Almost half a year ago, before the start of the season, the Lakers were no. 2 on the betting bank's list of odds for winning the championship, and now they are ranked 5th from the bottom in the West. In other words, there are 6 teams in the West that are sure to be able to enter the playoffs, and 4 teams are fighting for the remaining 2 playoff spots, and the Lakers, who sit on 4 historical 75 superstars, have now temporarily booked a lotto district seat, and another tough season, they have won another high-ranking rookie for the Pelicans, there is no basketball reason, there is no illegal seduction and robbery, practice has proved, all the gifts of fate... Go the gift of fate.
The gift of fate has long since become a thing of the past, and human memory is not much better than that of a goldfish in terms of the experience of happiness. A moment of joy in the bubble hall of 2020 seems to have never existed, the appearance of thick eyebrows sitting on the bench and sobbing has been drowned out by The Emoji with Headphones listening to the problem, and the night covers the City of Angels, and sorrow soaks Vogel's face.
The sad Lakers coach said conclusively: "Thick eyebrows and James take turns injured, this season is too difficult." ”
In the cognitive misunderstanding that we are familiar with, when you analyze others, you always like to find subjective reasons, and when you analyze yourself, you like to find objective reasons, and we usually call this behavior "excuse making". When a career coach starts to paint you a picture of an injury, you know he's raised the white flag. How would a great coach describe this situation where frequent injuries to core players affect the record? In 2018, Leonardo couldn't be injured, and Popovich told his friends expressionlessly: "We don't focus on those who can't play." ”
The Pelicans don't have Zion, the Clippers don't have George and Leonard, the Nuggets don't have Murray and Porter Jr., they all play better than the Lakers; the Suns are 11-4 without Paul and the Grizzlies are 18-2 without Morant. The Lakers are 14-24 when they don't have thick eyebrows, 6-14 when they don't have James, and probably only the Warriors without Curry can be their comfort.
However, when the Warriors had Curry they were 45-19, with a 70%winning percentage. When the Lakers had both James and Thick Brow, they had 11 wins and 10 losses, with a 52.4% win rate.
If there are no playoffs, and the playoffs start today, the eighth place in the West will be the 48.7 percent Win Rate Clippers, and looking up, the Seventh Timberwolves in the West, 43 wins and 33 losses, 56.6 percent win rate.
In other words, if we consider that when the Lakers have Zhan Mei at the same time, most of them fall into the first third of the season schedule, and they sit in the top three easy schedules in the league, which means that it is not easy for them to maintain a 52% win rate until the end of the season, and even if they maintain this win rate, it only means that they are at best an 8th level team in the playoffs.
In fact, the situation may be worse, after the All-Star Game, the Lakers offensive efficiency league is 9th to the bottom, defensive efficiency is 2nd to the bottom, the net win point league is 3rd to the bottom, and the team that stays with the Lakers in these penultimate rankings is either called the Blazers or the Thunder, the most direct, 17 games after the All-Star Game, the Lakers only won 4 games, and the Thunder are equal, only stronger than the Blazers.
These data rankings show that the current level of the Lakers is no longer a question of whether they can enter the playoffs, and even the 5th to the bottom of the West is no longer worthy of their play.
So after losing to the Lone Ranger and officially falling out of the play-offs, a reporter will ask Wei Zhong: "What do you think should be done behind the team?" ”
This time, Weizhong did not mention the insight that "entering the playoffs is from 0", but asked the reporter what to do, the reporter said that you are the professional, Weizhong laughed: "Team basketball, I can't say it well..."
So what kind of team are the Lakers?
Let's start small, those balls between the two sides of the ball, the Lakers average the number of times the league is the second to last in the league; the Lakers each game interfere with the opponent's shooting is also the league's second-to-last. These two small jobs do not necessarily bring positive returns, you rush over, may not necessarily interfere with other people's shots, but there may be some clumsy movements, you fall on the floor, you may not be able to grab the ball, you may also break other people's feet, but overall, such data from some aspects of the team's defensive tendencies, they are included in the NBA's official definition of "scrambling" statistics, you can guess why the Lakers are so low in these two data.
At this point, Munch's summary seems appropriate: "The opponent will always fight harder than us." And words like "we should fight harder" have also come out of the mouths of the team's highest-paid big guys.
When we are difficult to explain some setbacks, we often talk about the quality of willpower, for example, you can not understand football, but you can seriously point out the crux of the Chinese men's football team is that they are too soft, too hard to fight, similar arguments are still quite audience. This idealistic tendency is also a common sentiment of people, and it has something to do with the current successful learning of chicken soup covering junior high school political education. But I guess Munch didn't know where the Lakers' problem was, but he couldn't say it, or didn't dare to say it.
The Lakers' offense is not the essence of this season, and their offense has been maintained at a similar level for three consecutive years, that is, a more general level. The defensive end is very different, and even if the thick eyebrows only played for half a season last year, they can still maintain the league's top defensive level overall, which is why they finally passed the playoffs and entered the playoffs. And this year's defense is bad to this point, mainly because two defensive individuals have fallen too quickly, one is under the basket, and the other is the conversion.
The Lakers conceded no. 4 in the league in the penalty area, and they had little resistance to the center's inner roll when defending the breakup, and their loss rate when defending the big center inside roll was the highest in the league. Most people who have watched the Lakers game know that this is the result of their rotation of the inside line with a thick eyebrow single C and the creative James single C, in fact, the Lakers' defensive center in the number of rolls in the top two, it is James and Weizhong, but the effect is also seen. As for Howard, his efficiency in defensive blocking and empty cutting is at the lower level of the league this year, and he is already the only inside line that this team can count on except for thick eyebrows.
