It was a historic night on Monday for Lakers star LeBron James, who became the NBA’s all-time leader in total regular season and postseason minutes, reaching 66,319 and surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (66,297). However, James also suffered the worst loss of his 21-year NBA career, as his team was on the losing end of a 44-point blowout in Philadelphia.
Asked after the game what the Lakers need to do to avoid more defeats like Monday’s, LeBron didn’t offer any specifics, but he also didn’t exactly express that the club would be fine with some minor tweaks, as Dave McMenamin of ESPN writes.
“What needs to change in order for that not to happen again?” he said. “Um, a lot.”
Responding to a follow-up question about whether there’s anything in particular the Lakers need to focus on, James replied, “No. A lot.”
The Lakers have a 10-8 record, but their advanced stats haven’t been particularly impressive — their minus-1.9 net rating ranks 21st in the NBA, and they have the league’s 25th-best offensive rating (110.5). It has been an underwhelming few weeks for a team that made the Western Conference Finals last spring and has title aspirations this season.
Injuries are partly to blame for the Lakers’ poor start, as Jarred Vanderbilt (heel), Gabe Vincent (knee), Cam Reddish (groin), and Rui Hachimura (nasal fracture) all remain unavailable. Still, Monday’s effort was a disappointing one, with Anthony Davis suggesting after the game that a film session might be necessary before Wednesday’s contest in Detroit.
“We’ve got to look at it, embrace it, own it,” Davis said. “Guys don’t take it personal for whatever’s said in the film, and then move on from it.”
According to McMenamin, former Lakers head coach Frank Vogel conducted regular film sessions, but they sometimes became “volatile” when a player interpreted an instruction as a “pointed attack rather than a teaching moment.” Davis doesn’t think that will be an issue with this group.
“You’re sitting there and watching film … it’s also in front of the entire team, the coaching staff,” Davis said. “I don’t think we have guys who probably will take it personal. But if they do, that’s probably another conversation.”
The whupping was real. The sixers toyed with Lakers as jojo even showed off his tween the legs helpers to maxey.
I mean… he’s right? Basically everyone on the Lakers played badly in that game. LeBron had the best BPM of all Lakers players, but nobody was positive in +/-, and the perimeter defense was particularly sucky. Embiid is going to get 25+ pretty much every game, but you can’t overload on him and just give up on the wings, which Ham had the Lakers do in panic mode after the first quarter. Basically everyone who wasn’t Maxey and Embiid got left open, and the perimeter was totally unguarded for most of the night. And for all that paint presence, they still got killed on the offensive glass. Bron’s zero boards is also unacceptable. I don’t care if you score 100, you grab flippin’ rebounds instead of *standing there*. I get that you’re old and tired, but c’mon.
Gah. Games like that are just frustrating to watch. Should’ve picked something else to watch last night. Pacers-Blazers and Jazz-Pels were apparently good games.
Laker’s bench is not that strong and the way the coach is playing AD and LeBron too many minutes in games they will be burned out later in the season. Not a fan of the coach since he seems to over play the starters too many minutes not giving the bench enough time to gel.
The bench is thin because of injuries, but honestly, you’re right. Ham’s playing LeBron and AD too much to compensate for the injury bug. He’s not the best at adjustments, so he’s using his stars as a crutch. Hopefully when they’re at full strength, they’ll figure things out. Rui and Cam were doing a good job, and Vando will help a lot with the defense.
The other problem for them is signing the wrong PG. Schroder fit the team much better being a drive PG while D’lo is a shooting PG. Schroder opens up the lanes much better for LeBron and AD than D’lo
D’Lo has done a good job with that so far, and his shooting is valuable for the Lakers, who will always need spacing. LeBron is already a driving ball-handler who can run plays. Doubling down on it won’t always be the answer, and Reaves can also fill that role. Kind of hard to sign Schroeder to the kind of contract needed to keep him when he’s so inconsistent, also. If he didn’t want the D’Lo deal, they couldn’t go much further at the time. And even then, D’Lo’s 3pt spacing probably outweighed what Schroeder was expected to give.
Dlos been great and is actually a great fit for this team that has huge problems with creating and 3 pt shooting
Strange take …did you mean Vincent? Cuz that make some sense Arc
The bench is thin because they have 4 of their top 5 bench players out
Any team with 4 out of their best 5 on the bench out is going to have a bad bench until they get healthy
If the Lakers would have offered DeMar DeRozan the extra year on his contract that the Bulls gave him we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The 3rd guy they been looking for.
