**LA LAKERS THREAD** Sitting on 17! 2023-2024 offseason begins

Dhizzle said:
thasoleful1 thasoleful1 knows how extra these fans be here in the bay. Sick and tired of these fools. We gotta blast these guys from opening tip and play bully ball
Click to expand...
I know too unfortunately.

I wish I can go into hiding for 2 weeks bc the daily talk will be painful. I don’t mind trash talk, it’s the “I know nothing about basketball but let’s talk ball” folks
 
sohi 23 said:
Ham’s done a good job. Impressed by a rookie head coach. Still should’ve been playing Wenyen from the jump and he better not try to bench him against the warriors lol.
Click to expand...
Every series is different, if GS rolls out a bench unit of 3 guards, Wiggins and Draymond for example that’s probably not a good matchup for Wenyen…or one that the Bron/Rui front court could give you better results.

I think as a former player himself Ham might stick with certain players who might be struggling to at least give them an opportunity to play their way out of it (Beasley)… makes sense to me if you feel like you’re going to need that player at some point it helps if they can say that the coach still believe in them. Up 3-1 you can do that, but he tightened things up when it mattered most.
 


Capture.PNG


:pimp: :pimp: :pimp:
 
Not to mention

Bron + AD + Kyrie max
would put them $30mil-35mil or so from a hard cap.

Even if it was DLo+Beasley+Vando and the 2023 1st & 2nd for Kyrie, Rui gets sacrificed because they have to keep ~$7mil for filling 6 other spots after Reaves + MLE for whoever + Christie
 
Keys points for LAKERS
1. They have a very high defensive rating after the trade deadline.
2. They are long and athletic
3.Just about anyone in the roster can explode
4.Deeper than GSW for sure
5.They Defeated a number 2 team. No they destroyed a number 2 team while GSW had to go in 7.
6.They have more rest so expect them to be fresh
7.They have AD and LBJ which is a mismatch. You can also argue that Hachimura will be a nightmare as well as Austin Reeves.
8.Vandolorian can run with curry and long enough to disrupt his shots.
Key points for GSW
1.They have homecourt advantage
2.Curry is curry and will curry what ever happens.
3.They have the heart of a champion and wont go down easily.
4.Klay when hot will burn the infernos of hell.
5.Looney has become Rodman 2.0
6.The offense the GSW runs till still confuses a lot of teams specially with them back cuts.
7.No one out shoots the GSW in a 3 point shoot out
8.They are a good homecourt team and wiggins is slowly getting back to old form.
1682948454376.jpeg
 
Warriors beat reporter:


Warriors-Lakers mega series preview: Can either team score on the other?

Kevon Looney became the first player since 2008 to have three 20-rebound games in the same series. Steph Curry became the first player to score 50 points in a Game 7. They were the primary reasons the Warriors survived the end of this seven-game Sacramento transition onslaught. Curry’s performance, in particular, added to his legend.

But there’s little time to reflect within the playoff crucible. Tuesday is approaching rapidly. The Lakers will be in San Francisco. The second round tips off and the schedule is condensed. The Warriors and Lakers — both relying on older superstars with historic playoff mileage — will only get one day off between every game of the series.

So let’s spin it forward. In chatting with several Warriors players postgame, the same word came up repeatedly while trying to shift their brains from 21 days of Kings prep to the idea of a two-week clash with the Lakers.

“Completely different teams,” Looney said.

“Totally different,” both Curry and Draymond Green said.

How?

“Sacramento was really pushing it,” Looney said. “Makes or misses, they were flying. The Lakers actually play pretty fast. But LeBron (James) typically likes to play slower, control the game. It’ll be interesting to see what type of style they play. Do they go big or small?”

The Lakers finished fourth in pace during the regular season. Their first-round series against the Grizzlies wasn’t played quite at the breakneck pace of the Warriors-Kings track meet (103.9), but it was still quick: 100.2 possessions per game, the third-speediest first-round series. This won’t be Sixers against Nets or Knicks against Cavaliers (played in the low 90s). There will be some tempo.

