The Lakers Rebuild Finally Starts
After trotting out a decrepit corpse of Kobe Bryant for a 82 (plus/minus) game victory parade, the Los Angeles Lakers can finally start looking to the future.
Last year was a weird moment of transition for the Lakers. On one hand, the team struggling for relevancy since the Dwight Howard debacle had to right the ship, on the other, Kobe Bryant wanted his Lifetime Achievement Season farewell. Everything was building up to a chariot ride through 29 arenas in the NBA, standing ovations and a cacophony of farewells sent towards number 24. As such, there wasn’t much incentive to really build into the future, jettison Nick Young or get a better coach than Byron Scott (literally any coach). Now that that’s done, where do we go from here?
The Lakers have made a variety of moves this summer. Some make a lot of sense, others may leave you scratching the back of your head profusely until you get to the bone. Coach Dude Luke Walton was one of the hottest commodities following his nearly impervious start with the Warriors next year while Kerr was sidelined. While I don’t want to entirely discredit Walton’s acumen as a coach, with all due respect, if I was given a Ferrari I’m fairly sure I can open it up to a 100mph on a freeway. Still, Walton was part of orchestrating the devastating motion offence that gave NBA nightmares so it’s a welcome change from Byron Scott’s permanent investment in “Long Two Properties Ltd.” Plus, he’ll get the Lakers eating healthy since he probably knows most primo Kombucha spots around Staples.
On the free agency front, they managed to hang on to Jordan Clarkson, who I like. While they didn’t manage to lure any free agents of note, or even get a meeting with most, the Lakers did try and make a few moves. For one, they brought in Luol Deng for veteran leadership. Deng won’t give you 30 productive minutes per game, but he can still defend across 3 positions on the court and is a somewhat effective spot up shooter. He started 73 games for the Heat last year and shot an somewhat effective .455% from the floor. In the right system he can be very effective. What’s more troubling is the addition of Timofey Mozgov on what seems like a king’s ransom. If a big man can get $64 million after averaging 17 minutes per game (and pretty much a net negative in the playoffs) while only managing 4.4 rebounds and 0.8 blocks I feel like we all should be lacing up at the local YMCA and giving some NBA teams a call. With the NBA going smaller, Mozgov’s mammoth frame is a detriment to the way Coach Dude Luke Walton will want to run with this squad.
So what is this squad? It has a slew of young talent between Ingram, Russell, Randle and Clarkson. Randle is a good undersized small 4, who may log time at stretch five if Walton tries to replicate what Golden State did with Green. Bigger than Green Randle isn’t quite the shooter that Draymond is, nor is he a ball handler of the same caliber. However, he does have quite an innate passing ability for a big man and is no slouch off the dribble. Considering that only one team has someone like Green to stretch out to five, Randle at five might just work.
It will however come down to the double guard line-up of Russell and Clarkson. Clarkson continues to be an efficient scorer off the bounce and moves well without the ball. He will be the straight forward battering ram to run at teams. Russell is a more riveting prospect, even at this time. After being marooned on the bench early on (thanks Byron) and experiencing quite a social media faux pas, Russell is looking to rebound. He performed much better second half of the season and the Lakers trio showed flashes of improvement sans Kobe.
As per ESPN, Clarkson/Randle/Russell trio had a 3.1 better offensive efficiency without Bryant, a 4.9 improvement in net efficiency, a bump in eFG percentage with a slightly slower pace. This makes sense since Kobe is an ancient breed of shooting guard that swallows up ball motion in lieu of volume shooting. And now there is freedom.
A lot of this will fall on Russell who has shown both the heart and the acumen to be something special in this league. He consistently takes big shots and while he isn’t as quick as some of the best PGs, he has a deceptive step and a smooth release. Combine that with astute passing vision and you have a great guard for the motion system. He will shoulder most of the ball distribution duties for this squad with literally everyone else around being a pure scorer down to the bench. Russell and Randle will most likely be primary passers.
Brandon Ingram, the second overall pick, is another intriguing piece as to how he will fit into this. With the NBA going into a small ball revolution (we’re probably in year 5 now) Ingram has the perfect height to fill that role, he is however rail thin and we’re yet to see how his body handles NBA level size in the paint and outside. It’s clear that he can get buckets, but will NBA defenses give him enough separation to do so? Shifting Deng to small-ball 4 in certain line-ups or keeping Randle there can help ease Ingram into the NBA, letting him play a more traditional 3. The difficulty here will be getting shots. As I mentioned before outside of Russell, most of this Lakers squad is ball heavy and carving out some space for Ingram can be difficult.
Outside of the core, Lou Williams is still coming off the bench, but it’s hard to see where he fits in on this team, being another guard who requires the ball in his hands to make anything happen (usually off the dribble, usually going left). He will have to shoulder scoring off the bench, but there is very little use for him or his contract outside of that.
I enjoyed seeing Larry Nance develop into a hustle big who can do just a little bit of everything for the Lakers on the floor and fits well into Walton’s small ball five line-ups. Nance’s athleticism will be key in covering for Los Angeles’ defensive deficiency, and boy are there a lot of them. If I was to think of a metaphor for this defensive unit, the word “sieve” comes to mind and I’m not even sure an actual sieve wouldn’t be more effective. Deng should help alleviate that some what, but he hasn’t aged quite as gracefully as you’d want him to. Mozgov’s size can help, but he’s also not the most athletic and a step slow on the help side.
Offensively, I can see Luke Walton figuring out how this unit fits together, but most of the problems come on the other end. This team will hemorrhage points at every opportunity, in particular to the elite teams. There are a pieces that can slide around multiple positions to cover off, but at best, the Lakers can field 2 plus defenders on any given line-up, three if you count Russell as one.
The outlook really doesn’t look particularly bright for the next year, but without Kobe the team finally has room to grow. This will be Russell’s year to make us forget all of his shortcomings on and off the court last year and really take over the team. We’ll see how it goes, but I sincerely doubt playoffs are in their immediate future.
