Law Murray on Lakers, Cavs, Clippers and more

Law murray On. He is a Philly guy by birth. Before doing the whole academic thing at cal and then in Pennsylvania and at USC, he was a researcher for NFL Media an NBA editor at ESPN for many years. He was a Clippers blogger before signing on with The Athletic, where he now covers the Clippers in the NBA at Large. So, Law, you're at the game, at the game cover and for the great almost called why not almost call it? Yovan Buja in the Lake Great, he's the sick and grade the sick grade.

and the Lakers were off for two days. I was at the game Saturday night where the Lakers beat the Kings and that was Doug Christie's debut as a head coach, and Lebron didn't play that. I mean, it was a lot of points in that one too, though, So like, you know, the Lebron had five days off, he just turned forty, and we all had you know, the whole

Lebron hasn't played thing. You know, I was at the Grizzlies game where what twenty four hours before, JJ Redick was like, I don't know where is I don't know if he'll be back. And then it's like, of course he's going to show up and play like Lebron with rest is obviously different than Lebron at on E and so.

And the Lakers went to Cleveland in October, and that's when I think people first started to realize, oh, this Cavaliers team is not messing around, like they smacked the Lakers at night, even though the Lakers made twenty three more free throws and the Cavs did right. So for me, it's like, okay, you have that kind of game circled. Cleveland's playing incredibly well. It's a statement game just on principle,

a huge rest disadvantage. And yet Trisa, these Cavaliers players were still running up and down the floor because that is what they are ingrain to do. They are pushing the pace under Kenny Atkinson, they are getting good shots. I feel like when I watched the Cavaliers and the Donovan Mitchell Cavaliers under JB. Bickerstaff, I got used to them draining the shot clock in half court possessions and they would get good shots like they were a good team.

But that was their offense. They weren't, you know, they were not a team in a rush to get a shot up. Not that this team is in a rush to get bad shots up. I'm pretty sure that if they're not leading the league and field goal percentage, they're damn close to it. But they they're not waiting for you make or miss. They're getting the ball up the floor.

There are I played basketball. You played basketball. Even though I need proof of yours, you know, I was an off guard, and the shooting guard position to me means when that ball goes through the net or it's a rebound or a change possession, you are up the wing.

You are up and out right. Point guards are like, get me the ball, were starting this, but shooting guards are You're going up yeah, and the cas just all their you know, whoever is off the ball, you know, whether it's one of DG or Donovan, but especially guys like Max Thrus, Carriselvert, they are up the floor waiting and they get good shots just off of that, and that was the game. Pretty much like the Lakers. They want to run, but Manning is good at running as

the killer the cap layers. And that was with the Cavs on a West coast back back. I thought that was incredibly impressive. And you know what helps to have that kind of energy when you beat the hell out

of the Warriors on that front end. None of those dudes had to play thirty minutes in Golden State, so it was like that was the one thing I was like, Okay, these guys are outside of Isaaca Carrow fully healthy and they did the best job possible taking care of themselves on the front end, and that was that made a huge difference in the Tuesday night game against the Lakers.

the way JB. Bickerstaff coached either. Detroit's playing pretty well. But sometimes certain coaches are good for like teams in certain parts of their life cycle, right, and like maybe Kenny is a better coach for this part of the life cycle of his team.

the rest of that year. He didn't even want the job up front, and yeah, and slug life, you know, and JV kind of had to like stabilize a team that was incredibly lost, and he did that, like they got to the play in tournament and then they got to the first round, and then last year they got to the second round. Trista, you I was thinking about this last night, like you need three things because again

I just told you. I just saw Doug Christy, you know, coach his first game as the Sacramento King's head coach after Mike Brown got let go. And we know that franchise in Sacramento. I mean, Cleveland is not that far behind us sar as habitual chronic instability and dysfunction. You need as a head coach to have two of the three relationships in this list ownership, front office, and your stars. And the extensions are the stars will dictate whether you're

winning or losing a lot of these games. Okay, Like if you don't have a star, that's probably going to be a real issue for you. The front office, the thing that the front office is beholden to the most is the players that maybe won't play depending on who the coach is, right, So you got to have the relationship with that management. But you also like the vets, the free agent who just steign the young guys that haven't or are showing that they could play, but they