But the Warriors can’t shake their past playoff experiences against LeBron. Those old Cavaliers teams used LeBron to throttle down the knob, slow the Warriors and keep everything in a physical halfcourt setting. There is some level of anticipation that it’ll be a similar story when they meet for a fifth time in the playoffs (first in a non-Finals setting). But current context must also be considered.

“LeBron is playing more off the ball than he ever has in his career,” Draymond Green said. “Which I applaud. It’s hard for a guy like that to make that transition. He’s seamlessly done it. It’s helped their team. Not that LeBron on the ball is a problem, but it’s allowed other guys to do more.”

Let’s run through some key questions on both sides.

How do the Warriors score against a long, large, smart Lakers defense?

Three of the Warriors’ 15 worst offensive efficiency games this regular season came against the Lakers. All three came after the trade deadline, which is the big demarcation point of the Lakers season, when they turned Russell Westbrook into Jarred Vanderbilt, Malik Beasley and D’Angelo Russell, remaking their rotation in a sharper way.

“Heavy drop against us,” Looney said. “Clogged the paint up. We had a tough time scoring against them during the regular season. But I don’t even know if we had (Andrew Wiggins) in those games.”

Wiggins missed the final two Lakers matchups. The threat of his jumper was missed. Wiggins has made 39 percent of his 3s the last two seasons. He takes them at a high volume. That’s enough to force opponents to respect him and keep a defender attached.

You can’t say that about the Warriors’ other frontcourt options. The Lakers will completely sag off Green and Looney, allowing Anthony Davis to roam in the paint while another long wing (LeBron, Rui Hachimura, Vanderbilt) also is a few steps closer from the help side, ready to enter the mix.

Just look at this possession from their most recent matchup. Steve Kerr has Jonathan Kuminga and JaMychal Green on the floor. Both are bigger threats from 3 than Green or Looney. Doesn’t matter. Darvin Ham and the Lakers have Hachimura and Davis completely ignore Kuminga and JaMychal Green. The beginning of the clip is slowed down to show just how much space is given. It allows Davis to sit in center field, track the possession as it materializes and wipe away a Kuminga shot at the rim.


There are certain tricks that Draymond and Looney have developed over the years to punish a heavy drop. That includes various forms of a hit-and-handback or dribble handoff, using that extra cushion and their screening acumen to wipe away a defender and give Curry, Klay Thompson or Jordan Poole an ocean of spacing curling off of it.

But the Lakers will be a whole lot more difficult to execute that against than the Kings. Davis’ reach and mobility make him a shot-altering threat even from several feet away and they will instruct their perimeter defenders to chase the Warriors shooters hard over those screens. Dennis Schröder will get plenty of time on Poole and Curry. Austin Reaves’ defensive ability will be put to the test.

This is a Warriors possession, from the first of those three straight losses to the Lakers, that is perfectly defended. Draymond tries to scatter to the other side of Reaves and set a dribble handoff that frees Thompson. But Reaves gets over it well, Davis looms and Thompson is forced to kick it back out.


Russell will wear a target on his back in this series. The Warriors spent a half-season getting an up close look at his defensive shortcomings. They will draw him into action. But that clip above (rewatch if needed) is a great example of the luxury of back line rim protection that the Kings didn’t possess. After Thompson kicks it out, Donte DiVincenzo uses a simple pump fake to blow past Russell. That’s bad perimeter defense. But Davis is sitting in the paint, ignoring Green and swats away the layup.

The Kings were leaving all sorts of cracks available to Green and Looney. In that huge Game 5 road win, Green scored 21 points, his first time over 20 since Christmas 2019. The Lakers, like the Kings, will gift him any 3 he wants and he will surely rise up for a few in decisive moments. But the sledding to the rim will be choppier. Green finished pretty well over Domantas Sabonis. It’s a whole lot harder muscling through a sagging Davis, as seen below.


The Lakers strategy to ignore will present the lineup question that perpetually follows the Warriors. Can they survive offensively with two non-shooting bigs on the floor?

Their traditional starting lineup of Curry, Thompson, Wiggins, Green and Looney was the league’s most potent group in the NBA this season, a plus-145 in its 331 minutes together. Against the Kings, it was plus-44 in 67 minutes. Kerr went back to it for Game 7 and that five-man lineup outscored the Kings by 26 points in 23 minutes.

