What Are The Lakers Good At? And An Homage To Kevin Durant

an amazing job breaking down the game last night. I'm not gonna dig too much into that game in particular, um, I loved how they got into Lebron and how he's starting to look better physically and and the things that he's doing on the court to start to make things easier for himself, and the way that he's adapted as he's gotten older. I loved how they dug into Austin Reeves and all the little details that make him such a good player at a young age. If you guys

haven't listened to that podcast yet, please do. I appreciate them for covering for me today. What I'd like to do just too. This is gonna be a really quick short pot maybe fifteen twenty minutes. I wanted to dig into the idea of what the Lakers are good at because it's been an extremely frustrating start. Obviously through the first you know, to be what is it twenty seven games to be fourteen and thirteen with their strength of schedule, it's really easy to be a pessimist. But the reality

is is we've been building towards something. There has been good on the horizon. Our guy Pete from Laker Film Room tweeted out last night after the game that since benching DeAndre Jordan's the Lakers are top ten in offensive

rating and defensive rating, which is a hallmark for a champion. Now, there's some weak opponents in there and some decent opponents in there, and obviously we still have a long way to go, and you'd like to get a couple of wins in Memphis and against the Clippers in order to make this feel more legitimate. But without a shadow of a doubt, the Lakers are playing better basketball out than they were last month, So there is a silver lining

there and we are progressing in the right direction. But I wanted to really talk about what we're good at and when you combine that with understanding where areas of opportunity are, you can kind of start to paint a picture of what the Lakers are gonna look like when they really start to get going, when the ball really really starts to get rolling. So to start, you have to understand what we're bad at. Obviously you can look

at just by watching the team. You can be frustrated with some of the lineup decisions that we've made in in months past, although Frank I think is really trended in the right direction in that regard, and you can talk about some personnel decisions and our lack of forwards and things along those lines, But in terms of what has actually happened on the court that I can narrow down our flaws to two key things, and they break down into a couple of different stats. So, for starters

were dead last and contested shots per game. Tracking stats are a little bit tricky. I'm not a huge fan of them because they're flawed, But given the fact that we're second in pace, for us to be dead last and contested shots per game is a huge red flag. What that tells me is more often than not, when the offense when there, when the opponent runs a little

bit offense and they get a decent look. We're more likely to just concede the shot than we are to make some extra effort or attempt to cover for a teammate get a hand up and make someone feel uncomfortable. That's a problem that directly relates to the fact that we've underachieved defensively compared to the way we were in previous years. We're dead last and defensive box out percentage according to the NBA's tracking data. We box out the other team less than anybody else in the entire league.

That's a huge problem. That's again directly related to the fact there were twenty four and defensive rebound percentage. Frank has consistently complained that defensive rebounding has been a problem for the team. We all know it has just by watching, and we're not even doing the work the box out. This isn't a matter of we don't have enough size on the floor. This isn't a matter of you know, guys even Cray sing, we're just not boxing out. That's

a huge problem. So in addition to that, we don't take care of the basketball or four and turnover possession a percentage a lot of that has to do with Russ and Lebron and continuity. Anytime you change out a lot of players, it's turnovers kind of come with the processes. Guys really start to feel each other out, and then we don't this too. These are two. These two are completely related to each other. We give up the fifth most fast breakpoints per one hundred possessions. Now that's part

of that's turnovers. When you turn the ball over, the team starts running the other way. But a lot of it's jogging, and some of it's that line up decision from Frank to consistently play two bigs, which puts our team foot speed below a certain threshold to where fast teams can really just run it up and down on

us and get a lot of easy shots. But if I had to take all of those stats and kind of combine them into two concepts, we don't value possession of the basketball in terms of offense and taking care of the ball, and in terms of defense. After you get a stop, finishing the action by getting the rebound,

and then we don't finish plays defensively. You make a rotation, not sticking a hand up, not contesting the shot, make not making that extra rotation, not making that out of area play to contest a shot, which will directly lead to lowering opponent field goal percentages and getting you more stops which will help you get out in transition. And then after the shot goes up and misses, grabbing the rebound,

boxing someone out getting that rebound we do. We do not finish plays well, and we don't value possession of the basketball. Those are two biggest flaws right now in my opinion. The good news is those are fixable flaws. There's no point in us talking about forward depth. There's no point in us talking about, you know, personnel, when the personnel is what it is at this point, you know that we there's no point in living in fantasy land about what we might be able to do to

change until we really know what those options are. And right now I don't even really necessarily like some of the options that have been thrown out, so we kind of have what we have. We can fix. However, boxing the other team out and taking care of the basketball and running back in transition, those are fixable problems. So when we combine those fixable problems with what we're good at, we can start to have an idea of what this team is gonna look like. So here's what we're good at.