need some rope. That is a front office consint And then the ownership extension is the fans and the media, all the chatter, because that stuff just is a perception thing. When you're a head coach, you are basically the face of a whole lot of bs. You got to answer for stuff from media day until the you know night you're eliminated. And so, you know, I thought JV just

lost too many of the key relationships there. Obviously him in the front office had their had their challenges, and a lot of those challenges had to do with the touch point between what's gonna happen with Donovan Mitchell. Well, they decided that JAB was at the end of the line, like you mentioned. And the great thing about Kenny Atkinson is Kenny's been a head coach and an assistant coach with so many different situations, rebuilds, revitalizations and everything in between.

You know, I'm a big fan of Kenny accent. I got to cover him when he was with the Clippers to Ron Lou's first year, and we didn't see each other in person that whole year. The whole year is on zoom, so it's been cool seeing him in person, you know, the last couple of years with the Warriors, and now last night I got to catch up with him, and you mentioned predictability. So JV is a guy who defensively, he knows what he wants to do. I actually think JB.

The coolest thing with what JB did the you know, get the calves kind of to break through, was they lined up differently. They had Larry markin in at the three, Evan Mobley at the four of his rookie year right, and Jared at the five. It's like teams weren't lining up like that, right, And there is some predictability with Kenny Atkinson's Calves. You know that they're going to run a whole bunch of pick and roll. You know that

if they get threes up, you're in trouble. They don't take the same volume of threes as some of these teams in the league do, but their accuracy is what kills you. And that is what I think is the conversation here. I think you do need some predictability, Trista. Predictability is an advantage to the teams that have it. Like if you're you know, if you're you know what Boston's going to do, and so it's very predicted what

Boston's gonna do. That doesn't mean you're gonna stop it, you know what I mean, you're still praying as a certain point that it came that they missshots, But you know what shots are coming from. You know who's gonna have the ball in their hands. And that's the thing

with Cleveland Kenny. What he's done is he knows his personnel and he's maximizing it creatively but predictably in a way that JB probably did not show he was going to, especially once those relationships got strained with some of the key guys on that team.

did in the past. Let's say the Charlotte Hornets hire JIK and the Charlotte Hornets had Lebron James back in the Southeastern Division, right, and you're saying they need to contend, it would hit different.

they've done over the last decade. And there's and and I feel like that's wrong, and that's just NBA fans have gotten to the point where it's like the Warriors our name brand. Look, we grew up when the Warriors were ashy s L and made the playoffs once in seventeen years, right, And it's like that's no offense to the war The Warriors have an awesome rooted fan base, you know, shout out to the arena in Oakland days. You know. What I'm saying like that is that's their

fan base. But nationally and how they're covered, you know, as far as the whole scope of the league, everyone looks at the Warriors as a team that should be contender. Run it.

And like they're both in their twilights, they're both showing real signs of the climb. It's not to say they're not good players now, it's not to say that they aren't great or aren't you know, deserving of all of our excitement when they do any of the stuff that reminds us of their of their peaks. But those players are not peaking right now. Kevin Durant and Phoenix is

not peaking right now. But notice that we ain't talking about the Suns and trying to make them great again like the Warriors and the Lakers, because the Sons ain't never done anything like they made the finals. That saying it's like you can't even make the finals and be

says that you gotta win a championship or whatever. The Suns haven't done that, so they don't get the same level of Hey, can y'all move heaven and Earth to save the end of this guy's you know whatever you want to call this stage of guys like Katie or bron or steps career. You know, it's a branding thing. Like the Lakers, they're supposed to be. They're supposed to be where they are right now. Now, if you look at it from that perspective, yeah, they can be satisfied

going into the first week of January. But if you're thinking that they're a contender, no, the only people who think their contenders are the people who are in that building with the Lakers and obviously have a reason to not be real with themselves, and the people who want you to watch the Lakers. And there's a lot of people who no matter again, no matter what is going on with that team, they want you to focus on

the Lakers more than a team like the Cavaliers. I wrote a damn story last night, and if I wasn't, you know, on the.

conferences and overall. Because you know how many games the Cavs have lost against Western Conference teams this year, just.

