Pastor Dillon Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 Guys with no playoff success should not get hyped like they are top 5 guys in the league. Coming into this season, AD had played a whopping 13 playoff games with a 5-8 record. Same with Demarcus Cousins, dude is a 4 time all star, 2 time all NBA player before he ever made the playoffs, and he only did then because he joined the warriors. AD needs to step up and prove he can lead his team. Getting the 1 seed was a big start for him, but its clear Lebron isn't gonna be able to go 45 minutes a night and lead the team to a finals appearance without help like he did 2 years ago. I will let AD have 28 points on 8 of 24 shooting in every game and feel good about my odds. Now AD has the skills, but up to this point hes lacked the drive, toughness, and "it" factor that top 5 guys have. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baconrad11 Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 Lakers have no 3 pt shooters (2nd worst percentage in the bubble), and AD is too soft/afraid to play the 5 for some reason. I don't know if it's even an overreaction at this point to think that the Blazers can legit win. They have the bigs to bang down low, and they have Dame and CJ, both of whom are way too good for any Lakers defenders that they throw out there......like, Caruso being the Lakers best option is no bueno. Caruso isn't bad by any means, but he isn't exactly great on D at this point. Dame made more 3s than the entire Lakers roster combined. I doubt LA has THAT bad a shooting night again, but I don't see them really being able to match Portland there. Their best hope is for AD to go off at the 5, but for some reason he just keeps wanting to play on the perimeter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texansfan713 Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 lol some poster on realgm made a thread saying AD is NOT a top 25 player and he really listed 26 players better than AD. That might be the best troll attempt I ever seen. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYRaider Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 3 minutes ago, baconrad11 said: Their best hope is for AD to go off at the 5, but for some reason he just keeps wanting to play on the perimeter. Agreed. There's legitimately no reason to play AD alongside Howard/McGee in the playoffs. Just like Bosh did in Miami and Love did in Cleveland, Davis needs to play in a stretch 5 role for the Lakers to be successful. Davis at the 5 and Kuzma at the 4 would really open up the Lakers spacing because it would force the Blazers big men to leave the paint on defense. I've never been a huge fan of Dion Waiters but I also think that he needs to be in the rotation. The Lakers really don't have a secondary option on the perimeter that can create offense for themselves or others which puts a tremendous amount of pressure on LeBron. For their perimeter players Caruso is second in assists per game and averaged under 2.0 assists per game. And in terms of being able to create for themselves, the Lakers have almost nothing after LeBron/AD. According to NBA.com, only Kuzma, Cook, and Caruso even had enough isolation possessions to qualify for their statistical list this season (takes 10 possessions to qualify). In isolation situations, Kuzma averaged 0.8 ppg (31% FG), Cook averaged 0.5 ppg (58% FG), and Caruso averaged 0.1 ppg (29% FG). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-ALL-DAY Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 24 minutes ago, NYRaider said: On the teams that LeBron has won with he has also always had an All-Star caliber guard/secondary creator to help take some of the pressure off of him. There's a significant difference between having a guard like Dwayne Wade/Kyrie Irving to lean on as opposed to guards like Dion Waiters and Alex Carusso. It also doesn't help that the Lakers don't have a ton of shooting and that LeBron is older now. Rob Pelinka's biggest mistake was waiting on Kawhi Leonard. The Lakers depth was going to be boo boo either way so they should've went from that third max contract guy early in free agency. If they would've added a guy like Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker, or even D'Angelo Russell they would be in a much better spot IMO. Kyrie was not going to come to LA and Kemba was a lock to go to Boston far before free agency actually started. LeBron has won with another sidekick from the perimeter that could create their own shot and take over in big spots in the 4th quarter. Definitely does not have that right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baconrad11 Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 2 minutes ago, NYRaider said: Agreed. There's legitimately no reason to play AD alongside Howard/McGee in the playoffs. Just like Bosh did in Miami and Love did in Cleveland, Davis needs to play in a stretch 5 role for the Lakers to be successful. Davis at the 5 and Kuzma at the 4 would really open up the Lakers spacing because it would force the Blazers big men to leave the paint on defense. I've never been a huge fan of Dion Waiters but I also think that he needs to be in the rotation. The Lakers really don't have a secondary option on the perimeter that can create offense for themselves or others which puts a tremendous amount of pressure on LeBron. For their perimeter players Caruso is second in assists per game and averaged under 2.0 assists per game. And in terms of being able to create for themselves, the Lakers have almost nothing after LeBron/AD. According to NBA.com, only Kuzma, Cook, and Caruso even had enough isolation possessions to qualify for their statistical list this season (takes 10 possessions to qualify). In isolation situations, Kuzma averaged 0.8 ppg (31% FG), Cook averaged 0.5 ppg (58% FG), and Caruso averaged 0.1 ppg (29% FG). Also doesn't help that Danny Green has all of a sudden forgotten how to shoot the ball. And at this point, KCP is just useless. He had 1 point 1 rebound and 1 assist. Atrocious, dude. The Lakers are really flawed. I don't see this team even making the WCF. IF they can make it past Portland (big if, IMO), a team like Houston will light them up. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYRaider Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 4 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said: Kyrie was not going to come to LA and Kemba was a lock to go to Boston far before free agency actually started. LeBron has won with another sidekick from the perimeter that could create their own shot and take over in big spots in the 4th quarter. Definitely does not have that right now. There were rumors that Kyrie was interested in potentially signing with the Lakers. And if the Lakers put the full court press on Kemba Walker, it's hard to think that he wouldn't have at least considered it. According to Anthony Slater of the Athletic the Lakers were prepared to offer D'Angelo Russell a $100M+ contract during free agency but stalled because they wanted to wait on Kawhi's decision. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYRaider Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 11 minutes ago, baconrad11 said: The Lakers are really flawed. I don't see this team even making the WCF. IF they can make it past Portland (big if, IMO), a team like Houston will light them up. We'll see what happens. It's really easy to overreact to one game but I don't think that it's smart to doubt LeBron James in the postseason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texansfan713 Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 LeBron in the west now. he cant cruise to the finals like he did in the east. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYRaider Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 9 minutes ago, Texansfan713 said: LeBron in the west now. he cant cruise to the finals like he did in the east. Even in his last finals run with the Cavaliers he needed 7 games to beat Indiana and 7 games to beat Boston. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
resilient part 2 Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 4 hours ago, Manny/Patrick said: Does he get mad at you for calling him Kamba, or is that a close friend thing? You sound jealous Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seminoles1 Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 1 hour ago, Texansfan713 said: LeBron in the west now. he cant cruise to the finals like he did in the east. He's also not in his prime anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baconrad11 Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 45 minutes ago, seminoles1 said: He's also not in his prime anymore. I also think this LAL team is the worst one he's had (in terms of his other Finals teams in Cleveland and Miami). That 2011 Heat team was god-like. Not even a question that team was better than this LAL team. And in Cleveland the year they won, he had Kyrie (superstar, top 15 player) and Love as 3rd banana....where now he has a superstar center who's effing afraid to play his position and prefers just roaming the perimeter......and Kyle Kuzma as his 3rd banana lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spartica4Real Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 AD is just soft for a dude his size. In NOLA he was always adamant about not playing the 5 and still is to this day. He was more aggressive in NOLA though, it's like he got even softer. I think he just missed good guard play though, in NOLA he had Jrue, in LA right now he has damn KCP and Danny Green. And they're not really running a bunch of Bron/AD sets to make up for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
11sanchez11 Posted August 19, 2020 Author Share Posted August 19, 2020 Utah putting Gobert on Millsap and Morgan on Jokic, I like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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