NBA: 5 biggest question marks after the first quarter of the season
By Kyle McKee
3. Are the Los Angeles Lakers even good?
Switching gears to a different kind of surprising: the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers have not lived up to expectations so far this season.
The purple and gold are currently 12-11, good for sixth place in the Western Conference. That may seem decent for a team full of veterans looking to just get to the postseason, but some of their losses have been embarrassing.
The Lakers have lost to the 6-15 Oklahoma City Thunder TWICE, gotten blown out by the mediocre Boston Celtics and Minnesota Timberwolves and have really struggled to beat bad teams like the Detroit Pistons, the Houston Rockets and the Indiana Pacers.
So, what exactly is wrong in LA?
Well, for starters, they’re one of the worst defensive teams in the league. The Lakers give up the fourth most points per game, allow the second most paint points per game, and are the sixth worst in opponents second chance points.
It’s not much of a surprise that the Lakers are struggling on defense just based on who they acquired this offseason. Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony, Malik Monk, Wayne Ellington, Rajon Rondo, DeAndre Jordan and even Dwight Howard are not what anyone would call defensive stoppers. The more stocking statistic is how badly they have struggled on the boards.
On paper, with bigs like AD, Dwight, DeAndre and great rebounding guards and wings like LeBron, Russ, Melo and Rondo, the Lakers should win the rebounding battle almost every night. Well, that hasn’t been the case AT ALL.
Frankly, the Lakers just look old and disinterested in the regular season. We’ve seen this with LeBron lead teams before but this team just feels different from years past.
Right now, it’s pretty hard to see them making a deep playoff run with their current roster.
This Lakers team feels very familiar to the 2017-18 Cavs that brought in a bunch of vets like Jae Crowder, Derrick Rose, Dwayne Wade and Isaiash Thomas but then traded them all away at the trade deadline and had a completely different roster the second half of the season. Could we see something similar happen to these Lakers? If not, will the Lakers be able to turn around their season?