is why you don't mess around in New Orleans. You know, you don't fall behind fourteen and you don't have to run Norman Palace minutes to forty and Visus Zubots, who's a big, big person, you know, having to play the minutes that he had to play James Harden at the stage of his career. But the great thing about the Clippers is, you know, when it's not a second night of back to back, you know what you're getting out of them. They're gonna play hard, and they have the

players to play hard and the play without agendas. Last year, the Clippers were great for a significant portion of the season. I need great. They were, like we were talking thirty three and eight from you know, I believe the end of the losing streak in November where at by the end of it they had to sit Russell Westbrook or not sit him but make him a second unit player. You know, from that point until the end of the Grammy shirt thirty three and eights for the damn good right, Trista,

that team didn't believe. That team didn't believe that they were going to do anything. There was just too many agendas, too many guys split and when kawhi'snee gave out, that was it.

And that's okay. PJ. Tucker is pushing forty, you know what I mean, Like he's at the stage of his career where it's you know, a credit to him that he got the contract that he got, but he's not helping the team. And last year I saw like when you gotta keep PJ. Tucker Bone Thiland from your last game before the All Star break because they didn't get traded to a team that was playing as well as

the Clippers were. The Clippers were in first place in the West for about twenty four hours right before the trade dead nine. That's a red flag obviously. It's like what is going on where guys this team could do something special and guys who are on that team are acting like this just because they're not playing. So not to say that that's completely gone away. Like PJ. Tucker's still in the roster. The difference is he's not traveling and around the team this year. Bone Island's still in

the roster. It's just that Bones has never been in the rotation this year and the few chances that he's gotten he had and you know, the coaches have not been convinced that he should stay in the rotation, so he doesn't play. So you still have, you know, a lot going on. Kawhi isn't playing right now. That said, have they re ranted their team. They didn't sign Paul George, which we have an old way of thinking. Pay a guy as much as possible to keep him or at

least train him and get something for him. People killed the Clippers over the summer because they have not made the transition from the way the CBA is now compared to the way the CBA was when the Clippers stole Norman Powell from the Portland Trailblazers. We are in different phases of team management and roster building, and the Clippers understood that even before last year. They're like, hey, Kawhi and Paul are partners, their extension eligible. We'll see what happens.

Kawhi saw the reading on the wall and sign his thing before anything could happen, including his own body breaking down out and Paul knew that he could probably get the more money than what the Clippers are offering him

and shout out to Paul. He got his bag. Can you imagine if the Clippers were playing Paul George anywhere close to what Paul wanted on this year's team, with Kawhi not playing, and with you know, just the fact that, yeah, the Clippers would be the team that everyone thought the Clippers would be when the Vegas odds came out for the preseason, which the Clippers players were very cognizant about.

It's not that they hate Paul, It's that they felt like they were good players and that people were missing that because they were so used to Paul George being a part of the La Clippers, and they were so used to Kawhi Leonard. If Kawhi is not going to play and Paul's not there, what do you have? That's how you know a lot of these people don't pay attention to who like the Clippers. When you look at roster Trista, you see a bunch of players who were

pretty good at playing basketball. You see a coaching staff who at the very least was going to get players not only prepared to play, but like they're going to adjust and they're going to put them in position to stay motivated to play hard. Jeff and Gundy being an addition to coaching staff, he's never satisfied. I've never seen Jeff like actually chill, you know, and I've been around him for months now. It's like they play with an edge and it's hard to maintain that edge. And that's

what January is about now you've seen some success. Now Norman Powell, you know, is putting addition by subtraction hoodies out under the Understand the Ground brand, you know.

I think Kawhi is going to be fine, but bringing Kawhi back is a disruption, right and then you're going to be disrupted again because right when Kawhi is going to get in the rhythm, the trade deadline is going to hit. And Lawrence Frank always makes a move and that team has at least two guys who you got to really take a long look at seeing if you can remix your roster and enhance it. They have holes on their roster. They have guys who are playing that

probably need to be in reduced roles. They have like a gaping sore at a couple of spots. They need to play better basketball. And part of that is getting Kawhi back, but part of it is seeing how Kawhi makes everyone else look and seeing if there's a way to enhance the roster. So we're we are in the middle of of the of of things. Just it's it's very exciting.

patients in a way that they haven't before. They want Kawhi to not just come back, but stay back. We saw in the playoffs how excited were people when he got to finally play a home playoff game in front of a capacity crowd for the first time as a Clipper. And by the end of the weekend he was cooked.