In terms of conversions, the Lakers conceded no. 2 points in the league when defending fast attacks. This is the limitation of the quality of willpower, the sea is enough to fight, he can not prevent Durant. Vogel also has something to say, who was he in the backcourt last year? Pop, Caruso, Schroeder, the defense is very good, what about this year? Their backcourt is Weizhong, Munch, Tucker and Augustine, none of these people have ever been known for their defense, as for Bradley and Rivers, old and young, remember how Weizhong described Beverly?
"He's running around on the field, and no one can defend himself."
Last year, James showed amazing efficiency on the defensive end, and his defensive efficiency ranked third among all players who played more than 25 minutes, which is called a defensive gate, but this season, James's defensive efficiency data does not conflict with the game itself with your eyes, and his defensive efficiency ranks 22nd from the bottom of all players who average more than 25 minutes per game.
What makes a person fall from the defensive gate to the defensive hairy crab, either injury, or playing style, or the sudden decline in thinking, everyone may be more willing to accept the last possibility, "Since there is no hope this season, it is better to concentrate on brushing points" and other ideas will easily appear. At this time, we may have to return to Weizhong's sentence "basketball is a team sport", who is the reason, who is the result, it is worth thinking about, but overall, given that the relationship between avalanche and snowflakes has been determined, the Lakers defense is so bad, James is obviously not innocent, and so are others.
The same principle can also be applied to the offensive end, James for the first time this season to make the grasp conversion into his strongest offensive weapon, in his highest scoring 2005-06 season, the 2007-08 season with the scoring king, in the first three seasons of the Lakers, in the Heat's two-title season, no matter how the team's style changes, the conversion of offense has never become the first choice for James' scoring means, when we condemn James's focus on stealing and neglecting defense, we should first point out a contradiction, What makes James turn inside defensive centers on the defensive end and then finish stealing again.
Another concern is what makes the Lakers the fourth most frequently and seventh-fastest-paced team in the league to switch offenses, faster than them: Timberwolves, Rockets, Spurs, Bucks, Hornets, Grizzlies. With the exception of the Bucks, all teams have a low average age in the league's top 10, which is all youngsters, while the Bucks have an average age of 28.5, but the oldest of the 5 people they have played the longest is Holliday, 31. The average age of the Lakers is exactly 2 years older than the Bucks, and of the 5 people in the league who have been the oldest and have played the longest, there are two 37-year-olds and a 33-year-old. In other words, there is no problem with young people running wildly, there is no problem with the young bucks rushing forward, the Lakers play so fast is a bit confusing, which is very different from our perception of all kinds of old man music in daily life, but one thing is consistent, the old men like to convert, keen to take the rhythm, but their movement speed on the offensive end is the slowest in the league, which can explain why their conversion scoring efficiency can only be ranked in the middle of the league.
It is worth mentioning that the Lakers' offensive shooting choices are somewhat polarized, they have the highest frequency of shots in the league when an attack is just 2-4 seconds, and they press the rhythm to (be defended by the opponent) The frequency within the last 4 seconds can also rank 5th in the league, you can basically imagine that the reason they still insist on switching is that their position warfare is more constipated, and the fact is that the Lakers can rank 17th in the league in terms of offensive efficiency, while the position warfare scoring efficiency is only 21. So it seems that James can be called a strange flower on the Lakers offense, there is his Lakers offense is, without him Lakers offense is still, most of the time, you can only pinch your nose to appreciate this flower.
It is a great pity that James wants to win the scoring king this season, may also need to look at the physical state, he has now played 55 games, 3 games away from entering the selection criteria, of course, he can also choose not to play first to recuperate, taking advantage of embiid, alphabet brother, Durant after relaxing, in the last 1 game suddenly played, in one fell swoop 79 points, and then the average score per game came to 31 points, killing competitors a surprise, according to the rules, so that you can also lock the scoring king of this season, no doubt, In order to win the scoring king, no one in history has done this kind of thing.
As for the Lakers' playoff prospects, there is really not much time left for them, and the conditions are also very harsh. Now they still have 7 games left, in addition to the Thunder and playoff rival Waterbirds two, the opponents are all playoff circle teams, the Lakers must win at least 2 games in it first, but also have to expect the Spurs to lose more to the Blazers, and then they can make it into the playoffs, and finally break into the playoffs, is it possible? Yeah, it's very blue.
Someone should ask, the problem has arisen, Vogel is sitting there, why didn't he solve the problem? This question is a good question, recently an economic expert said that life is difficult during the epidemic, there is no source of income, you can go out to drive a single, you can also rent out idle properties, and the people who are still giving advice to the Lakers now sound no different from this expert.
Forget it, the Lakers have come to this step, all we can do is talk about the problem, imagine the future, after James wins the historical scoring king, all the hustle and ridicule will eventually return to tranquility, this season, but will become one of the 4 years in James' long career that failed to enter the playoffs, not special, nor too conspicuous, but the scoring king will be more conspicuous, who remembers that the last scoring king who did not enter the playoffs was Curry last season.
As for the present, the Lakers' season should probably be over, but they don't have to panic, Baidu knows that Los Angeles is surrounded by mountains on three sides and faces the sea on the other, and the Santa Pero Bay and Santa Monica Bay on the east side of the vast Pacific Ocean are not far away, where there is an incomparably rich sea fishing resource.