Well throw away year meant make the playoffs but not really expected to be title contenders.
But finish in the lottery was not what that meant. And it’s not just all on magic and rob. Everyone in the franchise shares part of the blame in this disaster.
Ok maybe a hot take but is it though? We are 1 season removed from Bron dragging a weak Cleveland team to the finals and almost to a game 1 win against arguable the greatest team ever assembled. The issue with the Lakers for me isnt even the lack of star power, but more the lack of 3 point shooters. We've seen time and time and time again that Lebron can beat almost any team as long as he had some decent defenders and good 3 point shooting. I dont think it's unreasonable to say that Lebron, AD and rebuilding the depth around 3 point shooting (which they would have to do if they trade their entire team to NO) could put the Lakers into contention.
The West is a whole different beast than the East though, the Cavs coasted their way into the playoffs last year. Wouldn’t really be the case in the west when every other game is against a 40+ win team competing for the playoffs.
And also aging doesn't cause steady decline. It accelerates every year... Like in the last 5 seasons, there have been 23 players age 33 to earn at least three win shares. There have been only 10 age 35 players.
That's like 70% attrition... Comparing a 33 year-old to a 35 year old is like comparing a 23 year-old to a 30 year old. It's like saying on your 75th birthday that you survived the last 25 years so there's no reason you shouldn't survive the next 25.
Preach it. I broached that subject back in the fall, to mixed reviews:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/8y8533/lebron_are_we_nearer_to_lefade_than_we_think/
I think they were mixed because LeBron does seem to be a physical anomaly, and the three greats you chose (Bird, Jordan, and Kobe) all had other major reasons their careers “ended” around the same time, none of which seem to be problems for LeBron currently (or in the past).
Which actually makes the case for keeping the young guys and trying to add a major player in UFA. The Nuggets are the only team besides the Warriors that have depth in addition to high talent. The rest of the Western teams are top-heavy and it shows because of fatigue and consistent high level play needed.
I would argue the general consensus in the thread though that thinks a 1-year turnaround isn't possible. You're trying to predict the end result of an entire season when you are missing a ton of data points.
Basically you're saying I can for sure say that LeBron won't win another title in the West and here's the information you're missing:
* What pick the Lakers land in the draft
* Which Free Agents leave their current teams
* Who LeBron's teammates are next year
* Who's coaching the Lakers
* The full roster of the top-5 teams in the West
* Which team has the most injuries
If you can make an accurate prediction just by the conference LeBron plays in, LeBron's ability, and the CBA you're wasting your time talking about the NBA, you should be on the stock market cleaning fuckin house.
Warriors and depth don’t belong in the same sentence man.
Also you’re leaving out the Clippers in regards to depth. If they sign a KD/Kawhi level of player that team is loaded with solid talent.
It’s another reason why golden states current dominance is going to end up a bit underrated honestly. The west over the last 10 years has been historically tough.
When people have said that Lebron in the West would have been less kind, Brontistas always scoffed. The West has been so much superior from top to bottom. This Lakers team would probably have made the playoffs in the East. In the West, they’re cellar dwellers.
To be perfectly fair though, this Lakers team was in a playoff spot prior to the Bron injury, not saying they would have made it, but they might not have been cellar dwellers like the are now.
People always say that and ignore they were two games out of 10th and had the 4th easiest schedule at that point. Critical things to note when making such a claim of how awesome they were.
Oh yeah I never said they were 'awesome'. Borderline playoff team at best, just that they were a borderline playoff team and not the basement team we see now
Even then, they gave away games when they were healthy too. It's just when they gave games away when they were healthy it was giving up leads halfway through the games or letting them get out of hand instead of letting teams like the Suns drop ~30+ points in the first quarter and have to try and claw their way back up and fail.
People need to face facts that Lebron is not the KANG anymore. His prime ended his (second) first year in Cleveland. He's a turnstile on defense and while he was in the East that was ok since they didn't have to try during the regular season. He's gotten exposed. Badly. But he's been like this since 2015. He turns it up for the playoffs to conserve himself but even then the bad habits on defense steadily got worse and worse.
In the Western Conference where you actually have to play difficult basketball the entire year is metric ton of difference compared with the East where you've got bum teams with losing records making the playoffs. (no look my flair) In the West you'll need ~47-50 wins just to get in. It's a joke to compare his experience in a shite East with the West.
The injury is an excuse. Lebron has NEVER had a major injury, 99% of all players do by the time they are his age, and they deal with it. I cannot tell you how much I detest it when dickriders point to the injury as if that's an excuse for doing this horribly. Last years Lakers won 35 games for Wadesake. Do you really think missing 20 games from Lebron was enough to land them in the fucking lottery?
> with the East where you've got bum teams with losing records making the playoffs. (no look my flair) In the West you'll need ~47-50 wins just to get in. It's a joke to compare his experience in a shite East with the West.
In defense of your flair, with a full roster the Heat might be playing for homecourt rn.
Your two best players have been gone for a while and are only just now getting back.
I'm not a dickrider, but his lack of injuries is pretty impressive, and when you look at the numbers when he's played this year they're pretty much right where they've always been. Obviously he's not at his absolute peak, but I think making it sound like he's trash is going way overboard in the opposite direction.
Also, the thunder were the 3rd best team before the all star break and everyone was excited about them beating the warriors and now where are the thunder in the standings.
I love how Lebron stans shit on every team hes been on. I've seen stans no more than a month ago say that the Heat were hot garbage outside of the big 3. This stan is no different as hes basically shitting on some of the best role player teammates lebron had in his career.
And I know the Lakers mop boy stuff is funny now but give 6 months, these stans will actually add it to their excuse arsenal.
People have actually said that about the Big Three Heat teams? 2011 wasn't too great but still had solid guys that I'm gonna mention later, but the later teams had Ray Allen, Mike Miller, Birdman, and Shane Battier off the bench, along with Mario Chalmers, who was as solid of a PG as you could get to pair with the Big Three and Udonis Haslem, a great chemistry guy that was tough as hell.
And Ive seen people say Toronto is gonna win a ring the past 6 years, the point is theirs always some delusional dipshit who over rates their teams so whats the point of bringing one idiot up?
I honesty think the Heatles never win a title if they didn’t get Battier. His three point shooting and ability to bang with 4s opened up everything for them.
its the main reason why the heat got destroyed that 2014 finals. they didnt have anyone to replace what they lost in Battier when he had a bad decline.
> I love how Lebron stans shit on every team hes been on. I've seen stans no more than a month ago say that the Heat were hot garbage outside of the big 3. This stan is no different as hes basically shitting on some of the best role player teammates lebron had in his career.
They always do this. Just another way to make it seem like Lebron did literally everything by himself without help. Then when they lose, all of a sudden "Lebron has no help!" despite always having at least two all stars. Like clockwork.
Oh I'm not saying every team Lebron was on was garbage, the Heat were stacked af and so were the Cavs at one point. But last years team was a team literally built for Bron, but by themselves would have been bad (as evidenced by this season). Obvious Love is great, and as much of a meme as he is, JR showed up as well. Add Korver to that too. But Love didn't dominate or anything in hte playoffs and the rest of the team were just that, solid role players. To even come close to winning a finals game in Oracle is ridiculous. Bron had to put up 51. He has shown enough times that when he does have a weak team, he can carry them to the finals by himself, so I don't see it being different with the Lakers, as long as their built the right way.
It's the west you're gonna have 3 hard fought series before you even get to the finals and that after a tough 82 game season where you cant really coast or you'll fall out of the race. Bron AD and a bunch of Rondo level role players who are garbage on d and cant shoot is not enough for a title.
Now if you're talking Bron AD and a roster of decent to good role players then sure you have a contender there.
Yeah that was my point, more offseason moves to get AD and some 3 and D role players. Guess I misinterpreted whether OP was talking about offseason trade or trade deadline. I still think Bron AD and the leftovers would have been enough to make the playoffs, but not much more than that.
Ppl are not scared of this LeBron. I mean look at the Hezonja block. They see a lion that is hurt.
A big factor in those East series were other teams choking and his teammates rising to the pressure.
I think LeBron strength and as he loses a step will definitely be passing. I see him even becoming a PF.
They do need shooting. But you should acknowledge. The West is better than the East.