So it’s a decent bet that Kerr opens the series with it against the Lakers. But despite success, there always seems to be a moment in every series that Kerr is forced to shift away from it for spacing purposes. He even did it in the Finals last June, replacing Looney with Otto Porter Jr.

Porter isn’t currently available for the Warriors. Poole has been their replacement starter option, shifting Wiggins down to power forward next to either Green or Looney in a one-big look. But Poole is coming off an inefficient series that spiraled in a bad way toward the end. They need him to be much more under control against the Lakers.

What about the other side of the court?

In the aftermath of another 20-rebound mega performance, Kerr called Looney “one of the best centers in the league.” Given what went down over the two previous weeks, it didn’t land as an egregious statement. He had just significantly outplayed Sabonis, who will likely be a third team All-NBA center, over the bulk of the series.

Now Looney shifts to a different matchup against an even more accomplished big man. Both Looney and Draymond will share the Anthony Davis duties, but the improved Looney has proven to be so vital to the Warriors success that it’s difficult to minimize his role or responsibility.

“Sabonis is more of a passer,” Looney said. “He plays with more force. More physical. AD is more finesse, more athleticism, shoots more Js, uses more quickness. Guarding him will be different than Sabonis, more of a 1-on-1 matchup. This (Sacramento) series, I was in a drop and kind of mucking it up. Against AD, it’ll be more traditional 1-on-1 coverage.”

The best stretch of Davis’ career came during the Lakers title run in the bubble. Those playoffs, he made 38 percent of his 3s and 49 percent of his midrange jumpers (57 of 115). It was a torrid stretch, making them at a Kevin Durant level of efficiency.

That isn’t who Davis was this season. He only made 25.7 percent of 3s, barely even shooting them (74 attempts in 56 games) and hit 4.6 percent of his midrangers, a solid but unspectacular clip. If he’s hanging around the perimeter shooting from 17 feet and beyond, Looney and the Warriors will live with that. But as Looney mentioned, they deployed that strategy in early March and Davis torched them for 39 points in a win without LeBron. He’s capable.

Wiggins will draw the primary LeBron assignment. He has historically played LeBron pretty well, included some solid work on him during that Warriors-Lakers play-in game a couple seasons ago. Watch this block on an isolation post up.



Wiggins shared the De’Aaron Fox assignment with Gary Payton II, DiVincenzo and Draymond Green. But LeBron is a bit too powerful for DiVincenzo and Payton. This is a job for Wiggins primarily and Draymond at necessary moments.

Side stat of note: The Lakers only made 34.6 percent of their 3s during the regular season. That was 25th among 30 teams. They only made 31 percent of their 3s in the Memphis series. The Warriors will pack the paint and dare many of the Laker rotation players — particularly Vanderbilt — to beat them over the top. The lack of spacing and those open 3s from average to below average shooters, on both sides, could define the series.

What about Jonathan Kuminga?

In his postgame press conference after dropping 50 in Game 7, Curry was asked about the Lakers series. His answer went in an interesting direction that seemed to have a subliminal message.

“They’re big,” Curry said. “We gotta be able to have everybody locked into our preparation over the next 48 hours. Even if guys didn’t get much run in this series, that’s the nature of the playoffs. Move on to a different scheme, a different style. Everybody has to be ready.”

Kuminga fell out of the rotation quickly against the Kings. Kerr was asked for his reasoning and explained that Sacramento didn’t have a specific defensive matchup that made sense for Kuminga. They like to put him on big scoring wings. He’s specifically mentioned Brandon Ingram, Kawhi Leonard and LeBron. The Kings two best players are a quick guard and a powerful center.

Kuminga appeared frustrated with his lack of playing time as the series progressed. Curry even gave him a pep talk during mop up duty of Game 6. There are people within the Warriors who believe he will be needed against the bigger Lakers and perhaps a Game 1 rotation role — in smaller lineups where spacing is less of an issue — will give him a fresh start.

Some other quick hitters

• This will be the first Lakers series of this Warriors dynasty era. It’s extra special for Klay Thompson, who grew up idolizing them. His father, Mychal, is a former Laker and the current radio analyst for the team’s radio broadcast. Klay said he figured his father would root “for his employer.”

