The Lakers are 23-12, they are in first place in the Pacific Division and tied for fourth in the West, just two games behind the Spurs for the 2-seed. They’ve accomplished this while only have LeBron James for about half the season so far. Not too shabby, right? On the surface, yes, the Lakers are in a good spot, but look a little deeper and there’s reason for concern.
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Almost without fail, when the Lakers have played a quality team, they’ve gotten blasted. Every single one of their 12 losses has been by double digits, including last night’s 107-91 loss to the Spurs.
The Lakers have plenty of offensive firepower. Luka Doncic leads the NBA in scoring with 33.7 points per game, and with Austin Reaves, he’s part of the highest-scoring duo in the league by far. When it comes to defense, though, the Lakers can’t stop anybody. They’re currently ranked 21st in defensive rating, a stat that has actually caused them to have a negative point differential despite being 11 games over .500.
On the most recent episode of Game Over, Rich Paul and Max Kellerman were once again talking about the Lakers’ championship prospects. Most observers have ruled the Lakers out as serious contenders because of their lack of D, but Paul said that the issues go much deeper than that.
When Kellerman pointed out that LeBron is limited defensively due to his age and Reaves is no stopper himself, Paul shot back with, “You’re putting all the eggs in the basket of Luka playing defense. I wouldn’t care if Luka turned into Tony Allen.”
“If Luka turned into Tony Allen, they’d have a chance to win a championship,” Kellerman responded.
“That’s not true,” Paul said. He argued that the Lakers have “a puncher’s chance” with the talent they have and the possibility that other teams could get injured or upset, but that they’d have a better shot if they could make some roster adjustments.
“I’m not saying go out here and pigeonhole your future,” he explained. “I’m not saying that, but I’m also not saying, you know, play this game of wait on the biggest name, because that to me, and this is me speaking as media, not an agent, that to me is fantasy basketball, because the reality of it is, every year is different. Every year is different, so you can’t just throw a year away.”
This statement by Paul sums up what a massive conflict of interest his podcast is, because there’s no way to separate the fact that he’s LeBron’s agent from his role as a member of the media. He’s commenting directly on his client’s team, and surprise surprise, he’s advocating for the Lakers to make moves to help them this year, the final season of his client’s contract with the team.
The end is coming for LeBron at least relatively soon, and so Paul has a vested interest in wanting the team to push to help him right now. There’s no reason he would care as much what the Lakers do after LeBron leaves or retires. So to say, in essence, that they should make some win-now moves because nothing is promised in the future is extremely shortsighted.
Smart teams can’t operate that way, and Kellerman was right to push back on him. The underlying numbers say that the Lakers are actually a worse team than their record indicates. Should they give up on the season and accept another first-round playoff loss?
No, but they also shouldn’t make a foolish move now that could preclude them from chasing someone like Giannis Antetokounmpo or Paolo Banchero.
Besides, if Luka, who again, is the NBA’s leading scorer, transformed into Tony Allen on the defensive end, the Lakers would absolutely have a real shot at a title.
Obviously that will never happen, because Allen was someone that Kobe Bryant himself said was the toughest defender he ever played against and Luka has been a minus defender his whole career. But the rest of the Lakers’ roster is not so bad that they’d be hopeless if they had a guy who was the best offensive and best defensive player in the league.
Paul was trying to make the point that whereas in the past, having two or three superstars was the surest recipe for success (like with LeBron’s Heat), nowadays, the strongest teams have more depth and not necessarily multiple All-NBA candidates.
That part is true, but for a team as desirable for stars as the Lakers, they can have their cake and eat it too, at least if their front office makes smart moves with the future in mind.