Like we saw he went to the Olympics and he had to sleeve on and he was trying to mouth breathe his way to Paris, and you know what, he probably could have made it, you know, like he probably could have been on that team, participated got a gold medal just for playing ten minutes a game at most. But that Olympic team was like, we already got injured guys. You saw how Joel Embiid looked. Kevin Durant didn't play

until the end of July. They couldn't afford to have Kawhi on the roster when Derek White fresh body and everything was chilling and waiting to go. So they're like, we're letting you go, Kawhi, and then Kawhi, you know, couldn't be ready for training camp.

stage of his career. Norm a guy who's over thirty and has you know a guy that people have just gotten comfortable thinking he's a bench player. And if it's zubot's a guy that you know, uh, people who again don't watch or only play two k and it's like, man, this is zoo. Don't shoot threes and don't make anything happen. You know, they're not aware of the fact that he's one of the most effective post players over the last

several seasons. That's a balance. Though you have a post player, you have a on off ball player in norm a guy who is excelling in the handoffs or coming off a screens or curls. And then James who is your primary playmaker. He's running your picking roles and he's in ISO, but he's also focused on getting the ball to others. Kawhi is a better ISO player than almost any player in the league. And Kawhi loves the mid range, which

is something the Clippers completely lack. Right now, Kevin Porter Junior leads the team in mid range filgal clips right now, I don't think I need to say anything more than that, Like it's about and we should look at this or every basketball team, like in football, we always discuss where guys are running routes you never see or you ideally don't see two guys in the same area in a football game or football play. It's the same thing with basketball. You need to space the floor. You have the guy

who has the ball. There's only one ball last time I checked in basketball, right, and then you have to find ways to create space and exploit space. And you don't want guys stepping on each other's toes. And over the course of forty eight minutes, you have to fill those minutes with lineups that can continue to generate good offense. Kawhi is not just a ceiling raizer. He's a floor raizer. And that last part is important because he's not gonna

come debuting and dropping thirty. That's not what Kawhi is gonna do because he's missed too much time. That's why it's taking him a lot of time now to get ready to play, because they want him to, you know, knock that rust off and be able to participate fully with the team. They're gonna have the actions for Kawhi. But being a floor raizer means he's gonna take good shots.

He's gonna make open shots and he's gonna take care of basketball, and that is key because you can let James continue to run pick and rolls, Norman Powell can again. He's such a good catch and shoot player, a good movement shooter that you're not worried about him being in the way. You know he's gonna enhance players because he's so good that even if he doesn't touch the ball, well, he's creating offense for your team. And then if it's

a zoobots, he's going to be in the paint. He's in the middle of the floor, he's setting screens, or he's posting up, or he's in the dunker spot cutting. He has gotten really good at understanding where he's going to get the ball and where he can make an impact. And also Zue is up there in the league leaders in offensive rebounds, so when you do misshots, he's a presence there. So it's a complimentary team. That's how they built this team, and it will be great to see

how he affects the Stars. But we really got to see who winds up losing the most playing time. That's going to be the real key.

but the Celtics, the Celtics too. I mean, but I gotta I gotta say, like, if Jimmy is not a part of that, what do you have if you trade Jimmy and that we are we're headed for some kind of collision course, what does that look like? And they're already you know, barely over five hundred now, So I don't doubt Spoe or that organization, but that is a big change to make if they make it. And but it's also the same to me.

you know, for for quite a bit. Like I don't want to say a team like San Antonio for instance, like you know, yeah, I'm not going to try to San Antonio, you know, falls off a bit, you know. I mean, Chris Paul is having an incredible season considering how old he is. He's turning forty in twenty twenty five is and he's I don't think he I don't know how many games he's missed. I don't know if

he's missed a game, you know whatnot. And he's been instrumental to what they're doing if they were to lose him or or Wimby or somebody to, you know, for an extening period of time. The Spurs are the healthiest team in basketball. And yes they are only one game over five hundred. But I think the teams that are good right now, they're probably going to be good now that the teams.

