Lakers still surprising me. I said 35 wins, but they are on a .500 pace with a pretty difficult schedule thus far (I mean GS 3 times already, Chicago and Hawks twice, Spurs and Houston already). Far ahead of my projected curve and only the first year of Walton as coach. Get a good second round pick next off season, one or two good FA signings, and we have the makings of a GS South. LA version.
Or sign anthony davis when he hits FA. He can be the dominant superstar center with an impact like Shaq. Ingram can be a bigger Eddie Jones. Clarkson can be a more offensive Anthony Peeler. Russell a taller Nick Van Excel. Nance can be super athletic Rambis And Randle can be the player we thought Elden Campbell could be. He can be a mix of all the dudes we ran at PF at the time. Campbel old Worthy and Cedric Ceballos. Lou is already kinda like Nick but without the good passing. Nick Young is a taller aging Byron Scott but with the opposite attitude. Jose Calderon is Sedale Threat. Lakeshow is gonna be back. Without a kobe type unless young Ingram fulfills all his promise. But with Davis you got as close to a mix of Kobe n Shack in one body as humanly possible.
But Davis is a long ways off from FA. So barring he becomes disgruntled in NO and they have to trade him its a no go until he turns 28 in 6 years. Hopefully they suck and he demands a trade and we give them a great package of Ingram, Nance and Clarkson.
Young out 2-4 weeks ( not the achilles, calf rather), but big bounce back W on the road in Chicago. Proud of the baby-Lakers, looking like the 41 win team I predicted, Luke is the GOAT Randle fighting through the hip pointer from last week..20 rebounds. Like @LAdiablo said, the bench is so real. We need a little more luck with these injuries tho. LAL is reminding me of the RAIDERS of 2015..new coach that knows what he's doing, crop of young/talented players fulfilling promise, and what was seen as a solid yet unspectacular run in free agency before that 2015 season... Obviously not sure if LAL will make the jump in 2017 that the RAIDERS made this season, but the parallels are there currently.
With the young guys developing a little more and that bench, it looks like they're only one player away from being really good.
Making it hard to complain from an overall standpoint. Need better luck with these injuries, but I can't even complain a ton there since they have solid depth and of course we haven't lost anybody to anything super-serious like the Grizzlies just did with Conley/seemingly always lose their biggest chips for lengthy periods of time. As far as being one player away from being really good, still think Gordon Hayward would be a good fit as a FA addition this next offseason. He probably won't make them a championship level team, but yeah I think they'd be really good with what you mentioned there + having a coach like Luke that players respect. If they can land Hayward in FA and start he and Ingram on the wings, and move a rejuvenated Young back to the bench along with Deng to go with Lou/Clarkson..more than likely a 50+ win team in '17/'18 with how high the needle is currently pointing.
A pure PG to make solid decisions down the stretch would be nice. Hopefully Russell will evolve into that. Clarkson and Lou certainly aren't. Also like to see them develop (Ingram maybe?) a shutdown defender to match up against the Leonards, Klays and Butlers of the league.
They white flagged it yesterday, that was atrocious Ingram the lone bright spot, career high 17pts on 50%FG Pretty damn scared at what tonight's game @ Memphis could look like, traveling from Toronto Gotta compete on the inside with Marc Gasol and Randolph - if Randolph plays
not enthused by a loss but its still progress thats the type of game last years team doesn't even show up for exp without 3 guys so glad all the "trade lou at the deadline" rumors were unfounded