We run the floor on offense. We don't run the floor and defense at all, as I just discussed, but we run the floor and offense. We're second in pace. We're fiveth in fast breakpoints per one possessions. That's really important for a bunch of different reasons, but the main reason is we are able to generate higher quality shots by avoiding the half court as much as possible. This directly shows up in our field goal percentages. We get good shots. We are six in field goal percentage in

the league. A big part of that is pushing the ball in transition. We are tenth in effective field goal percentage in the league. That's again directly related to pushing the ball in transition staying out of the half court. Now, those numbers may not seem great, but when I say sixth and tenth, even though that seems low, yet factor in the on has missed a bunch of time, and we shoot about four percent better from the field and about four percent better from three when Lebron's on the floor.

So even factoring that in, we're doing really well in terms of our shot quality, and to me, that's all about avoiding the half court as much as possible and pushing the ball and transition. What I'd like to see better process and the half court, sure that are spacing better lineups, prioritizing shooting Lebron and a D and rush, doing a better job of pressuring the rim. We're only twelve and paint points per one possessions. That's not good enough for a team that has the type of rim

pressuring talent that we have. But that's exciting to me to see us twelve and paint points six and field goal percentage in tent and EFFECTI field goal percentage because I know those are gonna go way up. Why because not only are we starting to play better, but Lebron's consistently in the lineup. You can depend on those numbers going up. So it's good to see that we're already

pretty good in those areas despite Lebron missing time. We're already pretty good at pushing the ball in transition, getting high quality shots, were already pretty good at pressuring the rim, and that's only going to go way up from here. Another little interesting stat in their seventh in the league in percentage of our three point attempts that are assisted. I like that because it means we're not taking bad threes.

There have been a handful of games, and I've been critical of of Lebron in particular for taking a lot of really really tough off the dribble threes. But the threes that we get in our offense are primarily drive and kick or transition running wide open threes. We have two of the ten best percentage wise three point shooters in the league when they're wide open, for guys who have made at least ten in the league. I tweeted out those stats earlier. Wayne Ellington and Carmelo Anthony are

both comfortably over on wide open threes. That's a huge asset. So we're doing a good job of pushing the ball in transition when we have an opportunity to and kicking the ball out to good shooters for good set, balanced, high quality three point attempts. That's all very very good. We block a lot of shots. We are fifth in block shots per game. That's been a staple in the

Lebron ad era. A lot of it because of Frank's defensive schame in the way that we play bigs Um but we actually give up a ton of paint points. So that's the one thing that's interesting there. What that tells me is that when we actually make an attempt to protect the rim, we do a good job of protecting the rim. The problem is is we don't make that attempt often enough or too quick to concede baskets

around the rim. This is something that Frank has been talking about lately in his postgame pressors and his pregame pressers. The idea of being early in help. This is something that I was very critical of the Lakers of after the Memphis game. Memphis did such an amazing job when

you watched them covering for each other. When one of their players would step over to help on a drive or on a backcut, there was always another player coming in from behind, whether it was Kyle Anderson, whoever, was w just come in and make a play, be willing to cover for their teammates. I call them out of area plays. It's very easy to get kind of tunnel vision in your defensives insibility. I'm in charge of this guy. I just have to keep him off the glass. I

just have to keep him out of the lane. I just have to take away his open threes. When the reality is is, again, the goal of defense isn't for me to stop you. The goal of defense is for my five guys to stop your five guys, and so we have to be more willing to make out of area plays. That's a big, a big point of emphasis that I've been pushing this season. What what that shows me?

Again in those numbers, when we're giving up as many paint points as we are, we're too often covering for each other, but not covering for each other additional times in the same possession, Those multiple efforts, guys willingness to leave their man to help a teammate, that's not good enough. It's a big area of opportunity for us. We turn the other team over. We are tenth and opponent turnover percentage.