of those dudes, Joel Maxy PG. One of those dudes is not playing, they are not a good basketball team. Nick has not gotten that team to play well shorthanded at all. That being said, they are a powerful team if those three players are playing. Joel is playing at the level that he was a year ago. That is Honestly, I'm a little unpleasantly pleased to see that, just I just didn't think that would happen with how much he was struggling with that leg. So it's great to see

a player like Joelle get healthy. Keep that in mind for Kawhi. It's gonna take a while for these guys to get back, but if they get back, they're elite for a reason. These guys that are getting paid by these teams, they see them day in and day out. They know what they're dealing with. I think we got to give these medical staffs, these training stats more credit than what some of these people give. Paul is not

putting good numbers up. But the thing with Paul that he doesn't get credit for is he's gonna find a way to make some kind of impact positively on the games. Now, you didn't pay for that, but at the same time you kind of did, like you had to realize that Paul was probably, you know, hanging onto his star statisfy a thread in some regards, but right now he is he is. And that's the thing though, I think that

Paul is a higher floor player than Tobiases. Whereas you would hoped that Paul would be more of a ceiling raizer, Paul is probably not a ceiling razor. Right now he's going to say that he can get to that level. I think people should be skeptical because even the last couple of years, his paint touches, his drives, his ability to his ability definish his fine, but his ability to actually create advantages is not good. He just doesn't have the bursts or the lift or the explosion. And that's fine.

He's a year fifteen player at and we've seen all he's been through physically. You know, the dude broke his leg on National TV ten summers ago. You know, Phillip overpaid for him. He's a high floor player, and a high floor player helps when you have the ceiling raizers in Joel and if Tyrese is going to recover from the bad start that he had. Tyrese was having a tar terrible start the year having to carry the load without Joel and Paul. Again, he's not that guy if

he's got to play that way. Like we saw it last year, Tary's put up numbers when Joel was out, but the Sixers were not good Like Nick's just not the kind of coach who's going to do his best work with shorthanded rosters. But he is going to if he has those stars, they're going to win a lot of games. And you see where they are and I think they are one game behind in the lost column behind the Pacers, Bulls and Pistons. They all have eighteen losses.

The Sixers are seventeen. The Pacers are in eighth. So yeah, they're they're not the They're not the five. What did they start like five and fifteen? Right, Yeah, they're obviously.

for a number of reasons. You know they're healthy.

be again a ceiling razor and a floor razer. The issue with Jimmy is his availability and his approach, like Jimmy is going to coast and get himself to the playoffs so that he can max out in the playoffs. That's a dangerous line in the Western Conference. Like Jimmy is, Jimmy is absolutely a sixteen game player, but he's not necessarily an eighty two game player. We've seen that for years. Jimmy is so much older than people think he is.

Jimmy's got a young character to him. When you just look at if you're not the type that looks up birth certificates and birthdays and whatnot, and you just you know, Jimmy came to consciousness late. And Jimmy, it's not like Jimmy was a star in high school or scar in college. He was a late literally the last first round pick of his draft. You know, Jimmy has gotten it out the mud. But Jimmy is thirty five, and Jimmy's knees are in a state where you know you can't run

him out there. You know, a whole lot. But I think they need another bucket. They need a guy who can confidently score like Jalen Green is getting an incredible amount of rope for how inefficient he can be. Next to Fred van Bleet, but I don't think a small guard like they have enough small guards. They're not playing Aaron Hollidays on his team. Reacheverer's on the team Fred van Bleep. For all the good of Fred van Vliet, the worst thing about Fred van Bleet is that he

is thoroughly inefficient as a shot maker. You know. The good thing about van Bleet is he's gonna defend, He's gonna give you an edge, he's gonna take care of basketball, and he has deep three point range, so at least you have a semblance of spacing out there. I don't think the Aaron's the kind of player that's going to help them because the Arran strengths are his strengths. But they don't make Houston a remarkably different team than they

already are now. So I'm keeping an eye on if they choose to stand pat or if they choose to, you know, try and turn their some of those assets into an upgrade from a scoring perspective. They're too easy to stop if you're locked into rebounding and if you can, you know, win the possession.

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