The LeBron Thread 2021 Off-Season Edition

[homecourtloss]

Was a bit shocked how good their defense was in the first quarter. Lebron and Westbrook really make a world of difference especially the latter when he tries. However the offense, playing a traditional 5 with Westbrook doesn't look great. Rockets unlocked Westbrook after ditching starting bigs, Lakers might have to do the same. It's just not the same player when opposing bigs gets to camp in the paint. Or maybe the Warriors are just a really good defensive team. They were reading and breaking up lobs, kick outs and dump offs for run

LeBron looked pretty spry out there. The Lakers’ defense looked night and day difference with LeBron out there calling out rotations. It’s a shame Ariza’s out as he’s still decent on that end and wouls have made for a good lineup fit.

Not sure they can ever score with DAJ or Dwight in there with Westbrook; 5 out with AD only might work.

[IG2]

Uhh LeBron looked awful to me the time he was on the floor (offense).

[Greyhound]

LeBron looks like a heavy alcoholic to me. I don’t see spry.

Ellington is an end of the bench guy imo. That guy is useless. He is atrocious defensively and he will have trouble getting off that set shot against scrambling defenses (playing for something). He and Melo can simply never be on the court at the same time if you are a team that cares about defense.

These Lakers need to just play big, knock teams around and try to win with defense and rebounding.

Westbrook
Bazemore
James
Davis
Jordan

[jalengreen]

Can't watch right now but uhh Westbrook 0/4 7 turnovers lmao. Just preseason and I'm sure all of the turnovers aren't on him but that's not great

[trickshot]

bazemore sure loves a missed layup, was the same with the warriors.
Ellington wow, garbage defense. Singlehandedly sunk that Lebron-dwight-melo-nunn lineup.
one quarter is enough to show the coaches Westbrook should be played with spacing at all times, Coming back with WB and DJ is just resisting the inevitable.

[trickshot]

so the thing with Melo is he isn't great at roleplayer scoring, mediocre to okay at best but you're going to have to give him the ball on the low block and let him isolate more than your average high tier roleplayer. Typical 2000s player because those isos never lead to a pass, even if it isn't there he'll throw up something low percentage and your offense just burned 18 seconds on a contested shot. On the other end his defense remains lacking as ever so a positive impact isn't guaranteed every night.

I'd keep his minutes very low because that shot creation ability is still valuable, just not enough to move him into net positive territory in larger samples. I'd also like to see more two man play between him and one of Westbrook/Lebron to see if they can unlock his support scoring.

[Greyhound]

so the thing with Melo is he isn't great at roleplayer scoring, mediocre to okay at best but you're going to have to give him the ball on the low block and let him isolate more than your average high tier roleplayer. Typical 2000s player because those isos never lead to a pass, even if it isn't there he'll throw up something low percentage and your offense just burned 18 seconds on a contested shot. On the other end his defense remains lacking as ever so a positive impact isn't guaranteed every night.

I'd keep his minutes very low because that shot creation ability is still valuable, just not enough to move him into net positive territory in larger samples.

Role player scoring and spot up shooting is what he excelled at last season. All the Lakers need is for him to replicate that on this team.

[trickshot]

so the thing with Melo is he isn't great at roleplayer scoring, mediocre to okay at best but you're going to have to give him the ball on the low block and let him isolate more than your average high tier roleplayer. Typical 2000s player because those isos never lead to a pass, even if it isn't there he'll throw up something low percentage and your offense just burned 18 seconds on a contested shot. On the other end his defense remains lacking as ever so a positive impact isn't guaranteed every night.

I'd keep his minutes very low because that shot creation ability is still valuable, just not enough to move him into net positive territory in larger samples.

Role player scoring and spot up shooting is what he excelled at last season. All the Lakers need is for him to replicate that on this team.

Did he really excel at it? He also got a lot of iso touches to go with it. He wasn't as marginalised in their offense as your avergae roleplayer. He got some privileges. Thing is Melo himself says he doesn't like the role and has to feel the ball every now and then. Let me look up some shooting splits and get back to you.

[Greyhound]

so the thing with Melo is he isn't great at roleplayer scoring, mediocre to okay at best but you're going to have to give him the ball on the low block and let him isolate more than your average high tier roleplayer. Typical 2000s player because those isos never lead to a pass, even if it isn't there he'll throw up something low percentage and your offense just burned 18 seconds on a contested shot. On the other end his defense remains lacking as ever so a positive impact isn't guaranteed every night.

I'd keep his minutes very low because that shot creation ability is still valuable, just not enough to move him into net positive territory in larger samples.

Role player scoring and spot up shooting is what he excelled at last season. All the Lakers need is for him to replicate that on this team.

