Lakers Lack Of Athleticism & Defense Showing Early

Lakers Lack Of Athleticism & Defense Showing Early

What’s going on everyone? So, the Los Angeles Lakers played two preseason games and obviously you can’t take everything away from preseason games, especially right now. Like, they’ve had like two, three practices going into these games. Be interesting to kind of see. I’m more curious to see like now that they have this week off, how do they look getting back into that what is the Warriors game again? Um, next Sunday or this Sunday coming up, right? Because right now, you know, I I don’t want to put too much weight on it. you’re not seeing like half of your main top guys, right? But also, most of that is offensively, right? My concern, however, with these two games, and I do think maybe not to the extremes that it’s been, but definitely concerning is the defense and lack of athleticism, right? I think that that is already kind of showing its ugly head. And I don’t think that that’s going to get fully resolved, right? Because going into this season, all off season, what has been kind of the main conversation? We need some athleticism and we need some defense out on the perimeter. Now, Jared Vanderbelt, I think, needs to start just what we’ve seen these last two games from him. If he can kind of continue that, I think he’s solved so much as far as the athleticism, the hustle, the defense, right? All the things that you need because I don’t think they’re going to bring Austin Reeves off the bench, right? So, I think you got to start Jared Vanderbilt with DeAndre Aton, LeBron James, Luca, Donic, Austin Ree, right? That I think should be the starting five. You have more than enough offense with Luca, Austin Ree, LeBron, and DeAndre Aton. Add in Jared Vanderbilt. I think his shot is going to come around, not to like 40%, but I think he’ll be, you know, at least uh, you know, serviceable shooting the three ball. I think he just needs in-game reps. I think once he gets those in-game reps, you can see the confidence in his shot. You can see the change in his shot, and you can see the quicker release. He’s much quicker at just kind of getting it and getting it up rather than you know he kind of would load it up and you know by the time he’s ready to shoot it the defender’s already there right unless he’s like wide open but I just I don’t think yes Marcus Smart coming back will really help you know at least the defensive perimeter stuff and you know kind of helping chase down loose balls and just the hustle and the effort and dirty work and stuff like that. One of the big reasons we’ve been preaching like go get a guy like an Andrew Wiggins or something like that is because you just we really lack the foot speed. And you’re seeing in preseason in these first two preseason games against the Phoenix Suns and the Golden State Warriors, they’re just jacking up threes on us. And what does that lead to? Long rebounds and then they are just winning the foot race, getting to the basketball and getting other opportunities. We saw it in Phoenix like more even more than the the Warriors game because Phoenix had, you know, kind of the athletes out on the perimeter and they were just chasing down loose balls and getting two, three, four field goal attempts and then they make it finally cuz it’s like you’re giving a team four chances to to knock down a three. Like they’re going to hit one eventually and I don’t know how much of that is going to be able to be fixed. Luca Donuch is an excellent rebounder and has a really good nose for the ball. So, even though he’s not like an insane athlete or anything like that, he’s going to help a ton with that offensive rebounding and those long ball rebounds and stuff cuz again, he has just a really good nose for the basketball. He sees like the balls, okay, they got shots, the ball’s going to come over and he can get to those spots, chase it down. I mean, he’s done it his whole career. Even, you know, Majin Buu Luca, right? like that version of Luca to like Skinny Boo Luca has always shown that he can be that guy that can just help with the rebounds. LeBron will help with the rebound. Like it’s it won’t be as bad as we’ve seen, right? Especially if you have Jared Vanderbilt in the starting unit because again, you got Luca Donic who’s going to get you eight rebounds a game. LeBron’s going to get you eight rebounds a game. DeAndre Aton’s probably going to get you 10 plus, right? You got uh Jared Vanderbilt who’s probably going to get you seven or eight, right? So, I don’t think it’ll be as big of a concern with those long ball rebounds and stuff, but it just it shows what teams think and have thought of the Lakers over the last few years. I mean, this isn’t new. I’ve talked about this pretty much every season, right? that like teams are taking more threes against the Lakers than anyone else because they’re like, “Okay, instead of going and fighting and working hard to like get into the teeth of the defense and do all this other stuff and you know, before it was Anthony