• Kerr was asked about the Warriors familiarity with LeBron in the playoffs and gave a notable answer.

“One of the first things I learned about LeBron when we played him in the Finals was just how smart he was,” Kerr said. “Coming out of timeouts, he knew what we were doing. You take that into account. He knows our team. I do think this team is very different than those teams back then, but we do have some of the same tendencies and he’ll recognize those things.”

This was something Kerr noted a couple of years ago when the Warriors saw the Lakers in the Play-In games. LeBron reads the Warriors’ trick actions — slip cuts, fake dribble handoffs, etc. — better than any other player in the league. Check out this clip.

 
pmatic said:
Warriors beat reporter:


Warriors-Lakers mega series preview: Can either team score on the other?

Kevon Looney became the first player since 2008 to have three 20-rebound games in the same series. Steph Curry became the first player to score 50 points in a Game 7. They were the primary reasons the Warriors survived the end of this seven-game Sacramento transition onslaught. Curry’s performance, in particular, added to his legend.

But there’s little time to reflect within the playoff crucible. Tuesday is approaching rapidly. The Lakers will be in San Francisco. The second round tips off and the schedule is condensed. The Warriors and Lakers — both relying on older superstars with historic playoff mileage — will only get one day off between every game of the series.

So let’s spin it forward. In chatting with several Warriors players postgame, the same word came up repeatedly while trying to shift their brains from 21 days of Kings prep to the idea of a two-week clash with the Lakers.

“Completely different teams,” Looney said.

“Totally different,” both Curry and Draymond Green said.

How?

“Sacramento was really pushing it,” Looney said. “Makes or misses, they were flying. The Lakers actually play pretty fast. But LeBron (James) typically likes to play slower, control the game. It’ll be interesting to see what type of style they play. Do they go big or small?”

The Lakers finished fourth in pace during the regular season. Their first-round series against the Grizzlies wasn’t played quite at the breakneck pace of the Warriors-Kings track meet (103.9), but it was still quick: 100.2 possessions per game, the third-speediest first-round series. This won’t be Sixers against Nets or Knicks against Cavaliers (played in the low 90s). There will be some tempo.

But the Warriors can’t shake their past playoff experiences against LeBron. Those old Cavaliers teams used LeBron to throttle down the knob, slow the Warriors and keep everything in a physical halfcourt setting. There is some level of anticipation that it’ll be a similar story when they meet for a fifth time in the playoffs (first in a non-Finals setting). But current context must also be considered.

“LeBron is playing more off the ball than he ever has in his career,” Draymond Green said. “Which I applaud. It’s hard for a guy like that to make that transition. He’s seamlessly done it. It’s helped their team. Not that LeBron on the ball is a problem, but it’s allowed other guys to do more.”

Let’s run through some key questions on both sides.

How do the Warriors score against a long, large, smart Lakers defense?

Three of the Warriors’ 15 worst offensive efficiency games this regular season came against the Lakers. All three came after the trade deadline, which is the big demarcation point of the Lakers season, when they turned Russell Westbrook into Jarred Vanderbilt, Malik Beasley and D’Angelo Russell, remaking their rotation in a sharper way.

“Heavy drop against us,” Looney said. “Clogged the paint up. We had a tough time scoring against them during the regular season. But I don’t even know if we had (Andrew Wiggins) in those games.”

Wiggins missed the final two Lakers matchups. The threat of his jumper was missed. Wiggins has made 39 percent of his 3s the last two seasons. He takes them at a high volume. That’s enough to force opponents to respect him and keep a defender attached.

You can’t say that about the Warriors’ other frontcourt options. The Lakers will completely sag off Green and Looney, allowing Anthony Davis to roam in the paint while another long wing (LeBron, Rui Hachimura, Vanderbilt) also is a few steps closer from the help side, ready to enter the mix.

Just look at this possession from their most recent matchup. Steve Kerr has Jonathan Kuminga and JaMychal Green on the floor. Both are bigger threats from 3 than Green or Looney. Doesn’t matter. Darvin Ham and the Lakers have Hachimura and Davis completely ignore Kuminga and JaMychal Green. The beginning of the clip is slowed down to show just how much space is given. It allows Davis to sit in center field, track the possession as it materializes and wipe away a Kuminga shot at the rim.