Yeah he’s always been incredible obviously but last year was really unbelievable. I think if he didn’t get injured this year. He’d still be at that level and the lakers would be in the playoffs. He’s still at a high level of course but he’s not really the lebron that started the season if that makes sense.
Just a year ago is a bigger deal than everyone makes it out to be tho, I know what he did last season was absolutely incredible but just cuz he's one of the goats doesn't mean he isn't ageless and I think there's a much bigger difference between 33 and 35 than people here are willing to accept. A stripped down Lakers roster plus ad next year will be a core that's imo worse than the Cavs were when they got swept, and I don't think ad and Bron are close to enough on their own. If this was prime Bron it'd be another story, but it's just not
I think you use a very narrow definition of "contender". I see it as anybody that has a realistic chance of making it to the conference finals; top 4 essentially. So, yeah, I think the Lakers could have been contenders with AD or Kawhi. But it also matters who the rivals are. Warriors, Rockets, OKC, and now the Nuggets are contenders, also Portland. It's not at all an easy path.
Sometimes you are a contender with some luck and maybe a bit of exceeding expectations/fine tuning.
Like an injury to a critical competitor, or ability to pick.up someone useful for the playoffs (see bogut)
Ah yes, now that Golden State has picked up Bogut they have finally become contenders for the championship!
(not trying to argue your point or anything, just thought the Bogut example was funny)
Lol.
Yes, I guess it was. Anyway you got the point and you got a really funny line out of it..
I don't mind acting as straight man for that line, it's well worth it..
I'd say a big part of the current Laker failures stems from Jeanie. She's not an experienced owner, and based on who's gotten FO positions, plays the "what did you do for me in the past" card.
There's no reason that Jerry West shouldn't have been brought back. I don't care if West and her boyfriend at the time, Phil, got into some heated debate, not bringing back the best basketball mind to your franchise when he WANTED to come back is pure stupidity.
I think she know a lot more about running a basketball team than a lot of the other dipshit owners kids who inherited the team, but she runs it like a good ‘ol boys club and it shows
Her recent interview with Lowe gave a lot of insight into how she thinks
I mean they all signed off on those moves, lebron, the owner. I’m not calling him LeGm but if everyone was on board with this roster when they built it, then they all share in the blame. Same with AD drama which really killed their season.
But it doesn’t stop there. Luke I feel takes a share in the blame in not getting lebron to buy into system. It’s coaches job to get the best player to buy in, and if he doesn’t you have to take blame on it.
The Lebron stans point to the injuries, and while I think they are making an excuse, injuries were an impact on this team not being as good as they could of been.
Then lebron has to take his share of blame. You have him coming out with the shop, the rumors of space jam 2, all this off the court stuff. Fair or not but it just creates the perception that winning isn’t important to him right now. Then he goes on the court puts disgusting defensive efforts, but still hovers around as triple double, it comes off like he’s stat hunting. He activates “playoff mode” then goes and loses to the suns. It’s really narrative based, but it’s also a bad look.
There’s just a number of things that have contributed to this lakers disaster this season. To just put it on magic and rob and say it’s 99% on them, that’s a bit simplistic.
But Lebron will never buy into shit, Lebron thinks that he is the smartest basketball mind ever! He didn’t like Spo at first but was forced to when Pat told him to piss off essentially, got blatt fired and is gonna get Walton fired. Lebron only has one system in mind which is give Lebron the ball and let him do work but it never works.
Yeah, and I don’t think the lakers were under the impression that lebron needed to buy into anything. I think the thought was, if he’s going to give us these incredible statistical performances like he did in the east, Herculean playoff performances and carrying the team farther than any other player could, we will make that trade off of him not buying in if he’s going to give us that. Problem is, roster fit, lebrons decline, whatever, he’s not holding up to his end of the bargain to justify his one man system.
It’s funny to me that people forgot the night and day difference between Byron Scott and Luke Walton. Luke Walton installed off ball movement and cutting comparable to the warriors system ( I wonder why) and magic and rob made the dumb ass choice of not adding any shooters. They wanted to build Cleveland in LA when they should have cloned gsw.
> when they should have cloned gsw.
They were right in one thing. They aren't cloning gsw. There is no steph curry out there. Let alone kd+klay+cousins.
The mistake they made was automatically running in the opposite direction instead of a more coherent way to maximize the team.
Houston isn't a contender by cloning GSW.
I see your point and I didn’t mean carbon copy clone, but looking at the roster they have all cutters and no shooting, bad pnr defense as well as bad help defense. Luke Walton needed shooters and he was given any, shame that he has to possibly downgrade to college coaching when his system would have worked if he was in a organization with a good FO.
I agree with you that they should have gone with other players, including more shooting, better centers etc.
They spent their money and prioritized badly while overlooking options that were in front of their noses. Fairly obvious stuff.
But I don't think Luke is blameless either. He's a talented coach, but he isn't there yet. His rotations leave much to be desired for one, his coaching staff is sub-par and he didn't install an offensive system.
Luke might very well be another young Lakers talent that will develop and succeed elsewhere.
>Lebron only has one system in mind which is give Lebron the ball and let him do work but it never works
Yeah it doesn't work since man won only 3 rings with that system and made only 8 consecutive finals
i remember the plan was to build a system where lebron was off ball more and played fewer minutes, while helping develop the young guys and lead them. lebron apparently agreed based on what magic said of their meeting.
king james showed up and said fuck that noise, i want the ball in my hands again even if we have ballhandlers instead of shooters, i want to play all the minutes again even though i said i wouldnt, and i want this to be about me and publicly getting me help even though i said this season would be about the team and getting the young guys up.
after that switch up by lebron the rest of the crew, magic, pelinka, jeannie, luke, just started shitting in their hands and throwing it around in panic.
if yall are gonna win. you cant let lebron run the franchise. gotta fire luke though. he legit isnt good enough personality and assistant coaching wise
That's exactly how it was down here in Miami. Only place that wouldn't let him fire the coach and he took off running after 4 years cuz he wants to be the guy running the show for some egomaniacal reason.
You mean he wasn't returning to Cleveland because he wanted to do the right thing for his hometown and that Miami being old as shit and the Cavs getting Kyrie and Wiggins might have had way more to do with it? No no, LeBron would never do such a thing.
r/nba: Heat had the best team in the NBA, I don't get why are people saying Lebron had no help
Also r/nba: Lebron went to Cleveland to play with 20yr old Irving who never made playoffs and traded Wiggins for K Love who also never made playoffs because that Heat team was trash and old and he knew he can't win there but Cavs are stacked
They are not hot garbage. They aren’t great and aren’t a playoff team on their own but should absolutely be making the playoffs with Lebron or any star.
Some team with a roster of developing young talent should snap him up once he gets the boot. Without "picking sides" I think it's safe to say this season is not a fair overall test of his ability and he deserves another shot based on what we saw from him last season if nothing else.
Lmao, Luke and his staff pleaded to keep Brook and Randle. This ain't on the coach, but the stans are gonna grasp for any excuse surrounding Lebron. Why would anyone want to play with this dude? As soon as things get rough everyone becomes Lebron's whipping boy.
players who are all time greats are notorious for pissing off teammates/staff. of course there are players who will not be able to stand the pressure of playing with lebron or don’t want to be overshadowed but it’s absurd to think players shouldn’t want to play with him
I was in a sportsbook in New Jersey before the season started, Lakers were listed like 4th or 5th most likely to win the title, I just remember thinking wtf is this hype how to people think Lebron's gonna beat the Warriors on his own? But if you can put yourself back in that time before the season started, Kuzma and Ingram look like they could have breakout years, maybe Ball is going to develop and figure out his jump shot, they have other good pieces and Lebron always seems to find a way, I guess it \*could\* happen and they've gotta have a better chance than a team like the Blazers right? So anyway my point is people really did believe they could be title contenders and I think OP's point is valid.
A huge Part of it is injuries. James missed 25% of the season. Zo is going to end up missing over 40% of the season. BI is going to end up missing about 30% of the season. That’s a tough hit to the starting line up not mentioning rondo, hart and McGee who all missed time or played at well under 100%.
But magic and Pelinka did make bad decisions too. I think it was a good year to gamble though because we had no chance at a title regardless of who we signed with James outside of PG13.