That's pretty good. Um, we're six and points off of turnovers when you factor in how poor we've been in other areas of defense. That's exciting to me. That's an indicator of defensive talent. Us turn earning the other team over, getting steals and getting out in transition off of that. That to me is what happens when you have guys like th ht on the floor, who has super long arms and is super active and disruptive on the ball. When you have Avery Bradley on the floor, who's a

ball pressure guard who makes UH primary initiators uncomfortable. When you have Anthony Davis and Lebron incredible back line defenders on the floor, or reason coming in is gonna make that better. Russ had a bad defensive game last night and no case. But for the most part as of late, he's been trending in the right direction and he can be flat out disruptive. When I see that when we're turning the ball over and we're getting out in transition

and scoring on those turnovers, that's exciting to me. We are starting to put together some pieces here that are working, and you could tell we we undercut ourselves in a lot of ways. Like I said, for you to be six in field goal percentage even without Lebron, for you to be sixth and field goal percentage in ten and effective field goal percentage, but to be a bottom ten offense, I think we're twenty three in offense right now. What

does that tell you? That tells you that we're hemorrhaging possessions, because when we have possession of the basketball. We're getting out and we're getting good shots, but too often we don't even get a shot attempt because we turn over the basketball. Too often. We score, but the other team gets additional possessions because we are not securing a defensive rebound. That that was the huge problem in the Memphis game. I think between turnovers and offensive rebounds, we had nearly

thirty possessions that were hemorrhages at hemorrhage. I can't remember the exact numbers. I know we gave up fourteen offensive rebounds, but there was like twenty two turnovers. You're talking thirty six possessions that are hemorrhage. It doesn't matter if you're a high field goal percentage team or high effective field goal percentage team. When you're hemorrhaging possessions like that, you have to take care of the basketball or none of

this works. You have to finish defensive possessions or none of this works. But again, the exciting part, we have good offensive process. We avoid the half court, we pushed the ball in transition, and we don't take crazy, stupid off the dribble three's. We've worked the ball around for

high quality catch and shoot threes. We're doing an okay job pressuring the rim, even though there's a lot of room for improvement there, and just in general we have we have good process in the possessions that we value. We defend well up until the end of defensive possession.

So if we can put the cap there, if we can contest a few more shots and box out more frequently, it will help us get more stops, which will help every other area of the game, help us get into out and transition even further, help us apply even more rim pressure. It will cascade into all those other areas of the game. It's encouraging that we're doing as well as we are in those areas. When you factor in all of those other things that we talked about, there's

an identity shaping up here. It's a little bit of a tweak on our identity, a little more transition play, a little more shooting, but the core of the identity turning the other team over, trying to get transition opera tunities when they're there. The Lakers were not a consistent fast breaking team, but they did fast break on defensive stops and turnovers. That was an area where they were good. Again, it's it's a modification of that identity, but you can

see it kind of starting to take shape. They just have that they have to ditch the games like Memphis, where all of those little things and all those little details get way on the back burner and we don't do the dirty work and then we end up struggling. The last thing I wanted to talk about today was Kevin Durant. I just wanted to It is only gonna take couple of minutes. I just wanted to give him

a little shout out. You know, Kevin Durant is an interesting kind of figure in this in this timeline, because you had the foot injury in two thousand fifteen, and then you have him nearly win the title in two thousand sixteen, you know, just some some Russell Westbrook mistakes and some poor shooting nights on his part, then honestly,

just really good Warriors basketball that cut him short. Then you have this weird, funky phase where he's in Golden State where he's winning but people really aren't giving him credit for it, which is not necessarily fair, and then he suffers a really really bad injury. He's had a rough go of things and as a result, Steph Curry has just been more available and more you know, whatever you wanted to however you want to characterize it. He's

just had more team success. Him and Lebron have kind of separated themselves from him, and so he kind of gets put on the back burner a lot. I thought he deserved unequivocally to be the best player in the league after losing to Milwaukee last year. I think when you go head to head with a guy like that and you clearly outplay them, even when the result doesn't come out your way, which was clearly a result of injuries as we saw James Harden could barely move and

