The league is now in the All-Star Weekend phase, and the Lakers arguably the most disappointing team in the league in the first half of the season. They failed to push for a trade involving Russell Westbrook before the trade deadline, and Anthony Davis also needed to miss at least four weeks after suffering injury problems.
Compared to injury problems, the problems that this Lakers are actually in trouble are easy to find. After being beaten by the Suns in the first round of the playoffs last season, the Lakers pushed for a deal involving Russell Westbrook in the offseason, and even though Westbrook was able to play an average triple-double during his time for the Wizards, it was still considered the worst move.
However, the Lakers did not push the deal involving Westbrook and John Wall before the trade deadline can also be said to avoid entering the next dilemma, so the question now is, how can the Lakers use the current lineup to turn the situation around, or what kind of performance can Westbrook play to change the Lakers?
The first must be the defensive end. So far this season, Westbrook is arguably one of the worst performers on the defensive end of the Lakers, shooting 3.7 percent more from the field than normal defensively.
Wei Shao is not a player who does not play well enough on the defensive end, after all, his height and arm span and athletic talent and even strength can make him play against any player in the backcourt, but Wei Shao is the kind of player who cannot take advantage of these talents, that is, the problem of defensive consciousness.
We can also see in the game that Westbrook often has incredible defensive problems, and even sometimes misses his own defensive players in order to defend rebounds, so if he can't keep himself focused on the defensive end, this Lakers team will have a hard time going deep into the playoffs.
As for the offensive end, Westbrook does have the ability to hit the paint and play efficiently, but Westbrook has some mistakes on the offensive end and likes to challenge the scoring methods that he is not good at (such as shooting from the middle and long range and outside the three-point line), which are the reasons why Westbrook cannot play efficiently.
Overall, how Westbrook can give the team more help in the rest of the Lakers and even in the playoffs is still more obvious, that is, he needs to make good use of his better ability to impact the basket and organize the ball on the offensive end, and he also needs to make himself more focused on the defensive end, only in these two cases, Westbrook may give the Lakers more help.