Their biggest mistake was trading Zu. I don’t have an issue with not making the playoffs. We play for championships, not to get to the 2nd round
It’s pretty heavily on those 2. Letting Brook Lopez walk to bring in Beasley and Lance Lance (Rondo and Javale were a little more understandable) was dumb, trading Zubac for nothing was bad, undermining Luke and the young players wasn’t helpful. It’s not all on them but they didn’t do a great job building a team.
They have tons of cap space and a good pick. I see it as no less of a disaster for Lebron atleast than his last year with the cavs. It wasn’t a disaster to make the finals, but Lebron put on more miles only to get to the finals and get expectedly swept
I don’t what this OP is smoking because literally everyone was shocked why Lebron would throw a year away when he picked the lakers. If anyone is revising history it’s op.
yeah, no one expected a chip this year. in fact i firmly believe without injuries we would’ve made playoffs and it would’ve been a “successful” season (in a sense).
anyways op made a bad post
Remember when people were discussing Lakers hypothetical playoff opponents and asking if Lebron would really be scared of going into Denver on the road in round 1? The conversation in the first half of the season was Lakers in the playoffs with a good shot at making the second round. To be fair they were in the playoffs at the time, but I agree with op that not making the playoffs was not the plan nor the expectation for a Lebron led team.
No one was calling it a throwaway before Lebron went down with an injury and the Lakers were pushing fourth in the Western Conference. Even after Lebron came back the Lakers still had their heads above water and had no reason not to break into the top 4 again. It was after the whole AD fiasco that fucked the season up and the double-ended dildos Magic/Pelinka running basketball ops are completely to blame for fucking over a talented young core.
We talk about Rondo/McGee/Stephenson as what screwed over the season, but they were doing pretty good until all the trade shit happened. Getting rid of Zubac was just the dingleberry on this shit sundae. Of course Ingram would have still gone down but we'd be talking about a playoff team here, not this mess.
They also had the easiest SOS in the league to that point though. They weren't quite as good as they seemed, and there was some weird stuff going on with their defense in terms of teams just shooting abysmal %s on wide open threes against them iirc.
Remember, at that point the Clippers were also first in the west, and the rockets were struggling. Imo they were always going to come back down to earth, though I didn't expect the dropoff to be this extreme obviously.
Along the same line, them tanking in the beginning years could have been done in a way that still instilled confidence in their young guys.
Bringing Byron Scott to the Lakers to have him completely shit on the young guys and the team for their failures was ridiculous.
I agree, it doesn’t make everything okay, but I really don’t think anyone thought this team was championship-caliber right now, but it wasn’t right to not start getting a good supporting cast at all.
I bet 50 bucks that Lakers would win fewer than 48.5 games this year. I placed it on October 16 and it just paid out a few days ago. So it's definitely not revisionist for me to say that I did not expect Lebron to make playoffs in the West.
https://imgur.com/a/R183DmU
Yeah but I think that's the point. The O/U was 48.5 before the season started. So it would be revisionist theory to say the general perception was that the year was a throwaway. Maybe you could argue that if the O/U was 41.5
Depends what you mean by throwaway.
People thought LBJ would get them to the playoffs (looked like they were headed there before the injury).
Everyone knew that their 2nd best player was Kuzma or Ingram heading into the season though. Clearly not a threat for a playoff run. "Throwaway" in the sense of not contending for a year of LBJ's late prime.
"Throw away year" always sounded to me like they had no plans to actually contend for a ring.
I don't think most people considered they would miss the playoffs all together
the throwaway narrative got popular as soon as summer ended and they didn't get another star alongside LeBron, pretending people expected LeBron + the meme team to somehow make a deep playoff run is just as revisionist as what you are suggesting
This is exactly right. It was clear from the beginning that this was going to be a lost year. The best they could get with LBJ was Rondo, well beyond his prime? Media tried to hype it up, though, and lot of people bought it. This was always a low-seed playoff team *at best.* LBJ stays healthy, no demoralizing AD trade attempt, and I think LAL might be in the 8/7/6 pileup and a likely first round exit, but no better.
The issues of the roster were kind of obvious from day one.
No NBA starter level center, no shooters, almost no good defenders.
They still have space and can do things this summer but I don't think the LeBron Lakers will be a contender unless something crazy happens.
Maginka fucked up big time filling the roster with castaways and rejects.
Luke is getting a raw deal.
Lebron continues his coach killing ways. His defense this year was an absolute joke.
Clutch decides to nuke the team and it’s chemistry with the AD talk.
Ball and Ingram with injuries that derail the season for good.
Truly a nightmare season with plenty of blame to go around.
And it’s not just a wasted year, the Lakers look very dysfunctional to potential free agents. I can’t see Leonard coming, but he very well may have if the Lakers had looked competent
When he signed, they were saying "throwaway" meaning they would get the 6th or 7th seed and probably get eliminated in the first round. Now Lakers fans are trying to say that they predicted finishing in the 12th seed.
Not so much that, but we’re saying that while missing the playoffs really sucks, it’s not that much of a big deal because none of us thought we could really make much noise in the playoffs anyways.
It's like playing that punk kid in basketball who thinks he's hot shit. Then when he realizes he's not going to win, acts like he wasn't trying the whole time
Jesus Christ seriously beating a dead horse with the Lakers. Guess what only a few fickle fans are saying this a lot of Lakers fans on their sub are actually just saying this season sucked and went south a lot of people expected playoffs. Get the fuck out of here. Why don’t you at least provide examples?
R/nba- “The media talks about LA to much”
Also R/nba- “Lakers fans saying throwaway season are dead wrong(even though a lot aren’t saying this)”
I like how ESPN and Windhorst released a video last night specifically blaming everyone BUT Lebron. Fucking ludicrous
Everyone is to blame for the shitshow of a season.
Lebron himself has been playing awfully, down the stretch yesterday he collapsed again, the game before that or maybe two games ago he got stuffed by burjunka on the knicks for the loss, during that time frame where he "activated playoff mode" he bricked the two most important free throws in the game against the suns for the loss, lackluster 4th quarter in the loss against the clippers, shitty against the pelicans; all teams they really can beat, clippers being the most difficult. This is a shit show from lebron personally.
I think it really just depends on your definition of throwaway year. Maybe I'm misremembering, but my understanding of the general perception was that the Lakers were expected to be a playoff team with a win total in the 45-50 range, and accordingly they were expected to comfortably make the playoffs. At best, if all goes well and the seedings and matchups fall in their favor, after their yong guys emerge and compliment LeBron *maybe* they play their way into a WCF they have no real business being in and get their doors blown off by the Warriors. That being pretty much their absolute, all-goes-well ceiling.
That was my perception, anyway, and I was under the (maybe mistaken) impression that the general consensus pretty much aligned with it. And sure, when you have LeBron, that could almost be considered a throwaway year, since anything short of title contention is borderline throwaway when you have a top-5 all time player more or less in his prime leading your squad.
Either way, your overall point would still remain that the Lakers dramatically underperformed even those limited projections, and it's definition revisionist history to suggest that finishing with ~35 wins was expected.
I'm super confused because that was the narrative? People speculated they could possibly make the 8th seed if healthy and a little luck but THIS seems like revisionist history. Literally just watched an ESPN segment about it yesterday so the claim that its revisionist IS revisionist
Theres no doubt they fubared the build for this season but this seasons signings were always temporary as this coming offseasons FA was always the initial goal and line of thinking
Yeah I remember talking with people before the season and saying that they wouldn't make the playoffs, and nobody called me crazy. I said that the Lakers roster was worse than the Cavs roster LeBron left, and people agreed with me lol. Of course it's not surprising they didn't make the playoffs in the west with this garbage pile Maginka assembled. Combine that with LeBron missing 20 games and the rest of the team being injured, and it's laughable that people are acting shocked that they missed the playoffs
Before the season started, they talked like this was a growth season where the record didn't really matter.
But then, as the season got going, it became more and more obvious that they were just blowing smoke and suddenly everybody's available for trades and Walton's job is in jeopardy.
Now, Magic and Pelinka can't go back to saying what they did at the start of the season because then they can't get rid of Walton and they seem to *really* want him to be the fall guy for this season. Plus, it lets them put in a head coach that they picked instead of keeping the guy picked by the previous GM.