There are certain tricks that Draymond and Looney have developed over the years to punish a heavy drop. That includes various forms of a hit-and-handback or dribble handoff, using that extra cushion and their screening acumen to wipe away a defender and give Curry, Klay Thompson or Jordan Poole an ocean of spacing curling off of it.

But the Lakers will be a whole lot more difficult to execute that against than the Kings. Davis’ reach and mobility make him a shot-altering threat even from several feet away and they will instruct their perimeter defenders to chase the Warriors shooters hard over those screens. Dennis Schröder will get plenty of time on Poole and Curry. Austin Reaves’ defensive ability will be put to the test.

This is a Warriors possession, from the first of those three straight losses to the Lakers, that is perfectly defended. Draymond tries to scatter to the other side of Reaves and set a dribble handoff that frees Thompson. But Reaves gets over it well, Davis looms and Thompson is forced to kick it back out.


Russell will wear a target on his back in this series. The Warriors spent a half-season getting an up close look at his defensive shortcomings. They will draw him into action. But that clip above (rewatch if needed) is a great example of the luxury of back line rim protection that the Kings didn’t possess. After Thompson kicks it out, Donte DiVincenzo uses a simple pump fake to blow past Russell. That’s bad perimeter defense. But Davis is sitting in the paint, ignoring Green and swats away the layup.

The Kings were leaving all sorts of cracks available to Green and Looney. In that huge Game 5 road win, Green scored 21 points, his first time over 20 since Christmas 2019. The Lakers, like the Kings, will gift him any 3 he wants and he will surely rise up for a few in decisive moments. But the sledding to the rim will be choppier. Green finished pretty well over Domantas Sabonis. It’s a whole lot harder muscling through a sagging Davis, as seen below.


The Lakers strategy to ignore will present the lineup question that perpetually follows the Warriors. Can they survive offensively with two non-shooting bigs on the floor?

Their traditional starting lineup of Curry, Thompson, Wiggins, Green and Looney was the league’s most potent group in the NBA this season, a plus-145 in its 331 minutes together. Against the Kings, it was plus-44 in 67 minutes. Kerr went back to it for Game 7 and that five-man lineup outscored the Kings by 26 points in 23 minutes.

So it’s a decent bet that Kerr opens the series with it against the Lakers. But despite success, there always seems to be a moment in every series that Kerr is forced to shift away from it for spacing purposes. He even did it in the Finals last June, replacing Looney with Otto Porter Jr.

Porter isn’t currently available for the Warriors. Poole has been their replacement starter option, shifting Wiggins down to power forward next to either Green or Looney in a one-big look. But Poole is coming off an inefficient series that spiraled in a bad way toward the end. They need him to be much more under control against the Lakers.

What about the other side of the court?

In the aftermath of another 20-rebound mega performance, Kerr called Looney “one of the best centers in the league.” Given what went down over the two previous weeks, it didn’t land as an egregious statement. He had just significantly outplayed Sabonis, who will likely be a third team All-NBA center, over the bulk of the series.

Now Looney shifts to a different matchup against an even more accomplished big man. Both Looney and Draymond will share the Anthony Davis duties, but the improved Looney has proven to be so vital to the Warriors success that it’s difficult to minimize his role or responsibility.

“Sabonis is more of a passer,” Looney said. “He plays with more force. More physical. AD is more finesse, more athleticism, shoots more Js, uses more quickness. Guarding him will be different than Sabonis, more of a 1-on-1 matchup. This (Sacramento) series, I was in a drop and kind of mucking it up. Against AD, it’ll be more traditional 1-on-1 coverage.”

The best stretch of Davis’ career came during the Lakers title run in the bubble. Those playoffs, he made 38 percent of his 3s and 49 percent of his midrange jumpers (57 of 115). It was a torrid stretch, making them at a Kevin Durant level of efficiency.