Davis, it’s like, you know, let’s just take shots cuz we can win a foot race against Luca or well before it was D’Angel Russell, Austin Reeves, and Ruy Aimura.” It’s like they can’t outrun their own shadow, let alone us, right? Like so we’re in great shape. And then though, you look at um Mal with Luca and look, Luca is supposedly more athletic and can jump higher and all that stuff. And I hope so. I hope that that’s the case because that could go a long way if he’s actually really is has some, you know, form of athleticism, right? Again, that could go a long way. But it just to me continues to show you need kind of those athletes out there. And I do think at some point the Lakers are probably going to need to address that. U we’ll see. like do the right when he starts to play does can he kind of come into his own a little bit right can he kind of help be like a you know a Jared Vanderbelt light right be able to defend multiple positions chase down those loose balls he’s you know great rebounder for his his size and his length and stuff so like maybe you could kind of get that so like you go from Jared Vanderbilt to like kind of you know like the wish version of Jared Vanderbelt at least for now I do think a dude Theo has the potential to be really good in this league but you know kind of talk about a guy that Again, it’s 6768, 71 wings span, 41 inch vertical. He has the size, the length, and the athleticism that we need, right? But Lakers may also need to address that at some point. We’ll see if it’s to the level of a, you know, of a like an Andrew Wiggins or if the Lakers can get away with, like I said, like a Matis Stybball in the past or, you know, you know, a Haywood Highmith, like guys that can just again give you some athleticism out on the perimeter, chase down some loose balls. I I’ve said for years like, yes, we want two-way guys, right? We we really do. We want two-way guys, but just getting athletes, just having guys with athleticism would solve a ton for the Lakers. Great example is look at Houston last year. One of Houston’s biggest issues was they couldn’t score the basketball, right? But they were able to win so many games because they’re just more athletic than everybody, longer, like versatile, chasing out. just outwork everybody because they have the athleticism and the youth to keep going and just push push push push push push right and you know and then you saw them again against the Warriors like they weren’t a great three-point shooting team they had their issue but they were really good they don’t have a Luca Donic you had Luca Donis on Houston I mean nobody’s beaten them right like like you want to talk about like what would be the ideal team for Luca Donic it’d be a team like Houston a bunch of lone athletic versatile wings and Luca Donic that can mass Luka Don and Luka Don could be the best version of himself, right? And so, but the thing is like you have Luca, you have LeBron, you have Aiden, you have Reeves, right? You have enough offense now if you can just get a couple just like top flight like a dude theo type guys, right? Like that just, you know, you question their offense, but at least athletically they’re going to be able to do the dirty work and make the hustle plays and do all these things, right? Like I think the Lakers that would do wonders for the Lakers. Now again, if you can get legit two-way guys, if you can get better two-way balance, then you do it obviously, right? But I’m just saying like just injecting athleticism alone would go such a long way for the Lakers, right? Having, you know, Jared Vanderbilt out there and those kind of guys and guys that can defend would go so long such a long way for the Lakers, right? Like even just having those guys be serviceable, right? I’ve talked about like if you’re going to go with Luca and Austin Reeves, you need like a Jared Vanderbilt who can shoot, you know, whatever 34% from three-point range and then like an Ad Theoro who can shoot, you know, again, 34 to 35% from three-point range because those guys are athletic enough, quick enough, and and hopefully if Adoro can be the level of defender that he was looked at coming out of college and that can translate to the NBA, now you have enough now you have that athleticism out on the wing to mass and and and make up and pick up the slack for a Luca and Oscar race like you saw with Derrick Jones Jr. and then they go and get PJ Washington and that kind of you know change the dynamic for that team. Add in you know a Daniel Gaffford and Derrick Levy you got the athleticism at the guard position. Well Eighton gives you that athleticism at the guard position. You need those two wings that can just make up on the defensive side of things to where now Luca and Osar Reeves can operate or in a perfect world you have Luca and then kind of three of those guys with DeAndre and and now you could be in, you know, really good. But my my concern, right, that I I want to be fair though because one, like I said, we haven’t gotten a ton of practices. We haven’t really gotten the