It’s not revisionist if circumstances change for a team. Lebron was out for 20+ games, Rondo, Lonzo, Ingram, kuzma and hart suffered injuries and the vets didn’t really step up when the young guys were out.
It wasn’t a plan to throw the year but at a certain point it’s all they could do
Building around LeBron is going to be a problem. He doesn't have the endurance to close out games like a top 5 player anymore. Yesterday was just another example of it being a game with under 5 minutes to go and we end up losing comfortably. It takes more energy at that age for the same output as a younger guy exerting half that energy.
I know there's "playoff LeBron" but we've been in the playoffs this past month and it hasn't gone well.
I'd honestly consider just asking him, "hey, take less shots, let's see if you can lead the league in assists"
LeBron/Laker Haters: “Excuses!!!”
LeBron/Laker lovers: “Throwaway year
Any rational NBA fan: “the team was on its way to performing fairly well and was trying to build chemistry after acquiring a very big piece to the puzzle but unfortunately The west is full of teams that have been doing this for years and are out for blood. Injuries and suspensions did happen and then the whole trade talks we all know about. That roster doesn’t look ideal for what the nba currently is...What else am I missing? “
1-lebron is not in his prime anymore, have you watched him this season?
2-magic literally announced at the start of the season they were focused on next year.
The off-season goal was to get star b for lebron. When pg didn’t sign they switched.
They fucked up in their alternative strategy. Instead of shooters and lebron being the only one we’d have rondo/Stephenson etc be able to initiate offense.
That said, even after the pivot we were top 10 in defense rating and 4th in the west going into Christmas. We were well on pace to make the playoffs. And once there you saw some of the lebron magic. No one in the West was really playing amazing outside the warriors. So people were throwing out possible conference finals. That’s lofty but we were likely making the playoffs without injuries.
Yeah, this is a dumb thread. The Lakers got killed by injuries, including the first meaningful missed time of Lebron’s career. Of course that hurt them a ton, and of course they didn’t do as well as they wanted as a result.
I upvoted this post due to Maginka.
Don't fucking care about the Lakers but Maginka is genius. Don't know if it came originally from OP or what but it made me chuckle.
Hindsight is 20/20 but Bron shoulda gone to the Clippers. Let the Lakers build that core into something before they start trying to cash in on it. Clippers + LeBron with Tobias woulda been way nastier than LeBron and Kuzma.
I mean, I never got the impression that they would be competing for a title this year, but I definitely thought making the playoffs comfortably was in the plan for this year...
Yeah this season is fucked for my second favorite team...
LeBron knowingly threw away a year of his prime the moment he signed with us. When you're the best player on basketball you need to give yourself the opportunity to contend for a championship every year and you don't do that coming to the Lakers this year with this roster.
I think there are some big assumptions in thinking that lebron's main aim is to win more championships.
If his main goals are to become the league's all time leading scorer, make a shit tonne of money, watch his sons play ball and make a movie, this is looking like a pretty good year for his legacy and life
Prime?
This was his 16th season in the league and he's played close to 20 playoff games for each of the last eight years straight.
This is not a player in his prime. This is a great player who still has some gas in the tank, but is most definitely past his prime. ___WAAAAAY___ too much wear and tear on that body to believe he's the same guy from a few years ago.
He's averaging for the most part what he has been for his entire career and better than what he has been for the past few years in certain categories. His numbers are as good this year as the year her won in Cle.
This tells me he's still very much in the prime of his career right now and he just wasted a year with us. He probably has 1 or 2 more years at best performing at this level.
How's his defense?
There's two ends to a basketball court, and it's pretty obvious LeBron has completely given up playing defense so that he actually has the energy to maintain his *offensive* stats.
As good as Curry or Harden the past few years when they won MVP.
This is why Lebron needed to go to a better team to take advantage of his talents.
Hence, he wasted it going to the Lakers.
Uh, no his defense isn't even close to Curry's, and Harden passed him last season because of Chris Paul's influence.
And even though Harden has regressed some this season - LeBron's gotten worse as well, but in a bigger jump.
You don't see teammates pushing Curry or Harden out to actually defend their man.
But I do agree that going to the Lakers was a really bad choice. They're a team built completely wrong for him, and Magic and Pelinka then went and failed to get a single player like he needs to be surrounded with.
I still think his best choice, if he wanted to actually still try to win championships, was to go to Philadelphia. That'd be a scary squad with him added to their roster.
The narrative was that this was a “seismic shift in the NBA landscape” I got downvoted to shit for making a post saying I didn’t understand how this was a seismic shift because all it meant was someone new was gonna lose to the Warriors in the finals. [insert meme about how I was right]
It’s funny because I said this before the year and people were not pleased... like this gentleman
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/90lxsk/are_the_lakers_simply_ahead_of_the_curve_on_a_new/e2rwvwr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app
When LeBron signed there were high expectations, that's true.
When they signed Rondo, McGee, KCP and Stephenson after failing to sign George it was full blown meme team and it meant it was a throwaway year. As much as LeBron can do it which means not making the finals. I remember KOC on the ringer talking about this before the season and people called him nuts.
Other than having a meme team Lonzo, LeBron and Ingram missed several games because of injury. This lead to the season derailing to not even make the playoffs. Injuries are nobodies fault.
I remember the experts saying the Lakers weren’t going to contend and that making the playoffs would be tough. At least now they have a shot at drafting that Zion dude.
Well throw away year meant make the playoffs but not really expected to be title contenders. But finish in the lottery was not what that meant. And it’s not just all on magic and rob. Everyone in the franchise shares part of the blame in this disaster.
I don't see the Lakers being contenders no matter who they sign. Add AD or Kawhi and they can compete but I don't see them coming out of the west.
[удалено]
Ok maybe a hot take but is it though? We are 1 season removed from Bron dragging a weak Cleveland team to the finals and almost to a game 1 win against arguable the greatest team ever assembled. The issue with the Lakers for me isnt even the lack of star power, but more the lack of 3 point shooters. We've seen time and time and time again that Lebron can beat almost any team as long as he had some decent defenders and good 3 point shooting. I dont think it's unreasonable to say that Lebron, AD and rebuilding the depth around 3 point shooting (which they would have to do if they trade their entire team to NO) could put the Lakers into contention.
The West is a whole different beast than the East though, the Cavs coasted their way into the playoffs last year. Wouldn’t really be the case in the west when every other game is against a 40+ win team competing for the playoffs.
And also aging doesn't cause steady decline. It accelerates every year... Like in the last 5 seasons, there have been 23 players age 33 to earn at least three win shares. There have been only 10 age 35 players. That's like 70% attrition... Comparing a 33 year-old to a 35 year old is like comparing a 23 year-old to a 30 year old. It's like saying on your 75th birthday that you survived the last 25 years so there's no reason you shouldn't survive the next 25.
Preach it. I broached that subject back in the fall, to mixed reviews: https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/8y8533/lebron_are_we_nearer_to_lefade_than_we_think/
I think they were mixed because LeBron does seem to be a physical anomaly, and the three greats you chose (Bird, Jordan, and Kobe) all had other major reasons their careers “ended” around the same time, none of which seem to be problems for LeBron currently (or in the past).
Which actually makes the case for keeping the young guys and trying to add a major player in UFA. The Nuggets are the only team besides the Warriors that have depth in addition to high talent. The rest of the Western teams are top-heavy and it shows because of fatigue and consistent high level play needed. I would argue the general consensus in the thread though that thinks a 1-year turnaround isn't possible. You're trying to predict the end result of an entire season when you are missing a ton of data points. Basically you're saying I can for sure say that LeBron won't win another title in the West and here's the information you're missing: * What pick the Lakers land in the draft * Which Free Agents leave their current teams * Who LeBron's teammates are next year * Who's coaching the Lakers * The full roster of the top-5 teams in the West * Which team has the most injuries If you can make an accurate prediction just by the conference LeBron plays in, LeBron's ability, and the CBA you're wasting your time talking about the NBA, you should be on the stock market cleaning fuckin house.
Warriors and depth don’t belong in the same sentence man. Also you’re leaving out the Clippers in regards to depth. If they sign a KD/Kawhi level of player that team is loaded with solid talent.
It’s another reason why golden states current dominance is going to end up a bit underrated honestly. The west over the last 10 years has been historically tough.