Who did that cap space ultimately go to? Hachimura? Prince? Gabe Vincent? Ouch!
Didn’t they offer him MLE? He got more than double that per season.
They wouldn’t add the 3rd year to the contract. Had no problem giving him 2 years. They didn’t want to add the 3rd year because they wanted the cap space available to spend this past offseason. Ultimately, they made moves at the deadline that ate into that before making the big free agent splash with Gabe Vincent at $11 million per season with what was left.
Re-upping with Hachimura, Reaves, and Vanderbilt. Vincent was their MLE, iirc. Can’t really fault them for that; DeRozan had a bad reputation as a choker going into the 21-22 season, can’t really space, and has obvious defensive limitations. Any point after that, it would have required a pretty expensive trade to get him.
He’s a very good player and has done a lot to shake that label in Chicago (back to back buzzer beaters, dang that was cool), but he would have been a funky fit with LeBron, who has a similar playstyle. Both are ball-dominant wings who operate best in open space and can pass, but don’t really have much defensive ability anymore. Getting depth and complementary pieces around two great players seems to be the best way to go about building a potential championship team anymore.
Cap space? 3rd year…All wrong, completely fabricated
Gotta keep it more emo and vague Barry thats your jam
You clearly have no clue what your talking about so the more specific you get the easier it is for us to see you have no clue
DDR just leveraged LAL to get a bigger contract…kudos to him, happens all the time, Lal never had the money avail for him without him taking about half of what Chi gave him
False!
Westbrook was ultimately the pick by the Lakers because his contract was coming off the books for the 2023 offseason!
DeMar wanted to close it out at home with the Lakers. Read DeMar’s own words! Read Rob Pelinka’s OWN WORDS about preserving cap space for 2023 offseason.
They thought they would have enough for another significant player. They blew it up at the deadline last year.
You know nothing!
Just stop it!
Captain Crunched!
That made zero sense
We never had the cap for DDR, RW had nothing to do with it and DDR words mean little bout “what he wanted?’ (* sounds like Money)
I dont think you know how cap space works
No point in even talking to Barry, philly.
He clearly has 0 idea what’s going on, and is just making stuff up that isn’t even close to true
Agree, verys father Rick was a know it all also, a hell of a nba player but a smug somebody!!
Coach Ham is going to have to play Labron and AD a lot of minutes because he needs to win in order to keep his job! Labron sees the writing on the wall and wants to go to another stacked team! This team is done!
Lakers think it’s all due to injuries, but the awful outside shooting is a real concern and only Hachimura’s return will have a positive impact on that.
lebron and AD have only missed 1 game each, but it will be surprising if that lasts.
10 more made threes would put them in the middle of the pack, to be fair. A third of the number they attempt per game. It’s just so early in the year that the numbers are still stabilizing. I don’t expect them to turn into the 2016 Warriors, or anything, but there’s no reason to hit the panic button yet.
The injury concern for AD and LeBron is totally fair. That’s not continuing. AD might even be playing through injury already, given how he was moving yesterday.
* If, and BIG if, Ham ever lets Rui outta the cage
Baffling, just baffling
That’s what happens when you resort to starting max christie
Not a good team today.
2 games away from the quarter pole and still searching for their first quality win. Orl by 3 at home is probably their best win and that took a stinker from Banchero to accomplish
Cant guard the perimeter, cant stop penetrations’, nobody’s a plus rebounder outside Ad (tho Reaves has been chippin in nicely lately) and lastly come up with about 20% of 50/50 balls it seems
Terrible 1 st quarter team, have made huge mistakes last 2 mins of 4th qrters that could have easily cost them 3 games and put them in Clipper land at 11th place , Terrible on the boards on both sides for a team that’s got great length now….. Smells like an effort problem exists here
Ham needs to put Rui at the 4 for 20 games and just let it ride. They try and get too cute like the LA Dodgers and play matcheups day to day …..Ive always been a take care of your own lawn guy first then tweak. Admittedly at the front of the Rui train but hes showed he can shoot, create for himself (something hugely lacking with the F group) and play some defense. Whats the beef Ham?
*shining light- They are lucky as hell to be 10-8 today …schedules been hella lite tho
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