The Lakers Need to Change
- Updated: July 3, 2015
(Photo via Twitter User @MarcWurzel)
So, unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock, or just too busy with life to notice, LaMarcus Aldridge has indicated that he was not impressed with the Lakers pitch and will not be signing, fine, whatever.
Then we hear this morning that DeAndre Jordan wasn’t impressed. He hasn’t indicated that he’d be signing elsewhere but I’m pretty sure that he’s not interested and won’t be joining the Los Angeles Lakers next season.
So, that LaMarcus Aldrige, DeAndre Jordan, Kevin Love, Tyson Chandler (the Lakers didn’t seem to show interested but it was an option that’s now gone), Jimmy Butler, Greg Monroe they’re all gone, no chance for the Lakers to sign.
What happened? This was supposed to be the beginning of the future, we sign one big free agent in 2015, then when Kobe’s gone and the cap raises, the Lakers would have soooo much money to try to go after some really big names, Westbrook, Kevin Durant, etc. Why wouldn’t they want to play here, we’re the Lakers! Right?
No. Wrong. No one cares anymore, with the way that the landscape not just in the NBA but in the United States with the Internet, big TV contracts and the international market, Los Angeles and New York aren’t as big targets anymore, you can’t just sell the prestige of being a Laker, Hollywood, beaches, mountains, girls, why would someone who spends their off-season in Los Angeles, who knows about all that, (and a lot of NBA players spend their off-season in LA) care about spending a few more months out here? They don’t and it’s obvious but it doesn’t seem that Jim Buss, Mitch Kupchak, and even Jeanie Buss get that.
A lot of people will want to, wrongly, point at Kobe cuz he was in that pitch meeting, and he mentioned Pau Gasol to Aldridge, whatever, yeah maybe Pau had some bad times in LA but he got two rings, him and Kobe gelled well on the court and he went to bat for Pau even when he coach wanted to throw him under the bus, even to the point of feeding Pau in the post contrary to the coaches offense (and it worked!) So no, Kobe’s not the reason.
The issue is that the Lakers are behind on analytics, and Byron Scott doesn’t like them, they’re behind the times. You know what teams impressed a lot of free agents? The teams that could show the guys they wanted how they’d fit using players on their roster from the year before and say “this is how we’d use you and we’d also let you do this” but no, the Lakers used the excuse “our team was bad, so we couldn’t use the analytics” Um, you don’t know how you’d use Aldridge in your offense? Really? You couldn’t show them how you used Jordan Hill, who played similar to Aldridge, how you used screens, passed into the post and passed out, how you’d use the players you will get, you just drafted or I dunno, use Byron Scott’s old teams with the Nets and Hornets with Jason Kidd and Chris Paul as the point guard, similar type players to D’Angelo Russell? Come on man, you weren’t prepared!!!
Today’s NBA is more about numbers than just putting talent on the floor and hoping it works, or trying to make it work. Most teams can recruit a guy to their team and say “this is how we’d use you, you’ll get this many touches,” etc. etc, the Lakers couldn’t do that, they thought they could lure some immature young free agent to the big flashing lights of Los Angeles and the allure of winning an NBA Championship in the forum blue and gold (shout out to Chickie.)
Ok I’ve vented. Now to the future, what do we do, who do we go after? Well, I dunno. My thinking currently is, we know we have Russell, Kobe, Randle, and Clarkson. We need a SF and a center, maybe Tobias Harris? Re-sign Ed Davis, he starts at center? We become more of a half court team, which is cool, we don’t have the athleticism to run it up and down the floor. Get some athletes for that second unit, run ’em with Clarkson, but yeah. This just isn’t looking good. We already missed out the last couple years and it looks to continue, we can’t lure a star here, looks like we gotta make our own.
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4 Comments
About Tim Morris
the_dude_abides
July 3, 2015 at 7:00 pm
Ed Davis already signed with Portland for 3yrs/$20m. We wasted all that time trying to woo Aldridge, who was never a good fit with Randle on the team and also doesn’t want to play center. Should have set sights on DAJ from the very beginning, with Davis as the backup plan. So what are we going to do now? Re-sign Jordan Hill?
Tymathee
July 4, 2015 at 1:56 pm
That’s my guess.
I also wrote this before the David signing.
Now kufos is on our radar, ugh
ginadblasck
December 15, 2015 at 7:08 pm
And it was only a matter of time until this showed up:
lenadanderson
December 21, 2015 at 10:35 am
Hands down the best, along with CK. ERA .73 lower than Scherzer.