That isn’t who Davis was this season. He only made 25.7 percent of 3s, barely even shooting them (74 attempts in 56 games) and hit 4.6 percent of his midrangers, a solid but unspectacular clip. If he’s hanging around the perimeter shooting from 17 feet and beyond, Looney and the Warriors will live with that. But as Looney mentioned, they deployed that strategy in early March and Davis torched them for 39 points in a win without LeBron. He’s capable.

Wiggins will draw the primary LeBron assignment. He has historically played LeBron pretty well, included some solid work on him during that Warriors-Lakers play-in game a couple seasons ago. Watch this block on an isolation post up.



Wiggins shared the De’Aaron Fox assignment with Gary Payton II, DiVincenzo and Draymond Green. But LeBron is a bit too powerful for DiVincenzo and Payton. This is a job for Wiggins primarily and Draymond at necessary moments.

Side stat of note: The Lakers only made 34.6 percent of their 3s during the regular season. That was 25th among 30 teams. They only made 31 percent of their 3s in the Memphis series. The Warriors will pack the paint and dare many of the Laker rotation players — particularly Vanderbilt — to beat them over the top. The lack of spacing and those open 3s from average to below average shooters, on both sides, could define the series.

What about Jonathan Kuminga?

In his postgame press conference after dropping 50 in Game 7, Curry was asked about the Lakers series. His answer went in an interesting direction that seemed to have a subliminal message.

“They’re big,” Curry said. “We gotta be able to have everybody locked into our preparation over the next 48 hours. Even if guys didn’t get much run in this series, that’s the nature of the playoffs. Move on to a different scheme, a different style. Everybody has to be ready.”

Kuminga fell out of the rotation quickly against the Kings. Kerr was asked for his reasoning and explained that Sacramento didn’t have a specific defensive matchup that made sense for Kuminga. They like to put him on big scoring wings. He’s specifically mentioned Brandon Ingram, Kawhi Leonard and LeBron. The Kings two best players are a quick guard and a powerful center.

Kuminga appeared frustrated with his lack of playing time as the series progressed. Curry even gave him a pep talk during mop up duty of Game 6. There are people within the Warriors who believe he will be needed against the bigger Lakers and perhaps a Game 1 rotation role — in smaller lineups where spacing is less of an issue — will give him a fresh start.

Some other quick hitters

• This will be the first Lakers series of this Warriors dynasty era. It’s extra special for Klay Thompson, who grew up idolizing them. His father, Mychal, is a former Laker and the current radio analyst for the team’s radio broadcast. Klay said he figured his father would root “for his employer.”

• Kerr was asked about the Warriors familiarity with LeBron in the playoffs and gave a notable answer.

“One of the first things I learned about LeBron when we played him in the Finals was just how smart he was,” Kerr said. “Coming out of timeouts, he knew what we were doing. You take that into account. He knows our team. I do think this team is very different than those teams back then, but we do have some of the same tendencies and he’ll recognize those things.”

This was something Kerr noted a couple of years ago when the Warriors saw the Lakers in the Play-In games. LeBron reads the Warriors’ trick actions — slip cuts, fake dribble handoffs, etc. — better than any other player in the league. Check out this clip.

Click to expand...

Cool
Story
Bro
 
It will depend on which teams show up.

Will we see the focused defensive beasts can’t miss 3s dubs? Or the Jordan Poole falling out of bounds warriors?
Same for lakers: will it be the “where’s AD?” Lakers or the beast, all over the court, don’t d with me AD?
 
DLF said:
It will depend on which teams show up.

Will we see the focused defensive beasts can’t miss 3s dubs? Or the Jordan Poole falling out of bounds warriors?
Same for lakers: will it be the “where’s AD?” Lakers or the beast, all over the court, don’t d with me AD?
Click to expand...
Saving grace for the Lakers that the Warriors won instead of the Kings; Lakers would've bull****ted around with the Kings. :lol
 
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BIG LEEMELONE said:
Ham seriously has to play Lonnie if/when Beas is stinking it up. Warriors backcourt is too vulnerable to not take advantage. They have no answer and Lonnie can be on par with Monk from last series in a smaller role
Click to expand...
I could see ham trying to stick with Beasley/TBJ to try to match Golden State's 3 point shooting a little bit.
 
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