If you want to ask which team has performed the most this season, I believe that most people's answer is the Lakers, they have the most luxurious paper lineup, simply put, not winning the championship is a failure. However, after playing 51 games, the Performance of the Lakers is far from what people expect, not to mention the championship, and whether the Lakers can now play in the playoffs is a question.
The aging Lakers have not been able to show their experienced side in the game, and they have been dragged down by injuries, except for Wei Shao, who maintains full attendance, and the whole team has been injured almost repeatedly. The offseason was pinned on high hopes, considered to be a good price, Nunn, has not yet made his season debut, James is injured, thick eyebrow injury, thick eyebrow return, James is injured again.
Today's TA Shams updated James' latest injury, and James is not expected to play Thursday against the Blazers and may miss more games due to a knee injury. James and the Lakers are very cautious about this knee injury, after all, the knee injury is different from other injuries, and James is 37 years old, and the body's recovery ability is not as good as when he was young.
In addition to injury problems, more worrying is the Lakers' system problems, more than 50 games down, Lakers coach Vogel still has no clear rotation order, is still constantly testing the lineup, today's traditional lineup, tomorrow may be five small lineups, the day after tomorrow may make everyone think that the fall out of the rotation of the little Jordan playing the starting center.
Vogel this season is like doing an extremely complex permutation combination math problem, which is not so complicated, and a team with James ranks 24th in offensive efficiency, which is not reasonable in itself! Because James is the superstar with the clearest and clearest winning blueprint, how to configure the lineup for him, the configuration tactics have been written in every successful resume of his past 20 years, but the Lakers management seems to have not read a page, they are speeding in the opposite direction.
At present, the Lakers are 9th in the West with 24 wins and 27 losses, and are in the quagmire of 3 consecutive losses, and their offensive and defensive efficiency is lower than the league average, and it is difficult to believe that this is a team determined to compete for the championship.
The positive side is that the Lakers don't need to worry too much about the team's record, they are currently 5 wins away from the 6th Lone Rangers in the West, the current momentum of the two teams is diametrically opposite, the Lakers are basically impossible to catch up, and the Lakers are 5.5 wins away from the 11th Spurs in the West, and it is unlikely to fall out of the top 10!
So, basically the Lakers have locked up the playoffs, they just need to win in a playoff that is bound to win or lose, and everything can start from scratch! As Westbrook said in an interview today: "When you get to the playoffs, the score will be 0-0. ”
But this presupposes that the Lakers can recover their health before the arrival of the playoffs, clarify their thinking, and find the most suitable offensive and defensive system for the team.