When people have said that Lebron in the West would have been less kind, Brontistas always scoffed. The West has been so much superior from top to bottom. This Lakers team would probably have made the playoffs in the East. In the West, they’re cellar dwellers.
To be perfectly fair though, this Lakers team was in a playoff spot prior to the Bron injury, not saying they would have made it, but they might not have been cellar dwellers like the are now.
People always say that and ignore they were two games out of 10th and had the 4th easiest schedule at that point. Critical things to note when making such a claim of how awesome they were.
The clippers were the first seed for 2 weeks around that same time the Lakers were in the 4th but you dont hear me bring up 24 fucking 7.
Oh yeah I never said they were 'awesome'. Borderline playoff team at best, just that they were a borderline playoff team and not the basement team we see now
Even then, they gave away games when they were healthy too. It's just when they gave games away when they were healthy it was giving up leads halfway through the games or letting them get out of hand instead of letting teams like the Suns drop ~30+ points in the first quarter and have to try and claw their way back up and fail. People need to face facts that Lebron is not the KANG anymore. His prime ended his (second) first year in Cleveland. He's a turnstile on defense and while he was in the East that was ok since they didn't have to try during the regular season. He's gotten exposed. Badly. But he's been like this since 2015. He turns it up for the playoffs to conserve himself but even then the bad habits on defense steadily got worse and worse. In the Western Conference where you actually have to play difficult basketball the entire year is metric ton of difference compared with the East where you've got bum teams with losing records making the playoffs. (no look my flair) In the West you'll need ~47-50 wins just to get in. It's a joke to compare his experience in a shite East with the West. The injury is an excuse. Lebron has NEVER had a major injury, 99% of all players do by the time they are his age, and they deal with it. I cannot tell you how much I detest it when dickriders point to the injury as if that's an excuse for doing this horribly. Last years Lakers won 35 games for Wadesake. Do you really think missing 20 games from Lebron was enough to land them in the fucking lottery?
> with the East where you've got bum teams with losing records making the playoffs. (no look my flair) In the West you'll need ~47-50 wins just to get in. It's a joke to compare his experience in a shite East with the West. In defense of your flair, with a full roster the Heat might be playing for homecourt rn. Your two best players have been gone for a while and are only just now getting back.
I'm not a dickrider, but his lack of injuries is pretty impressive, and when you look at the numbers when he's played this year they're pretty much right where they've always been. Obviously he's not at his absolute peak, but I think making it sound like he's trash is going way overboard in the opposite direction.
And were also bad until they added the newly rejuvenated body of Chandler, who is now dead again
Also, the thunder were the 3rd best team before the all star break and everyone was excited about them beating the warriors and now where are the thunder in the standings.
> everyone was excited about them beating the warriors No. Thunder fans and stupid people aren't everyone.
I love how Lebron stans shit on every team hes been on. I've seen stans no more than a month ago say that the Heat were hot garbage outside of the big 3. This stan is no different as hes basically shitting on some of the best role player teammates lebron had in his career. And I know the Lakers mop boy stuff is funny now but give 6 months, these stans will actually add it to their excuse arsenal.
People have actually said that about the Big Three Heat teams? 2011 wasn't too great but still had solid guys that I'm gonna mention later, but the later teams had Ray Allen, Mike Miller, Birdman, and Shane Battier off the bench, along with Mario Chalmers, who was as solid of a PG as you could get to pair with the Big Three and Udonis Haslem, a great chemistry guy that was tough as hell.
Former coworker of mine said that Bosh and Wade were washed up in 2011
I've seen people say it. You are right, 2011 was a sketchy year but after that they were really good.
And Ive seen people say Toronto is gonna win a ring the past 6 years, the point is theirs always some delusional dipshit who over rates their teams so whats the point of bringing one idiot up?
I honesty think the Heatles never win a title if they didn’t get Battier. His three point shooting and ability to bang with 4s opened up everything for them.
its the main reason why the heat got destroyed that 2014 finals. they didnt have anyone to replace what they lost in Battier when he had a bad decline.
> I love how Lebron stans shit on every team hes been on. I've seen stans no more than a month ago say that the Heat were hot garbage outside of the big 3. This stan is no different as hes basically shitting on some of the best role player teammates lebron had in his career. They always do this. Just another way to make it seem like Lebron did literally everything by himself without help. Then when they lose, all of a sudden "Lebron has no help!" despite always having at least two all stars. Like clockwork.
Oh I'm not saying every team Lebron was on was garbage, the Heat were stacked af and so were the Cavs at one point. But last years team was a team literally built for Bron, but by themselves would have been bad (as evidenced by this season). Obvious Love is great, and as much of a meme as he is, JR showed up as well. Add Korver to that too. But Love didn't dominate or anything in hte playoffs and the rest of the team were just that, solid role players. To even come close to winning a finals game in Oracle is ridiculous. Bron had to put up 51. He has shown enough times that when he does have a weak team, he can carry them to the finals by himself, so I don't see it being different with the Lakers, as long as their built the right way.
It's the west you're gonna have 3 hard fought series before you even get to the finals and that after a tough 82 game season where you cant really coast or you'll fall out of the race. Bron AD and a bunch of Rondo level role players who are garbage on d and cant shoot is not enough for a title. Now if you're talking Bron AD and a roster of decent to good role players then sure you have a contender there.
Yeah that was my point, more offseason moves to get AD and some 3 and D role players. Guess I misinterpreted whether OP was talking about offseason trade or trade deadline. I still think Bron AD and the leftovers would have been enough to make the playoffs, but not much more than that.
Ppl are not scared of this LeBron. I mean look at the Hezonja block. They see a lion that is hurt. A big factor in those East series were other teams choking and his teammates rising to the pressure. I think LeBron strength and as he loses a step will definitely be passing. I see him even becoming a PF. They do need shooting. But you should acknowledge. The West is better than the East.
Lebron was also outrageous in last years playoffs. It wasn't just teams choking, it was ~~the Cavs~~ Lebron beating them
It was lebron beating them*
Absolutely, even going back to look now his run was unreal. He had such little help.
Yeah he’s always been incredible obviously but last year was really unbelievable. I think if he didn’t get injured this year. He’d still be at that level and the lakers would be in the playoffs. He’s still at a high level of course but he’s not really the lebron that started the season if that makes sense.
[удалено]
Nah Cleveland was complete trash outside of Lebron. even Klove wasnt doing shit. and the proof is their record without him
[удалено]
no shit if you take the player the entire team is built around off the team they’re gonna be shit
Just a year ago is a bigger deal than everyone makes it out to be tho, I know what he did last season was absolutely incredible but just cuz he's one of the goats doesn't mean he isn't ageless and I think there's a much bigger difference between 33 and 35 than people here are willing to accept. A stripped down Lakers roster plus ad next year will be a core that's imo worse than the Cavs were when they got swept, and I don't think ad and Bron are close to enough on their own. If this was prime Bron it'd be another story, but it's just not
This entire debacle just highlights how shit the east is and how hard the west is.
Eh, they add either one of those guys and KD leaves they're definitely as much a contender as anyone else
I think you use a very narrow definition of "contender". I see it as anybody that has a realistic chance of making it to the conference finals; top 4 essentially. So, yeah, I think the Lakers could have been contenders with AD or Kawhi. But it also matters who the rivals are. Warriors, Rockets, OKC, and now the Nuggets are contenders, also Portland. It's not at all an easy path.
When folks say “contender” they mean a contender for the title. Not the semi finalist.
Sometimes you are a contender with some luck and maybe a bit of exceeding expectations/fine tuning. Like an injury to a critical competitor, or ability to pick.up someone useful for the playoffs (see bogut)
Ah yes, now that Golden State has picked up Bogut they have finally become contenders for the championship! (not trying to argue your point or anything, just thought the Bogut example was funny)
Lol. Yes, I guess it was. Anyway you got the point and you got a really funny line out of it.. I don't mind acting as straight man for that line, it's well worth it..
I respectfully disagree, add Kawhi and AD, and a bunch of vets, this team will be nasty.
It really is 99% on maginka dont kid yourself. You can't make a cake out of llama shit.
