Los Angeles Lakers: Expectations after missing out on AD at the trade deadline

After missing out on Anthony Davis at the NBA Trade Deadline, we explore the expectations for the Los Angeles Lakers moving forward this season

The Los Angeles Lakers have a had a very intriguing season for many reasons, from on-court fights, players calling out head coach Luke Walton, Luke Walton’s job being on the line, to half of the rosters names being mentioned in trade rumors.

The most impactful event of this season so far from a basketball perspective is the loss of LeBron James. On Christmas, in the midst of a very impressive mauling of the Golden State Warriors in Oracle Arena, LeBron James went down with a groin strain which has quickly became the most significant injury of his career thus far.

Before James’ injury, he had the Lakers playing well and sitting at the 4th seed in the loaded Western Conference. LeBron James has since made his return against the Los Angeles Clippers in an overtime win after missing 17 games.

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In this 17-game stretch, the Lakers went 6-11 and have completely fallen out of the playoff race sitting at the 10th spot trailing the Sacramento Kings who are 9th and the Los Angeles Clippers who are at the 8th seed. The Lakers have dug a grave for themselves recently, here is what to expect from them going forward.

After being eviscerated by the Oladipo-less Indiana Pacers by 42 points, On Wednesday, the Lakers came out and put on an impressive performance against the red-hot Boston Celtics who have won 10 of their last 12 games. LeBron posted a triple-double, Kyle Kuzma gave them 25 points and Rajon Rondo scored 17 points and dished out 10 assists while also hitting the game-winning jump-shot to seal the game in TD Garden.

Not much has been consistent about the Lakers this year, but the play from these three players have been pretty consistent all year with LeBron having his usual MVP like numbers, Kuzma blossoming into an 18 points per game player and Rondo performing like the Point-God that he is when healthy. With that being said, expect immense pressure put on the Lakers from their fans, the media, the front office and mainly the veterans on the team to get this basketball team headed in the right direction and into the playoffs.

At this point, we should all be aware of the fact that for some strange reason LeBron thrives in chaos just take a look back at how chaotic some of those moments were while he was in Cleveland, and still James managed to elevate himself and his teammates and make the NBA Finals each year he was in Cleveland. So with that being said, expect to see “Playoff LeBron” for the rest of the season.

The Lakers will need his heroics if they want to turn their season around and recover. You can expect Luke Walton to be much more crisp in his decision making and rotations given they have very little room for error and the fact that world knows that he is essentially coaching for his job for the remainder of this season.

Expect for Luke Walton to put an emphasis on the Lakers defensive schemes and game-plans given the fact that based on the reality that the way they play their defense has a huge influence on their offense and scoring. A good example of Luke Walton implementing new defensive schemes is him putting Brandon Ingram (who is 6-foot-9) on Kyrie Irving (who is 6-foot-3) Wednesday night, and his effort paid off in a big way with Kyrie struggling the majority of the night due to Ingram’s length.

The Lakers, before the deadline, wanted to play tough, fast and physical and defend well to create turnovers and use their playmakers to run the fast-break, which is great but with very little 3-point shooting it makes your offense easy to defend in the half court. This issue was moderately addressed when the Lakers traded for Mike Muscala (a stretch big) and Reggie Bullock a sharpshooter, expect Luke Walton to quickly have these new additions implemented into the rotations and the offense.

The Lakers will look to use these new additions quickly to see if they can mesh with their playmakers and hit big shots in the big games that are approaching. The second half of this season will be critical to see how the young core will respond to the pressure that will be put upon them approaching the playoff race.

It will be interesting to see how they respond and if and how Luke Walton can get this team at the pace that they need to be at to compete for the rest of this season. You can certainly expect the Lakers to be the most looked at and intriguing team for the rest of the year, how they respond remains to be seen but you can rest assured it will be a Hollywood worthy story regardless of what happens.