The Lakers (13-20) are reeling after dropping 4 straight contests to the Suns, Kings, Hornets, and most lately towards the Mavericks on Christmas.
The Lakeshow gave up 51 factors within the third quarter, probably the most any group gave up within the NBA this season. L.A. went into the fourth quarter down 19, and Dallas had the movement of the sport properly inside their grasp. The highway journey dropping streak and progress to creating the playoffs have halted after Anthony Davis suffered a foot damage that’ll hold him out for at the very least one other week.
The Lakers at the moment are thirteenth within the West and searching for solutions. Coming into the season with a brand new head coach in Darvin Ham, the plan was to play via AD extra usually and Ham determined that using Russell Westbrook off the bench as a sixth man could be one of the best plan of action after a troublesome first yr within the purple-and-gold.
With the commerce deadline shortly approaching, the Lakers are reportedly leaning in the direction of standing pat and saving their draft capital for different offers, in response to Jovan Buha of The Athletic. Furthermore, Buha stories that the Lakers entrance workplace, led by Rob Pelinka, is weary of compounding their “previous mistakes with more win-now moves.”
Reinforcements through commerce would clearly assist, and the Lakers are nonetheless evaluating their choices on a dormant commerce market. At the identical time, it turns into more and more difficult to justify buying and selling a first-round choose if the group continues to wrestle. The entrance workplace doesn’t need to compound its earlier errors with extra win-now strikes.
With that being mentioned, the Lakers and Pelinka have loads of time to ponder one of the best plan of action with the deadline set for Fed. 9. At 13-20, the Lakers are almost certainly headed in the direction of a battle for the play-in match for the second time since LeBron James joined the Lakers through the 2018-2019 season. Since he joined, the Lakers have made the playoffs twice, successful their nineteenth championship in 2020.
Although James and Davis have performed at a excessive stage, the Lakers are nonetheless a top-heavy group. Their offense is ranked twentieth within the League (111.6 offensive ranking) and twentieth in protection (113.6 defensive ranking). Whatever strikes they make should treatment their middling play on each ends. They will possible must trim across the edges to make that occur; Westbrook, Davis, and James are all owed cash that’s laborious to maneuver off their books.
The Lakers have an opportunity to cease the bleeding once they play the Magic on Tuesday.
Source web site: www.slamonline.com