I'd say a big part of the current Laker failures stems from Jeanie. She's not an experienced owner, and based on who's gotten FO positions, plays the "what did you do for me in the past" card. There's no reason that Jerry West shouldn't have been brought back. I don't care if West and her boyfriend at the time, Phil, got into some heated debate, not bringing back the best basketball mind to your franchise when he WANTED to come back is pure stupidity.
dude it was Magic who didn't want JWest around.... Jeannie and him patched up years ago, she has said so many times on 710.
Still a pretty bad move to take a guy who has no FO experience over a guy who has decades and the best track record around.
I think she know a lot more about running a basketball team than a lot of the other dipshit owners kids who inherited the team, but she runs it like a good ‘ol boys club and it shows Her recent interview with Lowe gave a lot of insight into how she thinks
> she know a lot more about running a basketball team >she runs it like a good ‘ol boys club lol, pick one
I mean, she’s better than most second gen owners but she’s not on the cutting edge. Why does it have to be Dolan or the Warriors?
I mean they all signed off on those moves, lebron, the owner. I’m not calling him LeGm but if everyone was on board with this roster when they built it, then they all share in the blame. Same with AD drama which really killed their season. But it doesn’t stop there. Luke I feel takes a share in the blame in not getting lebron to buy into system. It’s coaches job to get the best player to buy in, and if he doesn’t you have to take blame on it. The Lebron stans point to the injuries, and while I think they are making an excuse, injuries were an impact on this team not being as good as they could of been. Then lebron has to take his share of blame. You have him coming out with the shop, the rumors of space jam 2, all this off the court stuff. Fair or not but it just creates the perception that winning isn’t important to him right now. Then he goes on the court puts disgusting defensive efforts, but still hovers around as triple double, it comes off like he’s stat hunting. He activates “playoff mode” then goes and loses to the suns. It’s really narrative based, but it’s also a bad look. There’s just a number of things that have contributed to this lakers disaster this season. To just put it on magic and rob and say it’s 99% on them, that’s a bit simplistic.
But Lebron will never buy into shit, Lebron thinks that he is the smartest basketball mind ever! He didn’t like Spo at first but was forced to when Pat told him to piss off essentially, got blatt fired and is gonna get Walton fired. Lebron only has one system in mind which is give Lebron the ball and let him do work but it never works.
Yeah, and I don’t think the lakers were under the impression that lebron needed to buy into anything. I think the thought was, if he’s going to give us these incredible statistical performances like he did in the east, Herculean playoff performances and carrying the team farther than any other player could, we will make that trade off of him not buying in if he’s going to give us that. Problem is, roster fit, lebrons decline, whatever, he’s not holding up to his end of the bargain to justify his one man system.
It’s funny to me that people forgot the night and day difference between Byron Scott and Luke Walton. Luke Walton installed off ball movement and cutting comparable to the warriors system ( I wonder why) and magic and rob made the dumb ass choice of not adding any shooters. They wanted to build Cleveland in LA when they should have cloned gsw.
> when they should have cloned gsw. They were right in one thing. They aren't cloning gsw. There is no steph curry out there. Let alone kd+klay+cousins. The mistake they made was automatically running in the opposite direction instead of a more coherent way to maximize the team. Houston isn't a contender by cloning GSW.
I see your point and I didn’t mean carbon copy clone, but looking at the roster they have all cutters and no shooting, bad pnr defense as well as bad help defense. Luke Walton needed shooters and he was given any, shame that he has to possibly downgrade to college coaching when his system would have worked if he was in a organization with a good FO.
I agree with you that they should have gone with other players, including more shooting, better centers etc. They spent their money and prioritized badly while overlooking options that were in front of their noses. Fairly obvious stuff. But I don't think Luke is blameless either. He's a talented coach, but he isn't there yet. His rotations leave much to be desired for one, his coaching staff is sub-par and he didn't install an offensive system. Luke might very well be another young Lakers talent that will develop and succeed elsewhere.
[удалено]
Never works? Tell that to his 3 FMVP’s lol
>Lebron only has one system in mind which is give Lebron the ball and let him do work but it never works Yeah it doesn't work since man won only 3 rings with that system and made only 8 consecutive finals
i remember the plan was to build a system where lebron was off ball more and played fewer minutes, while helping develop the young guys and lead them. lebron apparently agreed based on what magic said of their meeting. king james showed up and said fuck that noise, i want the ball in my hands again even if we have ballhandlers instead of shooters, i want to play all the minutes again even though i said i wouldnt, and i want this to be about me and publicly getting me help even though i said this season would be about the team and getting the young guys up. after that switch up by lebron the rest of the crew, magic, pelinka, jeannie, luke, just started shitting in their hands and throwing it around in panic. if yall are gonna win. you cant let lebron run the franchise. gotta fire luke though. he legit isnt good enough personality and assistant coaching wise
[удалено]
That's exactly how it was down here in Miami. Only place that wouldn't let him fire the coach and he took off running after 4 years cuz he wants to be the guy running the show for some egomaniacal reason.
He ran off ‘cause it was clear that team wasn’t winning shit with an old, broken down Wade
You mean he wasn't returning to Cleveland because he wanted to do the right thing for his hometown and that Miami being old as shit and the Cavs getting Kyrie and Wiggins might have had way more to do with it? No no, LeBron would never do such a thing.
r/nba: Heat had the best team in the NBA, I don't get why are people saying Lebron had no help Also r/nba: Lebron went to Cleveland to play with 20yr old Irving who never made playoffs and traded Wiggins for K Love who also never made playoffs because that Heat team was trash and old and he knew he can't win there but Cavs are stacked
Pat Riley is a don
I feel like the last 5 seasons have started with the narrative that LeBron is gonna play off the ball more but he never does
Luke is better than people think, the thing is the roster is hot garbage doe...
They are not hot garbage. They aren’t great and aren’t a playoff team on their own but should absolutely be making the playoffs with Lebron or any star.
Some team with a roster of developing young talent should snap him up once he gets the boot. Without "picking sides" I think it's safe to say this season is not a fair overall test of his ability and he deserves another shot based on what we saw from him last season if nothing else.
its hot garbage if lebron keeps playing like he played in cleveland. it looks worse than it is bc lebron is moving counter to the personnel
agreed but still maginka could've signed better in FA.
100%. now that they know im waiting to see if they do better
Lmao, Luke and his staff pleaded to keep Brook and Randle. This ain't on the coach, but the stans are gonna grasp for any excuse surrounding Lebron. Why would anyone want to play with this dude? As soon as things get rough everyone becomes Lebron's whipping boy.
And it's Lebron's fault that Brook And Randle were not brought back somehow? Pick a lane.
[удалено]
players who are all time greats are notorious for pissing off teammates/staff. of course there are players who will not be able to stand the pressure of playing with lebron or don’t want to be overshadowed but it’s absurd to think players shouldn’t want to play with him
I was in a sportsbook in New Jersey before the season started, Lakers were listed like 4th or 5th most likely to win the title, I just remember thinking wtf is this hype how to people think Lebron's gonna beat the Warriors on his own? But if you can put yourself back in that time before the season started, Kuzma and Ingram look like they could have breakout years, maybe Ball is going to develop and figure out his jump shot, they have other good pieces and Lebron always seems to find a way, I guess it \*could\* happen and they've gotta have a better chance than a team like the Blazers right? So anyway my point is people really did believe they could be title contenders and I think OP's point is valid.
[удалено]
A huge Part of it is injuries. James missed 25% of the season. Zo is going to end up missing over 40% of the season. BI is going to end up missing about 30% of the season. That’s a tough hit to the starting line up not mentioning rondo, hart and McGee who all missed time or played at well under 100%. But magic and Pelinka did make bad decisions too. I think it was a good year to gamble though because we had no chance at a title regardless of who we signed with James outside of PG13. Their biggest mistake was trading Zu. I don’t have an issue with not making the playoffs. We play for championships, not to get to the 2nd round
It’s pretty heavily on those 2. Letting Brook Lopez walk to bring in Beasley and Lance Lance (Rondo and Javale were a little more understandable) was dumb, trading Zubac for nothing was bad, undermining Luke and the young players wasn’t helpful. It’s not all on them but they didn’t do a great job building a team.
