MartinToVaught wrote:I said "as far as players are concerned." Obviously the dysfunctional Buss family, Kurt and Linda Rambis, Pelinka, Magic (who apparently still has input in the front office), etc. share the overall blame for how the Lakers' season has turned out. But as far as players are concerned, I still have no problem saying it's AD's fault.
LeBron is 37 and Westbrook is also on the wrong side of 30. They've both lost a few steps, which has hit Russ hard in particular. They shouldn't have to carry a team at this stage of their careers when they physically can't do it anymore. That's supposed to be prime AD's job, and he has failed miserably at it, so it's his fault. And no, his injuries aren't an excuse because he's soft as hell when he does play, easily the softest guy LeBron has ever played with. He was a ghost in the fourth quarter last night. It's even worse when you consider how much the Lakers traded away for him (their lottery pick is going straight to New Orleans this year, for example).
Mediocre Team vs Bad TeamI would buy this argument if we are talking about whether they should be a top 3 seed vs a 5-6th seed. If the Lakers were 6th or 7th and AD has underperformed like he has and all that, yes, I can put all the blame on him for that result. The Lakers are 11th, they are in danger of missing even the play in.
Westbrook and Lebron are not even able to keep them at 500, and may not even be able to get them a top 10 record in their conference. This is something that barely All-Star players on unimpressive rosters can accomplish. If this was a pre-play in season, Lakers at this point probably would basically have no chance at the playoffs.
So either other top Lakers players are also at fault, or AD is a once in a generation all time talent who can take a team from 11th to contender just by playing more games. Sorry, I don’t buy AD as being that type of player, no one is going to argue he is, and if he isn’t, then other players are also at fault to some degree.
Can't be both top and unable to carry Lebron I’m not going to harp on him much, I like him and have a slight bias towards him admittedly, but Lebron is either one of the leagues top players and can carry a team, or he’s 37 and no longer in that tier of players. Problem is that people want it to be both. People want to put him in that top tier of players but then also say, "but he's 37 and can't carry a team", but if you say that second part, then you remove him out of that tier of players.
Only 85th percentile Athleticism = Poor excusesWestbrook turned 33 in November. His close-ish contemporary, Chris Paul helped a young OKC team to 44-28 (50 win pace) at 34 years old. His even closer contemporary in Curry is still performing and his team was 45-19 when he played.
I’m not asking that Westbrook be as good as his prime, but the same stubbornnesses that made Westbrook great has been predicted for a long time to be what will cause his downfall if he was unwilling to change and to adapt and improve other areas of his game. The other issue is that because of how high he started athletically, even at 33, Westbrook is still more athletic than 85% of PG'S in the league, which means it is skills and IQ holding him back. This Westbrook now is still MUCH more athletic than Paul and Curry at 29 years old, and bigger, so losing a step is a weak excuse that is just an admission of a skill and IQ deficit.
If a players excuse is that "I'm not longer in the 99th percentile of athleticism, I'm just in the 85th percentile, so I can't be good anymore", that doesn't make them look good.
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