Kings 114-122 Lakers James scored 31 points as the Lakers won three straight games
Ariza replaced Stanley Johnson, who left the team on a 10-day short contract, to make his first start of the season, and the Lakers sacrificed their 21st starting lineup of the season, the most in the league.
The Lakers' forced change effect is not ideal, although they sit at home and win 122-114 to the 10th place Kings of the West, but after Ariza replaced Johnson, the Lakers' already not very good defensive hardness dropped significantly, and the Kings, who ranked only 22nd in the league in offensive efficiency, shot down 114 points with a shooting rate of more than 51%. If leBron James is still brave, Malik Munch, Dwight Howard and Tarren Horton Tucker play a strange role, the Lakers may not be able to win.
The Lakers' frequent changes of lineup are really not broken jars, if not no way, who is willing to play a few games or even one or two games to change the starting lineup. As the actual speaker of the team, James has not complained, but the team lineup configuration, injuries, and epidemics have brought a lot of problems to the Lakers, and the Lakers can only be forced to change sides frequently, which is not something that James can solve with a few words.
Combing along the timeline, you know that the Lakers frequently change the lineup, and there are active self-corrections after the failure of the Vogel experiment, but most of the time the Lakers are forced to change the lineup.
Last offseason, the Nets sent DeAndre Jordan to the Pistons, and then the Pistons bought out Jordan Jr., and the Lakers quickly signed Jordan Jr. as quickly as they picked up the baby. At that time, many American experts said that Vogel should not entrust Jordan Jr. with heavy responsibilities, and that he would do more damage to the Lakers by playing one more minute. But Vogel did not believe in evil, the first 6 games of the season always insisted on Jordan Jr. to play the start, the Lakers 3 wins and 3 losses, by the Thunder reversed the loss of face. During this period, there were 2 games in which James was injured and did not play, and Malik Munch replaced James to start.
After that, Vogel finally heeded the advice, the Lakers began experimenting with Anthony Davis as the center of the small ball play, replacing Jordan Jr. with Avery Bradley, but the new starting lineup just used two games, James was injured again, and Jordan Jr. returned to the starting lineup. In mid-November 2021, with the return of Ellington and Tarren Horton Tucker, Vogel abandoned the in-form Bazemore and put Tucker Jr. into the starting lineup, and Ellington also entered the starting lineup.
In December, the Lakers were infected with the new crown, coupled with Davis's knee injury, the Lakers tried multiple starting lineups when they were short of manpower. Recently, the Lakers have used Westbrook, Munch, Johnson, Bradley and James to form a starting lineup that has worked well, but with Johnson's ten-day short contract expiring, the Lakers changed the starting lineup again today.
There is also a reason why the Lakers frequently change lineups, that is, to open up space for Wei Shao. Of course, the Lakers know that using James to play center will increase his load, and the Lakers will also lose a lot of rebounds to be hit by opponents for a second offense. But there is no way, the Lakers must give Wei Shao 35+ minutes of playing time, when Wei Shao is on the floor they must give up part of the defense to maximize the use of Wei Shao's offensive value, and the traditional center presence is not conducive to Wei Shao's offensive play.
The data shows that when Westbrook is on the floor with Jordan Jr. or one of Howard, his basket shooting rate is less than 55%, but when Howard and Jordan Jr. are not present, his basket shooting rate can exceed 58%.
For these reasons, the Lakers are now simply unable to play in a stable lineup, and they have 13 starters. While other teams are playing with a stable lineup, strengthening chemistry while constantly winning, the Lakers are still in the exploration stage.
James has previously complained: "We are still looking for the best way to win, figuring out how to win, which lineup is the best, and when we find the answer we can continue to get better." 」 The reality is, we simply don't have a chance to do that, we don't have a lineup that produces chemistry because we don't have a lineup that plays a lot of time and that's a challenge for us. ”
It's not that James loves to complain, it's a fact. This season, the Jazz starters played 28 games together, totaling 446 minutes. The Suns started the Tigers in a total of 19 games, for a total of 382 minutes. The Warriors started the Tigers in a total of 28 games, for a total of 344 minutes. All three teams are currently in the top three in the West, and one of the reasons for their record is that the starting lineup is stable and the rotation is relatively fixed.
This season, 42 lineups across the league have played more than 100 minutes, but what about the Lakers? The lineup they use the most is Westbrook, Anthony, Bradley, Davis and Tucker Jr., with a total playing time of just 53 minutes. Of the 8 lineups the Lakers have used the most, 5 lineups have a positive 100-round net win score when they are on the floor, and 4 of these 5 lineups are Davis and 1 is Johnson. But now, Davis can't play, and whether Johnson can sign with the Lakers again is still unknown.
Because the lineup is not tidy, frequent changes, rotation chaos, the Lakers are now in a very unstable state, reflected in the scene and data is the Lakers' mistakes, there is no tacit understanding at both ends of the attack and defense, the strong team is basically no play, and the weak team must also be forced to open five or five.
To make matters worse, the Lakers' hard days are far from over. Davis may have to wait until late January or even the end of the month to return, and Nunn has not made a comeback so far this season, and there is still no sure when he will return. When the two of them return, the Lakers have to run into each other again.
Don't forget, the Lakers are still preparing for mid-term reinforcements, they have vacated a position vacancy to sign people, if you sign Johnson directly, if you sign other players, the Lakers have to continue to run. It is rumored that the Lakers may also trade chips such as Jerami Grant with chips such as Tuck Jr. and Nunn, and if the transaction is completed in the medium term, the Lakers will still have to run in. Maybe until the last day of the regular season, "run-in" is the key word for the Lakers.
Doesn't that look like last season? Because of the injury, health and safety regulations of the Zhan Mei combination, the introduction of a large number of new signings in the offseason, and the introduction of new players in the middle of the season, the Lakers have been running in the run-in all season, and the problem of chemical reactions has not been understood until the end of the regular season. As a result, others sprinted you to run in, and the Lakers could only barely rely on the playoffs to enter the playoffs with the West in seventh place. The first round of the playoffs hit the Suns, and the Lakers were directly finished after an injury.
At present, each strong team has basically found its own winning password, regardless of whether this set of winning passwords can win the championship, at least the winning passwords of each strong team can ensure that they enter the playoffs with a good ranking. Only the Lakers, now even the most basic winning code has not been found.
When will the Lakers find it? Can you find it? God knows.