The game on Sunday against the Nuggets
The Los Angeles Lakers are 3-11 so far and are now officially at an all-time franchise low in every way possible. They fell to the Denver Nuggets in overtime on Sunday, a game they should have won given the superior roster.
After the third quarter the Lakers struggled offensively totalling just 19 points in the fourth quarter and the 5 minute overtime period, the same number of points scored in the first quarter. To make matters worse, the team missed many free throws, few of them being clutch ones which could have easily iced the game.
On the other end of the court, the defense showed why they are currently ranked last in the league. They allowed the Nuggets crucial offensive boards off their free throws and uncontested three pointers which they started knocking down after missing many early in the game.
What is going so wrong with the Lakers that they fail to beat a team that is with them below .500? From their roster to the morale of the team to the team management and finally to the head coach everything is going south.
Head coach Byron Scott
Given his history with the Lakers and superstar Bryant, fans breathed a sigh of relief when Byron Scott was appointed as the head. Yet, even to the neutral crowd this seemed like a good move for the franchise after a rough three years under head coaches that the team, fans and management never connected with.
Scott played 11 of his 15 years in the NBA with the Lakers in two installments. The first period was from 1983 to 1993 where he won three championships playing alongside Hall of Famers Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and James Worthy. He later played one year which also happened to be Bryant’s rookie season in the NBA. It was over the course of this lone season that the relationship between Bryant and Scott began.
The head coach-superstar relationship was supposed to be the cornerstone of the team this year instead it has been a huge reason for the low team morale and the lack luster team performance as a whole. Scott has put way too much trust in Bryant alone, playing him close 36 minutes a game so early in the season giving the wrong signal to the rest of the team about how important one man is for the team to win.
Courtesy of NBA TV, we all got an opportunity to get an inside look into the Lakers Training camp at El Segundo. During the team’s traning camp it was observed that there were a lot of running and defensive drills.
When asked about the excessive defensive drills Scott mentioned the importance of defensive principles yet its his team which is at the bottom of the league in defensive efficieny, even worse than the winless Philadelphia 76ers. So despite focusing more on defense rather than offense, the Lakers are struggling on that end of the floor which speaks volumes of Scott and the team’s lack of execution.
Kobe Bryant’s massive contract led to management errors
Around a year ago, Bryant signed a contract extension with the Lakers that was worth 48 million dollars for the next two years which means he would receive 23.5 million for the ongoing season and 25 million for the next. Whether he was worthy of the massive sum should not be up for debate since public and media opinion doesn’t matter once the contract is inked, the point that matters more is whether Bryant’s contract was the reason for the Lakers’ assembling a sub-par roster for this season.
Heading into this season other than Bryant only Steve Nash and Robert Sacre were the other players whose contracts were guaranteed and in the books for this season. In short the Lakers front office would have a busy summer just to make sure there is a roster assembled come training camp in early October.
Signing Jordan Hill and Nick Young to new contracts made complete sense considering the output both players had given the team in the distastrous last season. Picking extremely talented and versatile Julius Randle with the 7th overall pick in the NBA Draft was a smart choice for the future but every other off-season signing that the Lakers announced including the trade for Jeremy Lin is eligible to be in the Top 10 worst contracts of the league.
Based on the performances so far Roonie Price, Wesley Johnson and Ryan Kelly look like players that the team could have done without for this season and although contending for a title is the aim every year according to the Lakers front office, it was clear they weren’t in Playoff contention this season, let alone being a bonified championship contender therefore going over the salary cap would be a big no no for a year that will not see a lot of returns.
Thus with a big contract like Bryant’s, the team had very little cap space to sign a lot of players which eventually led to the signing of players like Price, Johnson and Kelly for small salaries which the Lakers could afford without paying any taxes. There’s no doubt about the fact that the constraint called the salary cap hampered the roster decisions the Lakers front office made this season.
Severly handicapped roster
Their roster is where they are getting hurt the most. The team has no bonified shotblocker or 7-footer which severly handicaps the team in a lot of ways. The absence of shotblockers once again requires the team to focus hugely on team defense which currently they are horrible at.
None of the big men in the roster can post up in the paint and create offense for the team by swinging the ball which means the team needs a system on offense but since the practices and much of the training camp are defensive drills there is no hope there as well.
When you have a handicapped team the importance of principles becomes that much more important. Heading into a game against any team, the Lakers have a height disadvantage at the center position which means they must box out in order to gain the rebound except that they are ranked 20th in team rebounding helping us understand how bad they are at that.
In the games so far, there seems to be no system on offense so far. A lot of time it’s just Kobe coming up the floor dribbling the ball then posting up and taking a contested jumper. In short there is a lot of me ball and less team ball which explains being ranked 23rd in the league in team assists per game. Unfortunately for the team there is nobody else who can create offense themselves more efficiently than Bryant.
The Lakers have a lot of problems but no solutions and the next couple of seasons are going to be a trying time for all Laker fans.
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