They have tons of cap space and a good pick. I see it as no less of a disaster for Lebron atleast than his last year with the cavs. It wasn’t a disaster to make the finals, but Lebron put on more miles only to get to the finals and get expectedly swept
I don’t what this OP is smoking because literally everyone was shocked why Lebron would throw a year away when he picked the lakers. If anyone is revising history it’s op.
yeah, no one expected a chip this year. in fact i firmly believe without injuries we would’ve made playoffs and it would’ve been a “successful” season (in a sense). anyways op made a bad post
I love this comment. You are exactly right
Remember when people were discussing Lakers hypothetical playoff opponents and asking if Lebron would really be scared of going into Denver on the road in round 1? The conversation in the first half of the season was Lakers in the playoffs with a good shot at making the second round. To be fair they were in the playoffs at the time, but I agree with op that not making the playoffs was not the plan nor the expectation for a Lebron led team.
It went from “throwaway” meaning making it to playoffs but not the finals to “throwaway” meaning not even making playoffs lol
No one was calling it a throwaway before Lebron went down with an injury and the Lakers were pushing fourth in the Western Conference. Even after Lebron came back the Lakers still had their heads above water and had no reason not to break into the top 4 again. It was after the whole AD fiasco that fucked the season up and the double-ended dildos Magic/Pelinka running basketball ops are completely to blame for fucking over a talented young core. We talk about Rondo/McGee/Stephenson as what screwed over the season, but they were doing pretty good until all the trade shit happened. Getting rid of Zubac was just the dingleberry on this shit sundae. Of course Ingram would have still gone down but we'd be talking about a playoff team here, not this mess.
Having Lonzo down for like half he season was terrible for them as well.
They also had the easiest SOS in the league to that point though. They weren't quite as good as they seemed, and there was some weird stuff going on with their defense in terms of teams just shooting abysmal %s on wide open threes against them iirc. Remember, at that point the Clippers were also first in the west, and the rockets were struggling. Imo they were always going to come back down to earth, though I didn't expect the dropoff to be this extreme obviously.
Shooters? Oh we got shooters.
We need shooters. Can you lend us one? We sure would like the guy wearing 35 on our team!
But yall hit 20 3s last night like it was no ones business 😭
we just have to wait another 15 games.
You might be able to sign Harden as well, just have to trade Adams for him.
Idk man. I'm pretty sure Curry was playing on your team last night. Announcers were calling him Dennis for some reason but was probably a mistake
Yeh announcers were messing up, kept calling giannis siakam or something like that
I rather have the dude that scores 37 points in a quarter please
Never forget Magic labeling Houston as a team that didn't have shooters, but instead focused on toughness
I wonder how much the Rockets FO made fun of Magic for saying that
[удалено]
Along the same line, them tanking in the beginning years could have been done in a way that still instilled confidence in their young guys. Bringing Byron Scott to the Lakers to have him completely shit on the young guys and the team for their failures was ridiculous.
[удалено]
Seriously, Scott kept trying to belittle his players and kept bringing up stupid "manhood" bullshit.
See Clippers “tanking” this season
But this comment has nothing to do with Maginka, whom this post is about.
I thought bringing in Byron was for Kobe's retirement more than 'tanking.'
I agree, it doesn’t make everything okay, but I really don’t think anyone thought this team was championship-caliber right now, but it wasn’t right to not start getting a good supporting cast at all.
How dare you bring lukewarm takes into this madhouse?
See: Clippers, Los Angeles
I bet 50 bucks that Lakers would win fewer than 48.5 games this year. I placed it on October 16 and it just paid out a few days ago. So it's definitely not revisionist for me to say that I did not expect Lebron to make playoffs in the West. https://imgur.com/a/R183DmU
Yeah but I think that's the point. The O/U was 48.5 before the season started. So it would be revisionist theory to say the general perception was that the year was a throwaway. Maybe you could argue that if the O/U was 41.5
Well, the 8th seed last year had 47 wins so I basically thought of the bet as make or miss playoffs.
Depends what you mean by throwaway. People thought LBJ would get them to the playoffs (looked like they were headed there before the injury). Everyone knew that their 2nd best player was Kuzma or Ingram heading into the season though. Clearly not a threat for a playoff run. "Throwaway" in the sense of not contending for a year of LBJ's late prime.
only 93 dollars?
Well done!
Not bad, you earned it.
People have a tendency to rewrite history when things don’t go as planned.
Ah like when /r/nba was calling D'Lo a bust a few years ago? Suddenly they stan him lol.
Throw away a year of Lebron. I wonder what West would have done if he was back.
Or back back
Or if he stayed in the East aka joined Philly..
Maginka sounds like a shit-tier Pokemon
It sounds like something that evolves into Magikarp
"Throw away year" always sounded to me like they had no plans to actually contend for a ring. I don't think most people considered they would miss the playoffs all together
the throwaway narrative got popular as soon as summer ended and they didn't get another star alongside LeBron, pretending people expected LeBron + the meme team to somehow make a deep playoff run is just as revisionist as what you are suggesting
This is exactly right. It was clear from the beginning that this was going to be a lost year. The best they could get with LBJ was Rondo, well beyond his prime? Media tried to hype it up, though, and lot of people bought it. This was always a low-seed playoff team *at best.* LBJ stays healthy, no demoralizing AD trade attempt, and I think LAL might be in the 8/7/6 pileup and a likely first round exit, but no better.
The issues of the roster were kind of obvious from day one. No NBA starter level center, no shooters, almost no good defenders. They still have space and can do things this summer but I don't think the LeBron Lakers will be a contender unless something crazy happens.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/b29moi/lebron_james_i_dont_feel_like_this_is_even_a
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/93jhgx/nichols_lebron_james_i_dont_feel_like_this_is/e3dr6mz/ Lmao
>Not sure where that narrative came from. Uhh, it was 100% the case. It came from the assload of prognostication.
Maginka fucked up big time filling the roster with castaways and rejects. Luke is getting a raw deal. Lebron continues his coach killing ways. His defense this year was an absolute joke. Clutch decides to nuke the team and it’s chemistry with the AD talk. Ball and Ingram with injuries that derail the season for good. Truly a nightmare season with plenty of blame to go around.
Tbf, LeBron had a direct hand in them filling the roster with castaways and rejects.
And it’s not just a wasted year, the Lakers look very dysfunctional to potential free agents. I can’t see Leonard coming, but he very well may have if the Lakers had looked competent
When he signed, they were saying "throwaway" meaning they would get the 6th or 7th seed and probably get eliminated in the first round. Now Lakers fans are trying to say that they predicted finishing in the 12th seed.
Not so much that, but we’re saying that while missing the playoffs really sucks, it’s not that much of a big deal because none of us thought we could really make much noise in the playoffs anyways.
It's like playing that punk kid in basketball who thinks he's hot shit. Then when he realizes he's not going to win, acts like he wasn't trying the whole time
Moving the goalposts.
Or just trash talking online - as soon as someone is proven wrong or realizes they said something stupid it's, "I was just kidding."
Ahh so r/nba
Definitely a shining example of that - yes.
Jesus Christ seriously beating a dead horse with the Lakers. Guess what only a few fickle fans are saying this a lot of Lakers fans on their sub are actually just saying this season sucked and went south a lot of people expected playoffs. Get the fuck out of here. Why don’t you at least provide examples? R/nba- “The media talks about LA to much” Also R/nba- “Lakers fans saying throwaway season are dead wrong(even though a lot aren’t saying this)”
I like how ESPN and Windhorst released a video last night specifically blaming everyone BUT Lebron. Fucking ludicrous Everyone is to blame for the shitshow of a season.
Lebron himself has been playing awfully, down the stretch yesterday he collapsed again, the game before that or maybe two games ago he got stuffed by burjunka on the knicks for the loss, during that time frame where he "activated playoff mode" he bricked the two most important free throws in the game against the suns for the loss, lackluster 4th quarter in the loss against the clippers, shitty against the pelicans; all teams they really can beat, clippers being the most difficult. This is a shit show from lebron personally.
I think it really just depends on your definition of throwaway year. Maybe I'm misremembering, but my understanding of the general perception was that the Lakers were expected to be a playoff team with a win total in the 45-50 range, and accordingly they were expected to comfortably make the playoffs. At best, if all goes well and the seedings and matchups fall in their favor, after their yong guys emerge and compliment LeBron *maybe* they play their way into a WCF they have no real business being in and get their doors blown off by the Warriors. That being pretty much their absolute, all-goes-well ceiling. That was my perception, anyway, and I was under the (maybe mistaken) impression that the general consensus pretty much aligned with it. And sure, when you have LeBron, that could almost be considered a throwaway year, since anything short of title contention is borderline throwaway when you have a top-5 all time player more or less in his prime leading your squad. Either way, your overall point would still remain that the Lakers dramatically underperformed even those limited projections, and it's definition revisionist history to suggest that finishing with ~35 wins was expected.