Kyrie Irving was out of the lineup. I thought he firmly had a grasp as the best player in the world out of the playoff run last year, with Joannice having a reasonable case, obviously, but I thought Kevin Duran had the best case, and then this season Steph Curry has gotten all the shine and I do personally believe that's the best player in the world right now. It's something I've discussed. I think Lebron is starting to creep his way back into that discussion again, and Janice is

very much hitting his stride right now. I think he had forty one on like nineteen shots again last night, so he's looking great as well. It's a crowded field up there. Joannice, Katie Lebron, and Steph are all kind of up in that up in that range. But Kevin Durain is having a very underrated season, and I wanted to give him some credit because the truth of the matter is he's been dealt a really, really bad hand

of cards. Okay, not only with the injuries and all the things that I just discussed that have derailed varying points of his career, but he comes to Golden he comes to Brooklyn to build something new, you know, on his own volition, where he is the centerpiece and he is the architect, and quite frankly, he did a damn

good job of it. You know, even when we were all super critical of the Kyrie Hardened Katie trio, we were proved clearly wrong when that team was just steamrolling everybody and was beating the living ship out of Milwaukee before Kyrie sprained his ankle. He he did it right over there. And then Kyrie goes down and James Harden pulls his hamstring and the wheels come off, and then he nearly hits a series cleansing clinching shot, but by

an inch his toes over the line. And then you come into next season and Kyrie Irving won't get the vaccine and he can't play, and James Harden, for whatever reason, even though he had a whole summer to rehab the hamstring, comes into the season overweight, looking his steps slow, really struggling with the officiating changes. Now he's starting to to pick back up and get back to his former self, and James is starting to look great, and that's part

of why Brooklyn is looking so good. But the point is is, like Brooklyn has had, Kevin Durant and Brooklyn have had plenty of excuses to not be as good as they have been. Look at the Lakers. The Lakers have played an incredibly weak schedule, the Western Conference is wide open outside of Phoenix and in Golden State they have They've done nothing but make excuses for their poor play. Kevin Durant has had those same excuses, and he just

hasn't made them. All he's done is just be available every night and play some of the best basketball of his career. I've always been critical of him for not embracing the defensive end as much of his peers as his peers have this season, he's doing it. He's protecting the rim. Last night he literally was guarding Trey Young and crunch time, disrupting him, causing him serious problems, rushing him and forcing him to make decisions before he wanted to. Took a bunch of bad shots at the end of

the game. Kevin Durant is playing arguably the best basketball of his career. He's flying a little bit under the radar right now, but I wanted to give him some credit because again, he has all the excuses in the world. He has every reason to not be doing what he's doing, and people would cut him all the slack in the world, but he's just not taking that as an opportunity to make excuses. He's taking it as an opportunity to step up and carry his team. And I think I think

we're headed for an epic playoff run. We've had unfortunate circumstances where big guys have missed playoff runs in recent years. Right like a two years ago, it was like Lebron and Janice, We're in it. James Harden was in it, but Katie and Steph were on their couches with injuries. And then last year it's like Janice and k d are in it, but James Harden's on his couch, or was on his couch until he tried to to play when he was hampered, and Steph Curry and Lebron James

are on their couches. So all these guys were missing for various reasons, unfortunate reasons, and we're finally heading for this epic playoff run and I'm hoping that everyone stays healthy. Knock on wood, but you're you should see Kevin Durant with his own team healthy and in the in the postseason, Lebron James and his own team healthy and in the postseason, Steph Curry with his own team healthy in the postseason, and Janice with his own team healthy in the postseason.

I'm really excited to see how that shakes out. It'll it should be a much a much more you know, depth of competitive like a much more competitively deep playoff field than we've had in recent years. And I'm very excited. But again, I just wanted to give Kevin Durant um some credit for for the way he's playing. I think I think that, you know, especially for a guy like me who has been very critical with him over the years.

I just wanted to to pay him that compliment. So we'll be back tomorrow night for the postgame show after after the Orlando game. UM, My grandfather passed away yesterday, so I will be flying to Iowa for a funeral on Tuesday. So I will likely end up missing the Wednesday night game because I probably won't be back until pretty late on Wednesday. That obviously remains to be seen. UM, so rog is gonna have to cover from me again. And then my high school team has a game on

Friday next week. UM, and the Lakers play on Friday as well, so I'm gonna be missing. I'll be there for the Sunday post game show, but I'm gonna be missing the Wednesday and Friday post game shows next week. However, I am going to try to do these little during the day shows on the off days so that at least I can give my perspective on those games. Because I will obviously watch them, I just won't be able to watch them live. UM. As always, we sincerely appreciate

you guys, support this. Uh, this particular pod won't be on dash Radio because it's the weekend, but it'll be on our podcast feed on Saturday night at midnight for all of you guys to listen. Thank you guys so much. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and we'll see you on Sunday night.