Originally, the Los Angeles Lakers have experienced ups and downs this season, and now even the playoff qualification is difficult to guarantee, but the house leaks in the overnight rain, and the "thick eyebrow brother" Anthony Davis will be absent for at least a month due to injury reasons. The fortunate thing in the misfortune is that Anthony Davis' injury is not particularly serious, and it will not let him be reimbursed throughout the year, but the Lakers' opening schedule is the simplest in the league, which means that the next Purple and Gold Army needs to play against various giants in the absence of internal generals, and the prospects for the Lakers are not optimistic.
Last season's injury affected, Anthony Davis did not perform well, especially when he came back, the Lakers simply forced him to find the form. To put it bluntly, if you control Anthony Davis' playing time, or even let him postpone his comeback plan, the Lakers' record is likely to be better. As the so-called shame and courage, Anthony Davis humbly accepted those criticisms and suggestions, and he trained hard to make his body stronger in the offseason. So this season, Anthony Davis's performance has clearly picked up, and he has proved that he is still one of the best interior players in the league.
However, this sudden unexpected injury can be said to have completely disrupted the overall plans of Anthony Davis and the Lakers. The Lakers' luck is also very poor, just missing Anthony Davis, the whole team seems to be very uncomfortable, it can be said that there is no preparation at all, and the result is that they have encountered the Chicago Bulls and Phoenix Suns, who are at the top of their respective divisions, and also suffered two losses.
As the acting head coach of the Lakers, David Fitzdale said: "In the absence of Anthony Davis due to injury, the whole team needs to speed up the transfer of the ball, and more importantly, everyone must rely on each other and trust every teammate around them. And seeing that the Lakers are now deeply mired in the quagmire, the US media can't look at it anymore, and they have put forward three suggestions to support the Purple and Gold Army." The first is that the Lakers need to be more flexible in using the small ball lineup, in fact, even before Anthony Davis was injured, he had almost 70% of the time, he was in the fifth place of small ball. But now that Anthony Davis has been injured and Dwight Howard is in a health and safety agreement, the Lakers' real interior player is only Jordan Jr., not to mention that his position has become more and more marginalized. Therefore, the same framework of the main lineup means that the Lakers need to use the small-ball lineup more frequently.
In fact, in these two games, the Lakers coaching staff often let LeBron James and Trevo Ariza guest play in the small-ball center position, and Cameron Anthony has basically played the big forward as he has grown older, plus the injury reasons, speed and mobility have not been as good as before, but who should be used more in the other positions needs to be weighed and thought about by the Lakers coaching team. At any time, the team will put their hopes on their star players, especially from the paper lineup alone, the Lakers can really be said to be a big name gathering. After Anthony Davis was injured, everyone hoped that russell Westbrook, the former regular season MVP award winner, would be able to turn the tide and help the team through this difficult time.
The Lakers had gossip with a number of quality vice-players in the offseason, but in the end they chose to bring Russell Westbrook back to Los Angeles, for which the Lakers did not hesitate to send away Kyle Kuzma, Kentavis Caldwell Pope and Monterrez Harrell, three major rotation players, plus a first-round draft pick. Now with Anthony Davis' long-term absence, the other two giants are bound to get more ball rights and shooting opportunities, and it has always been felt that Russell Westbrook and LeBron James are not in tune with each other, but there is actually a reasonable solution. One is to reduce the time the two are present together, in addition to the opening and decisive stages, can let the two lead the team alone for a period of time, Westbrook during the Rockets, D'Antoni tried this method, so that he and Harden do not need to be paired all the time.
And even if Westbrook and James are on the court at the same time, the Lakers can also let the latter play a role similar to the second setter, the ball is more to let Westbrook to master, the old Zhan's no-ball offense is stronger after all, so the threat is naturally greater. The final point is whether the Lakers management will take action. In the center position, Howard and Jordan Jr. are both elderly, and even if they stay healthy, this position is a weak underbelly. The Lakers' third center is Hufu, a young player with a two-way contract, who cannot be counted on in a short period of time. Therefore, for Lakers general manager Robert Pelinka, although there is still more than a month left before the deadline, the Lakers can no longer wait, and the management needs to immediately fight for a powerful interior player to make up for the gap in the lineup, but also effectively reduce the pressure on existing players.