Three games into the ’15-16 NBA season and fans of the LA Lakers have to wonder what happened to their team? The Lakers have started their season dropping their first three games and have looked clearly overmatched in each contest. Defense (or the lack thereof) has been the major culprit. Although an out-of-sync offense and lack of team identity sure isn’t helping.
It’s not unusual for a team to suffer some identity crisis with an aging superstar. In his prime. Kobe Bryant was the best of his generation. I say “was” because it’s impossible to watch him play now and not admit his best days are behind him. That’s not to say he’s completely washed up or beyond all-star form … even an older Kobe is still better than 95% of the league and that’s a testament to how great he really is.
But this season’s Lakers don’t seem to know if they are still Kobe’s team or not. On offense, Kobe still touches the ball on the majority of possessions he’s on the court for, but it doesn’t look like their positioning for his shot. He’s always been a player who can create his own space … but as the years and trips up and down the court have caught up with him, Kobe would benefit from more designed plays to free him up. Early on, it sure doesn’t look like that’s a priority to Coach Byron Scott.
On Sunday night against the Dallas Mavericks, it was glaringly obvious which team was better coached and more disciplined. The Mavericks provided the Lakers with a free clinic on the merits of making the extra pass while the Lakers looked too often like a bunch guys in a pickup game at the YMCA. Whether the results are caused by every player trying to get his shots or just a general confusion about where the ball should go, what fans have to watch on the court is not pretty. And it’s a far cry from the level of basketball, Tinseltown has been used to.
The lack of defense is alarming. At the NBA level, every guy knows how to play defense. A lot guys just don’t want to do it. And with the Lakers, it certainly looks like a lack of effort on the defensive side. Even with Roy Hibbert among the league leaders in blocks early in this season, the team’s overall defensive effort is poor. Against Dallas, they struggled to work off pick and roll screens and weak side help defense was virtually nonexistent.
Integrating a rookie point guard into the team chemistry can be a difficult task. The Lakers appear to be struggling to find a fit for 1st round draft pick D’Angelo Russell. He is a point guard and he has NBA skills. But too often his teammates are waiting for him when he has the ball … what looks like the product of just not playing together enough. He and Kobe have some chemistry, but there’s a lot of work to do there as well. If those two could play off each other, the Lakers might unleash a tough 1-2 combination. As it stands now, neither player seems to understand what the other is looking to do with the basketball.
And it’s not just Kobe and Russell, any five man combination on the court looks to lack cohesion. They’re not shooting the ball from the perimeter very well so far and that’s not helping. Going into Sunday night’s game, the Lakers were leading the NBA is 3 point attempts. Which might make sense if you’re trying to copy a strategy that works so well for Golden State. But the key is you have to sink a good amount of those attempts. LA is shooting just 29% from 3 point range (24th in the league).
His team’s quick trigger on the 3 point shot doesn’t seem to bother Scott. “I don’t have a problem with us shooting 30 a game as long as we make about 35 percent of them. If we’re not doing that, then it’s more [about], let’s make it a drive-and-kick game. But you look at the guys that we have, we have a group of guys that can shoot that shot.”
The outside shot may be the default strategy because there’s not a lot of offensive talent in the front court. Roy Hibbert is there primarily for rebounding and defense. Julius Randle might be a decent complimentary piece, but he doesn’t have the offensive talent of a LaMarcus Aldridge or DeAndre Jordan. Without a consistent scorer under the basket, those outside shots become highly contested. While that works for Golden State, so far that’s not a formula that looks to work for the Lakers. It takes a special group of sharp shooters to do that, and those shooters haven’t been found in the gold and purple yet.
Ultimately, that’s may be the team’s biggest hurdle this season. They’re just not that good. They don’t have the talent to compete in a tough Western Conference. And if this ends up being Kobe’s final season, it’ll be a shame that a star who exploded on the scene will go out with a whimper.
Lakers vs. Mavericks highlight from 11/1/2015 (Click Here)