The NBA regular season showdown is still in full swing, and another batch of dark horse teams have begun to rise this season, which also brings a great threat to those traditional giant teams. Among the several traffic teams in the West, only the Clippers are on the right track, and the Lakers, Warriors and Suns led by the league king + Curry respectively are all in a bottleneck. The Suns are plagued by injuries because of several core players, and now Beal has returned to Durant and is starting to miss again. It's hard to believe that the Warriors have suffered three reversals of more than 18 points this season, as a giant team with a deep championship culture, it really shouldn't be.
The Los Angeles Lakers, at the beginning of the season, actually brought a lot of expectations to fans, they adjusted the roster in the offseason, introduced a group of forward players, strengthened the team's defensive ability, and made up for the shortcomings of the team's average height last season. At the beginning of the season, the Lakers were also in a hot state overall, and they also won the NBA's first midseason tournament. The mid-season format is equivalent to a mini playoffs, and it is also divided into group stage knockout rounds, and the Lakers can win the championship in the mid-season and prove their strength. Unfortunately, the Lakers seem to have pushed themselves too hard at the start of the season, and as soon as the midseason ended, they went into a slump. In the past 12 games, the Lakers have only achieved a record of 3 wins and 9 losses, in fact, the thick eyebrows are still in a hot state during this period, almost hitting a big double-double every game.
But other players, the offensive end is very weak, including James, and the state is also quite inconsistent. To be honest, James is really powerful, at the age of 39, he can still overcome obstacles in the game and be the core player of the team, but if the current Lao Zhan leads the team as a big leader, it will still expose many flaws. Because Lao Zhan is easily discouraged in the game, when he is frustrated, all the Lakers will be depressed, and those role players around James, when they come to a traffic team like the Lakers, they will also come to the spotlight, and the advantages and disadvantages will be infinitely magnified, and the pressure is inevitable. There is such a strange phenomenon, those role players who originally had a certain strength, played badly after joining the Lakers, and they all became "backstabbers", and they left the Lakers but rose super.
Beasley, the Bucks, is a classic example. In the middle of last season, the Lakers made a blockbuster three-way trade, sending Westbrook away and acquiring Russell, Beasley and Vanderbilt, two outside linemen and a power forward. At that time, the Lakers' deal was simply a god, not only getting rid of Wei Shao, but also ushering in two big outside shooters and a defensive giant. Before joining the Lakers, Beasley's career-high three-point shooting rate reached 42.6%, but after joining the Lakers, Beasley was completely dumbfounded, and the outside shooting rate dropped to 35%, and even completely hidden in the playoffs. The Lakers kept Beasley for just over half a season, sending him away last summer offseason.
Unexpectedly, after Beasley joined the Bucks this season, he had a second spring, and the role of super shooter returned, and he could become a stable starter for the Bucks, who are the second top team in the East. And this season, Beasley's three-point shooting rate even reached 46.9%, ranking third in the league, and he also managed to score 30 points in a single game. The Kings' Monk also played for the Lakers two years ago, and at that time, many people thought that Monk was not good defensively, sticky and inefficient on the offensive end, and the Lakers only kept Monk for one season and sent him away. And now, Monk is playing well in the Kings, becoming one of the strongest bench scorers in the league, with super independent offensive ability, Monk's three-point shooting rate this season has actually reached 42%, which is higher than Curry, and he also scored 37 points in the past game against the Magic.
The Nets' Lonnie Walker, who was also one of the Lakers' core scoring points last season, actually played similar to Monk, and the Lakers didn't think they needed so many guards, and they didn't keep Walker. Last season, Walker's three-point shooting was really average, only 36.5% shooting, and after joining the Nets this season, Walker's three-point shooting rate reached an astonishing 46.3%, ranking fourth in the league! 37 points, 30 points! After leaving James, you've all become NBA superstars.
I don't know if it's because the Lakers have bad feng shui, or some other reason, the role players around James always play so unsatisfactorily, and Reaves and Russell are also going downhill this season. And those players who left James played more and more brilliantly. In addition to Beasley, Monk, and Walker, Kuzma and Pope in previous years, including Westbrook, who went to the Clippers, are all happier than they were with the Lakers, why do you think this is?