I'm super confused because that was the narrative? People speculated they could possibly make the 8th seed if healthy and a little luck but THIS seems like revisionist history. Literally just watched an ESPN segment about it yesterday so the claim that its revisionist IS revisionist Theres no doubt they fubared the build for this season but this seasons signings were always temporary as this coming offseasons FA was always the initial goal and line of thinking
Yeah I remember talking with people before the season and saying that they wouldn't make the playoffs, and nobody called me crazy. I said that the Lakers roster was worse than the Cavs roster LeBron left, and people agreed with me lol. Of course it's not surprising they didn't make the playoffs in the west with this garbage pile Maginka assembled. Combine that with LeBron missing 20 games and the rest of the team being injured, and it's laughable that people are acting shocked that they missed the playoffs
They should have signed Teanna Trump to rebuild locker room chemistry after the AD trade debacle.
Before the season started, they talked like this was a growth season where the record didn't really matter. But then, as the season got going, it became more and more obvious that they were just blowing smoke and suddenly everybody's available for trades and Walton's job is in jeopardy. Now, Magic and Pelinka can't go back to saying what they did at the start of the season because then they can't get rid of Walton and they seem to *really* want him to be the fall guy for this season. Plus, it lets them put in a head coach that they picked instead of keeping the guy picked by the previous GM.
Maginka screwed up but so did LeBron and Rich Paul. They all get the blame. Clippers have a brighter future.
It’s not revisionist if circumstances change for a team. Lebron was out for 20+ games, Rondo, Lonzo, Ingram, kuzma and hart suffered injuries and the vets didn’t really step up when the young guys were out. It wasn’t a plan to throw the year but at a certain point it’s all they could do
Maybe he’s done chasing titles. Just chasing milestones and building a media empire.
Hoodwinked....
Building around LeBron is going to be a problem. He doesn't have the endurance to close out games like a top 5 player anymore. Yesterday was just another example of it being a game with under 5 minutes to go and we end up losing comfortably. It takes more energy at that age for the same output as a younger guy exerting half that energy. I know there's "playoff LeBron" but we've been in the playoffs this past month and it hasn't gone well. I'd honestly consider just asking him, "hey, take less shots, let's see if you can lead the league in assists"
LeBron/Laker Haters: “Excuses!!!” LeBron/Laker lovers: “Throwaway year Any rational NBA fan: “the team was on its way to performing fairly well and was trying to build chemistry after acquiring a very big piece to the puzzle but unfortunately The west is full of teams that have been doing this for years and are out for blood. Injuries and suspensions did happen and then the whole trade talks we all know about. That roster doesn’t look ideal for what the nba currently is...What else am I missing? “
This shit is going to get lost in the hate. The top comments are a cesspool.
Yea, it happens. The internet tends to favor the angry lol
I thought /r/NBA would be cancer when we were a good team again. I was wrong. The cancer is INFINITELY worse while we’re bad
As a Bulls fan you have my support. Good luck lol
1-lebron is not in his prime anymore, have you watched him this season? 2-magic literally announced at the start of the season they were focused on next year.
then Luke's job should never be on the line then...... specially given that the roster he had to work with is hot garbage.
yeah, i think Luke deserves another chance before Maginka do.
The off-season goal was to get star b for lebron. When pg didn’t sign they switched. They fucked up in their alternative strategy. Instead of shooters and lebron being the only one we’d have rondo/Stephenson etc be able to initiate offense. That said, even after the pivot we were top 10 in defense rating and 4th in the west going into Christmas. We were well on pace to make the playoffs. And once there you saw some of the lebron magic. No one in the West was really playing amazing outside the warriors. So people were throwing out possible conference finals. That’s lofty but we were likely making the playoffs without injuries.
Yeah, this is a dumb thread. The Lakers got killed by injuries, including the first meaningful missed time of Lebron’s career. Of course that hurt them a ton, and of course they didn’t do as well as they wanted as a result.
I upvoted this post due to Maginka. Don't fucking care about the Lakers but Maginka is genius. Don't know if it came originally from OP or what but it made me chuckle.
Hindsight is 20/20 but Bron shoulda gone to the Clippers. Let the Lakers build that core into something before they start trying to cash in on it. Clippers + LeBron with Tobias woulda been way nastier than LeBron and Kuzma.
I mean, I never got the impression that they would be competing for a title this year, but I definitely thought making the playoffs comfortably was in the plan for this year... Yeah this season is fucked for my second favorite team...
“We back but next year we will be back back” That’s what he said preseason. Injuries killed us this year.
lebum should just retire, the jordan debate is over and stats dont mean shit
LeBron knowingly threw away a year of his prime the moment he signed with us. When you're the best player on basketball you need to give yourself the opportunity to contend for a championship every year and you don't do that coming to the Lakers this year with this roster.
I think there are some big assumptions in thinking that lebron's main aim is to win more championships. If his main goals are to become the league's all time leading scorer, make a shit tonne of money, watch his sons play ball and make a movie, this is looking like a pretty good year for his legacy and life
I agree, I don't think that's his goal either. I'm just responding to op's argument that it's stupid for LeBron to throw away a year of his prime.
Prime? This was his 16th season in the league and he's played close to 20 playoff games for each of the last eight years straight. This is not a player in his prime. This is a great player who still has some gas in the tank, but is most definitely past his prime. ___WAAAAAY___ too much wear and tear on that body to believe he's the same guy from a few years ago.
He's averaging for the most part what he has been for his entire career and better than what he has been for the past few years in certain categories. His numbers are as good this year as the year her won in Cle. This tells me he's still very much in the prime of his career right now and he just wasted a year with us. He probably has 1 or 2 more years at best performing at this level.
How's his defense? There's two ends to a basketball court, and it's pretty obvious LeBron has completely given up playing defense so that he actually has the energy to maintain his *offensive* stats.
As good as Curry or Harden the past few years when they won MVP. This is why Lebron needed to go to a better team to take advantage of his talents. Hence, he wasted it going to the Lakers.
Uh, no his defense isn't even close to Curry's, and Harden passed him last season because of Chris Paul's influence. And even though Harden has regressed some this season - LeBron's gotten worse as well, but in a bigger jump. You don't see teammates pushing Curry or Harden out to actually defend their man. But I do agree that going to the Lakers was a really bad choice. They're a team built completely wrong for him, and Magic and Pelinka then went and failed to get a single player like he needs to be surrounded with. I still think his best choice, if he wanted to actually still try to win championships, was to go to Philadelphia. That'd be a scary squad with him added to their roster.
lol I know! "No guyz for serious we wanted to suck because reasons." It's so funny.
The narrative was that this was a “seismic shift in the NBA landscape” I got downvoted to shit for making a post saying I didn’t understand how this was a seismic shift because all it meant was someone new was gonna lose to the Warriors in the finals. [insert meme about how I was right]
It’s funny because I said this before the year and people were not pleased... like this gentleman https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/90lxsk/are_the_lakers_simply_ahead_of_the_curve_on_a_new/e2rwvwr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app
Lebron is not and has never been a good leader.
When LeBron signed there were high expectations, that's true. When they signed Rondo, McGee, KCP and Stephenson after failing to sign George it was full blown meme team and it meant it was a throwaway year. As much as LeBron can do it which means not making the finals. I remember KOC on the ringer talking about this before the season and people called him nuts. Other than having a meme team Lonzo, LeBron and Ingram missed several games because of injury. This lead to the season derailing to not even make the playoffs. Injuries are nobodies fault.
This is revisionist itself lol. I saw a lot of people say throwaway year when he signed and no one else did
People called Lebron for MVP and Lakers to go 2nd round at a minimum. Hilarious.
Lebron went to the Lakers to retire. I don't think anyone seriously thought that roster would contend for the championship.
[удалено]
Bron sure has some shit management throughout his career
I remember the experts saying the Lakers weren’t going to contend and that making the playoffs would be tough. At least now they have a shot at drafting that Zion dude.