preface
Last season's Lakers only achieved a playoff round due to injury, as a former champion team, when did the Lakers suffer such grievances. Therefore, in the offseason, the Lakers management ruthlessly gave up young players such as Kuzma, Pop, Andruso, and traded for Wesbrook. Since then, the Lakers' big three have been combined, and I thought that under the leadership of the big three in the new season, the Lakers can cut through thorns and sweep away the haze of last season. However, the ideal is very beautiful, but the reality is very bone, the current Lakers only achieved 18 wins and 19 losses in the West ranked seventh, whether they can enter the playoffs is still a mystery. It is clear that the Lakers' performance did not achieve the expected effect, and the five small lineups coached by Vogel were also obviously unsuccessful, which is why, let's analyze the reasons.
The Lakers' entire team has insufficient projection ability
First of all, the five small lineups have high requirements for the projection level and offensive efficiency of the players, and the Warriors who want to develop the five small lineups to the peak, the Cavaliers' "one-star four-shot" system and the Rockets led by Harden, the five small lineups formed by these teams have one thing in common, that is, there are very good shooters in the lineup, and the offensive efficiency of the lineup is very high. In contrast, today's Lakers, the offensive efficiency ranks 23rd in the league, and the projection ability is not worth mentioning. Davis's 17.9 percent, Westbrook 31.1 percent, James 34 percent, and the only player with a three-point shooting percentage of more than 40 percent is Bradley, who joined halfway. In addition, the Lakers introduced Ellington, although Ariza has a good three-point level, but they rarely play their due performance on the court, can not provide firepower for the five small lineup. Therefore, the lack of projection ability is an important reason why the Lakers' five small lineups cannot play.
The level of defense is worrying
The five-small lineup not only has high requirements for offense, but also requires players to have a high level of proficiency on the defensive end. One of the advantages of the five small lineups is that the pace is fast, and the movement speed of the small players is relatively fast, so the five small lineups must be able to adapt to the rapid change of defense mode. Think of the Warriors of that year, the infinite change of death five small defenses made the opponent miserable. However, the Lakers' defensive efficiency this season is only 13th in the league, and it is clear that the Lakers do not have the defensive ability of the five small lineups. In fact, after a wave of blood changes in the offseason, the Lakers' defensive problems were revealed, and although Howard and Jordan Jr. on the inside line had excellent defensive levels, they were not suitable for the five small lineups. In addition, today's Westbrook and Ellington and Rondo, who have been traded, still have a certain gap in their defensive ability with players such as Green and Pope.
The Big Three can't produce good chemistry
There is a saying that "two monks carry water to drink, three monks have no water to drink" This phrase is most appropriate for today's Lakers. From the Lakers trade to Wei Shao, we know that the Lakers are going to form a small lineup, indeed, relying on the cooperation between the three giants, from the perspective of book strength alone, the Lakers are scary enough. However, it backfired, from the team's record, it can be fully seen that the big three have not found a compatible way of playing, so that their advantages can be maximized. Before the cooperation between James and Davis has a good effect, and even led the Lakers to a championship, but after Westbrook joined, the big three not only did not produce a good chemical reaction, the personal performance of the big three also dropped a lot, in fact, a large part of the reason is that the playing style between the big three is not very compatible. In the five small lineups, James spends a large part of his time playing the position of center, but his holding time is too long, relying on a center to hold the ball, this game is not easy to play, and, in the five small lineups, James's projection ability is the best, so James should play without the ball. And Wei Shao itself is not very suitable for playing without the ball, Wei Shao's pitching fans are obvious to all, Wei Shao is better at holding the ball to break through, so to a certain extent, the play between the two is conflicting, the incompatibility between the leaders, but also indirectly led to the Lakers other players did not play the performance they should.
Hit the weak teams hard
The Lakers have also won a few games this season using a small lineup of five, taking the most recent ones against the Rockets and Trail Blazers. The Lakers played with the same five-squad against both teams and both were ultimately successful. However, everyone thinks about what kind of team the Blazers and rockets are now, this season the Blazers are the second-to-last in the defensive league, only 0.1 points better than the first-to-last Rockets, they are no longer the team that can rush into the Western Conference Finals and fight with the Warriors for seven rounds, and now they are no longer beautiful, and they have become the difficult brothers in the bottom ranking. So the Lakers' victory over them is not worth showing off, in order to really test the quality of a lineup or need to fight a hard battle to prove, in the next face of some strong inside teams, whether the Lakers can still win, let's wait and see.
summary
So far this season, the Lakers' results have not been ideal, and head coach Vogel has repeatedly tried more than a dozen starting lineups, but has never found the most suitable lineup. In fact, we can clearly see the problem of the Lakers, that is, there are too many guards, and 12 of the 20-man roster are guards! This defender can't be used. And so far this season, James's average playing time is as high as 36 minutes, you must know that James is 37 this year, and the donkey of the production team can't withstand such a toss! Playing at this pace is very expensive for James, and the Lakers may not be able to play well by relying on James in the more difficult schedule in the second half. Therefore, the Lakers should look for excellent forwards, ease the pressure on James, enrich the interior line, and enhance the rationality of the team. Let's take a look at how the Lakers have performed since then.