but its pretty obvious we'll figure that out

Defensively he hit foul trouble and just didnt play great, he struggled. But its not as if we havent seen dwight and javale get played off the court in the playoffs, it seems like marcs a bad matchup vs the clippers at least with zubac out

We saw alot of different lineups more than last year, were the defending champions were gonna experiment and see whats best.

Kuzmas scoring off ball still looks good even though he made a few bad plays in a row, AD looked good. We werent going as hard as we did last year, lebron and AD both werent really imposing themselves at all, whereas george and kawhi were clearly going harder than them

The rotation and scramble D looked good near the end of the game.

The clippers did look better than before, smarter at least.

Schroder and harrell look like a great combo, schroder and AD could be interesting.

People that keep mentioning Dwight and Javale as a huge loss need to remember Dwight only really did anything in one series, where his role was more so as a post stopper which marc is probably better.

Lebron - game 1 bron full display

AD - jumper looks the same but clearly is still shaking off rust

Caruso - jumper was wack, i dont like him as a primary ball handler in some of those lineups but does what he does well stoll

Matthews - struggled a bit against kawhi but hes had success against him so i feel its a one off

Marc - was attacked in the pick and roll alot which isnt suprising, thats gonna be a problem in certain matchups esp when teams run no traditional big lineups against him. Offensively they werent doing what they did with him in the preseasin (passing or 5 out) but they adjsuted afterward a but when gasol was jn foul trouble to run more spaced out offenss, i think hes gonna still be great for us

Schroder - looked good. Defense was fine, hes small but he hustles, better than rondo for sure. Offensively looked great, him + harrell looks good, him + AD has potential. Im really curious if we run bron as a screener more, ive been saying hed be good in that role and itd help schroder look better with the starters at times

Harrell - looked good, more so with schroder, but defensively we saw the lack of size hurt us but his rotatiins were good and overall im pretty happy with his defensive performance

KCP - looked good, made some good passes

Kuz - struggled on D, offensively made some dumb plays but his shot looks better, didnt miss left or right and had his foot in the line for some makes, were using him off ball and i like that

Markieff - was solid as youd expect

THT - looked solid for his first non bubble nba game outside of some dumb fouls



This isnt revenge szn anymore, brons prolly not gonna go off like he did last year. But we saw the lineups play pretty well without bron and AD at times from an execution standpoint, we also saw some lows that come with the shortest offseason in major league sport history, a new team, a system and team identity that must be changed, and experimentation

What is important is alot of our new pieces there were doubts about are doing fine. The guys that stood out in a bad way were marc and matthews, but it doesnt make sense to be worried about them when marc is strictly an upgrade over who we had previously, in a playoff perspective, since dwight was only important vs denver in a way gasol can match, and javale did nothing, wih more offensive upside if we run more gasol passing sets or put him in 5 out lineups more to space it for brin and Ad which for some reason we didnt. Matthews struggled at doing somethjng we have film of him doing well, so im not worried he suddenly sucks at perimeter D for no reason


Our bench looks incredibly improved, the question mark guys did about as well as youd want them considering the circumstances, ADs jumper still looks good, and Lebrons gonna coast harder than most years

It wasnt the result we wanted but like, were absolutely chilling lol. The main takeaway shouldnt be oh the lakers look horrible or anything, but that the clippers look kinda great lol. Lue >>>> rivers, and lets be honest rivers was the worst coach of the bubble, lue in a tactical sense is closer to the vogels/spoelstras/stevens of the world than to doc, and talent wise the clippers are essentially an ATG team and coasted to a second seed last year

The problem comes from PG choking constantly in the playoffs and locker room stuff that lue may or may not resolve, some mentality stuff that we have the advantage in, but the issues they had last uear in terms of why they lost to denver was because doc rivers was genuinly coaching in the most 0 iq way at times (i defended him before but like, watching both denv and the mavs my man is not a playoff coach, and gets credit because thibs made a 3000 iq defensive setup with the celtics that worked at the time, and doc hasnt shown to be a good defensive coach).

This clippers team would have made the conference finals and been our biggest challenge during the playoffs. This isnt saying were gonna lose, esp if PG does PG things in the playoffs

But the clippers are a threat. The best teams in the league are

Lakers/bucks/clippers/nets/miami/nuggets

The nuggets are good... but theyre not really anything im worried about right now, they got worse and at the end of the day throughout our series vs them, we had a bit of trouble but I think were clearly better and we did win in 5.

Miami are just solid, good coaching and they got stronger

The bucks are the bucks, we'll see if budenholzer fixes his playoff coaching but jrue is an amazinf pickup

Nets have KD and kyrie and a very solid group of guys around them with what seems like a good staff

Shoutout to the celtics too

I feel the nets/clippers/bucks are a tier above everyone else, but i do think our team is the best

If i had to rate it (off an abritrary scale) during the playoffs, assuminf healthy

The bucks/clippers/nets all scare me in the sense they could be an 8-12 team in their range kf possibilities, i think we are a 10.5-15 team. (Just imagine its an abrirtrary rating of goodness)

All 3 teams have things that could make them fail, for us the main thing is if we misuse our guys, but our coaching staff is among the best in the league esp for our type of team, and vogel is flat out the second best defensive coach in the nba (raptors have the best coaching staff by a country mile lmao).

But if things for us is if certain guys dont pan out, but this isnt the gasols of the world that would be great, particularly in matchups like vs the nuggets and tbh i think hed be good vs the bucks, but more so if kuz develops, how THT is, schroder and harrell acclimating, etc etc

Obv its not a given, anyone who said it would be an auto title like the warriors in those years is delusional. Our worst case scenario isnt as good as other teams great-best case scenarios, but i think the team we had last year would still be the favorites, and weve designed a rosrwer in a way that when the playoffs hit we could be better than we were last year

Yeah we got off to a flying start last year but bron was in revenge mode, and the new guy we added, AD, actually struggled during our early win streak, and the other guys we added werent being told to do much or create.

This year we added 3-4 guys that have to take a role offensively, and are gonna have to adjust to our defensive scheme and new identity, whereas last they were discovering their identiy.

I dont expect us to start oyh as well as we did last year but i do think were gonna have an amazing year.

The gasol dwight takes are kind of absurd lol. We lost athleticism and hes not gonna slam it in the same but Gasol gives so much more potential on offense and defensively, hes still good outside of certain matchups we wouldnt play dwight in during the playoffs either.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Not gonna lie tho it's looking like choosing Gasol over Dwight might be a major mistake

Neither are playable in the playoffs against a team like the Clippers anyways. I think people forget how little value Dwight added in the playoffs.

He literally had one series where he did anything and it was in a super specific way that Marc might be flat out better at (from a statistical standpoint, but dwight did get in jokic's head hella).

Idg why people r really being like "but javale doe".

I think Gasol works alot better vs the bucks than dwight would, i think both are unplayable vs the clippers, and i didnr catch much of the nets game other than a few tidbits where they looked scary but

I just think the matchups where dwight>gasol are matchups neither llay, but gasol provides so much more offensively and in at least one of the top tier matchups (bucks) im way more confident in him than dwight