This offseason, the Lakers formed the Big Three, upgraded on the original lineup, and the paper combat power is unprecedentedly strong. But paper combat is one thing, and actual competition is another. Judging from the situation from the season to the present, the Lakers have not achieved the expected effect. Often in this case, the team needs to make a change.
The root cause of many of the problems that the Lakers have played so far this season is that the Big Three are not running well, and it is expected that the Lakers will move less. This time, we will analyze from many aspects to see the situation of the Lakers and the difficulty of trading Wei Shao. Between two fires! The Lakers discuss trading Wei Shao, the big three really don't match, Vogel can't do anything!
First, the Lakers' big three really did not match, and did not play the expected effect
When the Lakers operated in the offseason, the voice of the downside of the deal was relatively high. The reason why not too many people are optimistic about this deal is mainly because of Wei Shao's wind evaluation and playing style problems in the past few years. In the past few seasons, Westbrook has been regarded as an outlier of the team, and the rating of each team will drop a lot. More importantly, as we age, the previous fierce style of play gradually did not fit Wei Shao, and the negative impact on the team was greater than the positive.
Judging from the performance at the beginning of the season, Wei Shao, as everyone expected, was quite diaphragm in the Lakers system, which is a microcosm of recent seasons. In fact, we can look at why Wei Shao has struggled in recent years, mainly after leaving the Thunder, the status of Wei Shao's team has changed. With Harden as the ball carrier in the Rockets, Westbrook's team position is awkward. The same goes for the Wizards, who are Bill's team after all. Now that the Lakers have exacerbated this phenomenon, Westbrook's team status has declined again.
The lineup of the big three formed by Westbrook, James and thick eyebrows does look very good, but the Lakers big three really don't fit together. Wei Shao needs to attack with the ball, and when there is no ball, he is basically watching the big drama from the sidelines. With no three-point threat, defenders can let go of Westbrook and target others. When Wei Shao holds the ball, James cannot play too much without the ball, after all, the benefit of the ball in James's hands is far higher than that of Wei Shao holding the ball.
In fact, the reason why the Lakers initially recruited Wei Shao was to reduce the pressure on James, and the result did not achieve the expected effect. James is still the main ball carrier, and Westbrook is not sharing the pressure. This season, James's average playing time per game remains high, reaching 36.8 minutes, which is also a new career high for James Lakers. The team traded to Westbrook, but the consumption of James was greater, and the good burden reduction became a supercharging, far from the original intention of the team's operation.
Second, the management formally discussed, and Wei Shao was caught in a dilemma
In the case that Wei Shao can't play the state he should be in and the run-in is not good, the Lakers naturally have ideas. As we all know, the first 25 games of the early season are crucial, which determines whether the team is operating reasonably and correctly in the offseason. The first 25 games were the run-in period of the team, and once that period is still struggling, then the team itself has problems and needs to make changes. On the other hand, after this game, it means that there is not much room for trial and error.
According to NBA celebrity Jake Fischer, the Lakers have had internal discussions about The Westbrook deal, which means that the Lakers are going to take this step. From the perspective of the business league, the role of professional managers is to make the team better, so there is nothing wrong with discussing the Westbrook deal internally, after all, it is related to the team's entire season.
However, from the perspective of human feelings, when he first recruited Wei Shao, Zhan Mei can be said to have worked hard, and now he wants to get rid of Wei Shao, which is somewhat embarrassing. It's like the classic movie line, "When I used to watch the moon with me, I called people sweet." Now the new people are better than the old people, called the cow lady. ”
Now Wei Shao is caught in a passive dilemma, after all, he is not very comfortable playing in the Lakers. In order to integrate into the team, Wei Shao actually made a lot of sacrifices. Taking the number of shots as an example, Westbrook's average shot per game has dropped from 19.0 last season to 16.3 this season, and 3 of the last 5 games have not been in double figures. This was a phenomenon that was difficult to see in previous seasons. In addition to the number of shots, Wei Shao is also willing to become the third choice of the team, as well as the supporting roles around Zhan Mei.
