NBA: 5 big overreactions at the first quarter mark of the season
By Kyle McKee
NBA overreaction: The Los Angeles Lakers need to clean house
Another surprise of the NBA season thus far has been the Los Angeles Lakers, but for a completely different reason than the Chicago Bulls.
Through 24 games, the Lakers have looked nothing like the powerhouse Finals favorites that many fans and media members thought they’d be coming into the season.
As of writing this, the Lakers have a record of 12-12, good for sixth in the NBA. That may sound decent for the oldest team in the NBA, but they have looked disatortouros at many points this season.
The Lakers have lost to the 6-16 Oklahoma City Thunder TWICE, gotten blown out by the mediocre Boston Celtics and Minnesota Timberwolves and have struggled to beat bad teams like the Detroit Pistons, the Houston Rockets, and the Indiana Pacers.
Their struggles can be attributed to their porous defensive effort. According to ESPN stats and info, 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 based on what they did over the off-season: prioritizing offense over defense by getting rid of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Alex Caruso and Kyle Kuzma – all above average defenders – in exchange for Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony, Malik Monk, Wayne Ellington, Rajon Rondo, DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard who are players that nobody would call defensive stoppers.
The more stocking statistic is how badly they have struggled on the boards.
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. The thing is thought, we’ve seen this with LeBron leading teams before and have come to expect it.
Back in the summer of 2017, the Cleveland Cavaliers brought in a bunch of vets like Jae Crowder, Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade, and Isaiash Thomas to appease LeBron James. Heading into that season, a lot of hype surrounded the Cavs and many people believed, with their additions, that they could challenge the Kevin Durant and Steph Curry lead Golden State Warriors. However, as we know now, that wasn’t the case.
Cleveland ended up trading away or waiving Crowder, Rose, Wade, and Thomas before the trade deadline and had a completely different roster in the second half of the season. Could we see something similar happen to these Lakers? It sure feels like that based on their play so far this season.
One thing is for sure though, right now, this Lakers team is not championship material.