opportunity to to really carve out our defensive identity, right? Even our offense, right? Like I mean, you know, Luca’s been limited. LeBron’s been limited. Reeves has had the largest workload, but we’ve seen, you know, Marcus Smart and Jared and uh Gabe Vincent and all these guys like they’ve all been limited. They’ve even in practices and stuff. So, it’ be nice to kind of hear and see what happens this week and kind of get the information we need to hopefully get better promise. So, I don’t want to I don’t want to over blow this, right? I don’t want to like make this like oh my god like this is like Lakers they’re going to be the worst defensive team in basketball because I don’t think that they will be. I mean, again, they were, you know, decent last season and now you got a full healthy Jared Vanderbilt and the Marcus Martin, DeAndre Eaton who’s going to buy in defensively, you know, at least that’s what he’s shown thus far, right? So, I don’t want to I don’t want to I don’t want to, you know, chicken little the sky is falling here, right? I want to be fair and wait and see. But there are some concerns, right? And you are seeing the concerns without, you know, a Jared Vanderbelt and a, you know, Marcus Smart again, hoping Marcus Smart come back. We’ve seen, you know, Ruachamura still doesn’t have it defensively. Dalton Connect, forget about it, right? Like, you know, Gabe Vincent was kind of getting after it, but again, he’s undersized. He’s not, you know, he’s not 6’5, 66, you know, he’s like 6’2, 63 to where, no, he’s, you know, he’s he can have an impact, but to an extent, right, Jake Lavia, he’s had some good defensive sequences, but he hasn’t been quite what I want him to be yet. Granted, we’ll see what does he look like again when we have our defensive scheme and stuff. Guys are kind of just out there playing. I mean, even JJ Reic basically said that himself like, you know, hey, like talked about it after the Suns game, we haven’t had the opportunity in the reps and been able to shape and create our identity yet, right? Like Phoenix had the time and you saw like they looked really good. They looked cohesive. They’re getting after it defensively, right? They had their defense schemes, their offense schemes, all the things that you want to see. So, you know, like he was saying like we haven’t gotten that opportunity yet. So Jake Laravia I want to be I want to be patient on as far as the defense side of things goes because he has shown that he can be good defensively and again he had some good defensive sequences even in that Warriors game. He had a couple. He was actually better defensively in that Warriors game than he was the the Phoenix Suns game, but not quite where where I would personally like him to be or what I’ve kind of talked about where I think he can be, right? But again, I want to be fair and see like what does he look like when he actually has all the starters and stuff. And you know, again, he’s working twice as hard offensively. Same thing with Ruie Hachimura and these guys because they don’t have LeBron Luca and Austin Reeves to create for them and take the the pressures off of them offensively, right? Once that comes back and those guys get there, now Jake Laavia doesn’t have to work as hard offensively so he can, you know, uh, focus more on the defensive end and use more of that energy on the defense side of things. So again, I want to be fair, but you know, I I I there are some concerns about the defense and the lack of athleticism that I do think needs to be at least discussed for now. Again, that could change. We could get, you know, into this week in the last three Laker games, everyone plays and it’s like, oh no, you know what? They’re actually pretty good, right? Marcus Smart, he’s in. Gabe Benson, you know, Jared Vanderbelt, Jake Laravia, because now he has other like defensive pieces around him. So, he’s bought in more. Now he’s not having to defend the best guy on the other team, right? Like it’s just everything can maybe come together if you see that. And as the season progresses, you get more reps, you get more comfortable, right? So, again, I don’t want to like overblow it, but the obvious things that we thought are are obviously there, right? At least thus far. But anyway, as always, this is a discussion. I pass a question on you. Let me know your thoughts and opinions down in the comments. That being said, if you haven’t liked this video, hit that like button. Helps me out enjoy these types of videos and I truly appreciate it. Not subscribe to channel, hit that subscribe button, turn on the bell notifications. Appreciate y’all. See you in the next one. Thank.

Lakers had concerns going into this NBA season and after the first 2 preseason games are still Of concern. Lakers Nation really needs Athleticism and a Lakers Trade could help with that but until than guys must be better defensively. Lakers News of more camp time and reps could naturally help and the return of guys like Marcus Smart could be great as well.

#lakers #lakerstrade #lakersnews