This season, Westbrook averaged 19.5 points, 7.7 rebounds and 8.4 assists per game, and all three statistics have declined compared to last season. In terms of shooting percentage, Westbrook as a whole reached 45.1% and three-point shooting rate was 32.4%. As far as this shooting rate is concerned, it is still possible, after all, there are not many seasons in which the entire career of Westbrook shooting rate exceeds 45%. As a comparison we can look at George and Lillard. George shot 42.2 percent from the field and 31.8 percent from three-point range; Lillard shot 39.2 percent from the field and 29.6 percent from three-point range.
Westbrook isn't useless either, and his passing is still what the Lakers need most. James can sometimes be lazy in the game to save energy, and Wei Shao can attack the basket to pass the ball. With 8.4 assists this season, He has a lot of connections with the team. Westbrook and Thick Brow interacted the most frequently, with 27.6 percent of the balls going to Thick Brow, another 15.4 percent to James, 10.6 percent to Shooter Munch, and 13.4 percent to Anthony.
Third, the thick eyebrows and three points are bad to exacerbate this phenomenon, and Vogel can not do anything
If you want to say that the reason for the poor running-in of the three giants, the pot can not all let Wei Shao back, and there are also certain problems on the side of the thick eyebrows. Wei Shao's three points are still poor or have a certain output, and the thick eyebrow side does not dare to compliment. The Lakers rely more on smaller lineups, and these two seasons are also their main players. However, if the small lineup is put out, if there is no three-point threat on the inside, then the power is not as good as before. The Lakers' small lineup in the championship season is a world of difference compared to this season.
This season, Thick Brow can average 24 points, 10.2 rebounds and 3 assists per game, but the three-point shooting rate is only 19.2%, a new low in the past eight seasons. When the thick eyebrows do not have a three-point output, the small lineup is very awkward. If you want to match Wei Shao, the inside line must have three points, which has been summed up in recent years. Therefore, what makes the Lakers embarrassed is that there are no three points for thick eyebrows, and Wei Shao is unstable for three points, which aggravates the phenomenon of running-in difficulties.
The team was always in a state of weakness, and Vogel was sprayed to the point of exhaustion, and even shouted out to get him out of class. In fact, in the face of these situations, Vogel is also powerless. Itself is a problem caused by poor lineup compatibility, and no amount of tricks in the manager will help. We can look at the 19-20 Lakers lineup, it can be said that it is something, this season's lineup is too deformed, and it is more and more similar to the situation last season.
In the absence of any way, Vogel could only make the lineup smaller again and again, and James had to rotate to the center position and play the ultimate five small lineup. So we see james playing more time because Vogel put part of the time he gave to the thick eyebrows to play a small lineup, and part of it let James replace it. James is getting more and more tired, and now he is not young, a dunk can appear to strain the abs, which is the decline in physical function brought about by the age factor.
Fourth, trading Wei is rarely difficult, and large contracts and no draft picks are the key
The Lakers have internal trading discussions, but this does not mean that they can send Wei Shao out, and the difficulty is still quite large. If Wei Shao's wind evaluation can be the same as Paul's, I believe there are many teams willing to take over. It's just that the current Wei Shao is no longer his MVP season, and the transaction value is not large. We can look at the trading situation of Wei Shao in the past two years, and basically do it at a loss.
To put it bluntly, Wei Shao's contract is too big, if this season is a Wei Shao contract year, there may still be a team heartbeat, after all, after all, after the end of the season will release a lot of salary space, but Wei Shao's contract will not end until next year's offseason. In this case, there is no demand for strong teams, and there is no attraction for weak brigades.
If the Lakers want to trade Wei Shao, in addition to the other party can match the salary, the Lakers will most likely have to take the draft pick. If you don't take the draft pick, it's not very likely. The point is that the current Lakers don't have quality draft picks and have run out when trading thick eyebrows. Second-round draft picks will certainly be hard to come by, which is to be expected. In general, even if the Lakers have the heart to trade, they are bound by reality.
summary
The Lakers need to make adjustments to the roster at this stage, but the big three are unlikely to break up. Management still thinks of other ways to see how to reduce the impact of poor lineup running-in.