Did he really excel at it? He also got a lot of iso touches to go with it. He wasn't as marginalised in their offense as your avergae roleplayer. He got some privileges. Thing is Melo himself says he doesn't like the role and has to feel the ball every now and then,

A vet minimum guy giving you 15 points off the bench (on good percentages), in 20 something minutes a game. Also playing off a teams proven star and his running mate.

Seems like good role player stuff to me.

Allowing him to isolate mismatches is not a bad thing, if it creates an advantage for your second unit.

[trickshot]

Role player scoring and spot up shooting is what he excelled at last season. All the Lakers need is for him to replicate that on this team.

Did he really excel at it? He also got a lot of iso touches to go with it. He wasn't as marginalised in their offense as your avergae roleplayer. He got some privileges. Thing is Melo himself says he doesn't like the role and has to feel the ball every now and then,

A vet minimum guy giving you 15 points off the bench (on good percentages), in 20 something minutes a game. Also playing off a teams proven star and his running mate.

Seems like good role player stuff to me.

Allowing him to isolate mismatches is not a bad thing, if it creates an advantage for your second unit.

Aii I looked it up so I'm a bit more assured on the subject. He shot pretty decently on assisted makes and from 3 it's just he also took a relatively high volume unassisted. Also 122 of his 777 fg attempts that season were fadeaways he shot 40% on. Some of these things overlap but I'm just paiting a picture of what his game is. To play devil's advocate against my own point the blazers offense relied a lot on self creation. A fancy way of saying they were iso asf. I can allude to the value of a roleplayer that can create his own shot but needs to be on a tighter leash than with the Blazers to be a positive. His shooting splits have a bit of the good and the ugly. Curb the latter and he can be a positive. The rest is down to how well he can adjust to finding his own rhythm without getting dedicated scoring possessions.

It's also not about being a good or bad pickup but how to make a pickup better than they already are whatever that might be. DJ is another example, tonight they laid a blueprint for how he could be useful in certain lineups so there's value to be maximised in every player. We just predict what that might be in our respective takes.

[trickshot]

oh yeah also worth saying tonight and the rest of the season probably was a huge case study on the difference in Lebron and Westbrook and why some of us gravitate towards high iq players. Warriors packed the paint with Draymond and Ezeli then threw a zone defense at some point in the 2nd quarter. Westbrook looked to really struggle reading how to beat it. It's that read-react ability that has foiled Westbrook in the last couple playoffs (it wasn't covid, stop it). Might actually benefit him to have someone that will keep the offense from stalling to keep him from forcing things. I don't think he'll ever really have the ability tp beat certain coverages but a good start would be giving him adequate spacing and no true centers.

[dcstanley]

One positive takeaway (perhaps the only) is that the combination of Vogel, Lebron, and AD could get Westbrook to channel his energy onto the defensive end. I'm not worried about the offense as much as I am about the defense but if Westbrook could be a net positive on that end things look a whole lot better.

[MisterHibachi]

Read on Twitter

Good to see Russ do stuff on offense when he doesn't have the ball.

[nzahir]

I didn't get to watch

Westbrook's line was very worrying

It is preseason though, so I will wait ofc

[toodles23]

Only two preseason games so far but Westbrook has looked horrible. He's not going to keep turning it over on 60% of his touches but his explosiveness doesn't seem to be there anymore, which is very concerning when you consider his entire game depends on it.

[Greyhound]

I don’t know about this Lakers team. It just seems like a bad build, set up to fail.

It’s early, but this is looking like it’s going to be an ignore the games and box score watch (after the fact) type season for me.

[TheGOATRises007]

The decision to go after Westbrook to pair with Lebron is mind-boggling.

If it was 2016, I'd fully get it. The ceiling is scary.

It's 2021. Westbrook is no longer the athlete he once was.

[thebigbird]

Trading for Westbrook was always an asinine decision. Pelinka doesn’t know how to build a roster. He just collects names like he’s playing 2K. Westbrook. Jordan. Carmelo. If LeBron was younger he could cover up the warts but he’s not. Westbrook is probably the worst fit they could’ve went with.

[homecourtloss]

Westbrook is being Westbrook although an extreme **** version, but the more frightening thing is that AD has looked like complete garbage in every game this preseason. Lakers haven’t really done anything well and look really, really bad.

Edit: Just as I typed this, Davis dominated on both ends

[zimpy27]

Westbrook is doing what he was brought in to do. Keep the team going offensively while LeBron is out.
He's getting a ton of messy turnovers but he will clean it up. I like this team with Westbrook in than any other iteration with LeBron out that has happened these past two seasons.

Ellington and Davis have not looked as good as I expected

Bazemore, Nunn, Rondo and THT have been what I expected

Melo, Howard, Reaves and Monk have been better than I expected



Overall, this team will be better than last year. It's not the moves I would have made though