Lakers Thread

[dwayne2005]

One game with Isaiah as a starter and the chemistry doesn't look good. Almost gets into a fight with the teams leading player and all of the starers have significant deficits in the plus/minus against an injury depleted Warriors. That said, by TS% (65.3%) he had his most efficient game for a while (despite hitting only 42.9% from the field) and was second most scoring efficient starter behind Randle (78.8%).

[NovU]

http://www.slamonline.com/nba/agent-isa ... or-lakers/

Isaiah Thomas‘ agent, in an all-caps text message, made it clear that his client has no intention whatsoever of coming off the bench for the Los Angeles Lakers, where Lonzo Ball remains the starting point guard.


Understandable. He probably doesn't want to waste last couple good years left in a shit role. Seems like he'll be wearing a different uniform next season. But which contender needs a PG albeit chances are they already have a good one at the position.

[Dee4Three]

Almost gets into a fight with the teams leading player and all of the starers have significant deficits in the plus/minus against an injury depleted Warriors.

Expected, he plays every single game with a chip on his shoulder. Did the same thing with Boston.

However, the chip has grown a bit since the trade (Clearly). I still expect him to get into it with someone most every game.

[[Q]]

Didn't seem like much of a fight, more of them antagonizing each other intentionally to pump each other up.

IT already stated he's not coming off the bench earlier so that's no surprise. He can pout or like randle play well and earn the spot. But then again, ennis didn't earn shit and Luke loves starting him

[shadowgrin]

http://www.slamonline.com/nba/agent-isaiah-thomas-not-coming-off-the-bench-for-lakers/

Isaiah Thomas‘ agent, in an all-caps text message, made it clear that his client has no intention whatsoever of coming off the bench for the Los Angeles Lakers, where Lonzo Ball remains the starting point guard.


Understandable. He probably doesn't want to waste last couple good years left in a shit role. Seems like he'll be wearing a different uniform next season. But which contender needs a PG albeit chances are they already have a good one at the position.

Could end up with the Pelicans if that team is still intent on having Jrue as an offguard since Rondo is only a one year deal.

[dwayne2005]

Okay, I'm through with hoping with Isaiah. It is one step forward and 2 steps back. Worst game with Lakers, second start. No coincidence. He was also making excuses for himself. It's not how aggressive they are defending you, it is just how badly you are playing. One good thing he can take from that game: it may have been 1 for 9, but at least it wasn't 1 for 21. I am as surprised as anyone. He stopped getting to the foul line and doing the one thing he was efficient at. Maybe his manager told him to stop putting his body on the line to prolong his career, but better to go out in a blaze than a whimper.

[NovU]

Has Isaiah's decline already begun? If he continues on this shit path, he'll have tough time landing a good contract. I really hope he has his big payday finally coming this summer though.

Could end up with the Pelicans if that team is still intent on having Jrue as an offguard since Rondo is only a one year deal.

While I would love to see Isaiah + unibrow combo, I am not too keen on seeing him with Cousins again. Regardless, yeah Pelicans do really need more production from PG position.

[dwayne2005]

No upside to his game right now. 3 assists? What happened to when he was getting 7-9 assists? Dire shooting, but only getting to the foul line 4 times or less a contest so he's not making up for that like he was before. With the assassination the media done on him regarding his defense, pinning the blame for Cleveland's defensive collapse on Isaiah (notice it hasn't happened in LA and a middling team just scored 117 against them) his NBA career is probably nearly over. Who knows what would happen if he hadn't been treated like trash by Danny Ainge, I don't know if it's psychological or physical, but there's no upside to his game right now. No team would want him. He is playing ruinously.

[Lamrock]

Isaiah should get some decent one year offers from a few random teams, as well as some MLE offers from desperate teams trying to contend. He's been awful this season, and hasn't been much better with LA. But let's not forget he's literally a year removed from one of the best offensive seasons in recent history.

Derrick Rose has been a meme for years, yet he still manages to stay in the league based on what he did several years ago. Just because he's short doesn't mean IT won't have a couple more chances.

[[Q]]

I hope Magic and Pelinka really think about what they're doing. Is PG that much bigger of an improvement over Ingram at this point?

[Andrew]

Who would you choose? Do you trust Ingram to keep putting up big numbers for an entire season and be a bona fide star in the near future, or is George too appealing to pass up?

[NovU]

Ingram seems to have become a must keep player this year. But I don't think this will stop Lakers from chasing after George.

[Stress Fracture]

Who would you choose? Do you trust Ingram to keep putting up big numbers for an entire season and be a bona fide star in the near future, or is George too appealing to pass up?

Signing PG might delay Ingram's development a little bit, unless the Lakers really want to clinch a playoff berth next season.

[[Q]]

Who would you choose? Do you trust Ingram to keep putting up big numbers for an entire season and be a bona fide star in the near future, or is George too appealing to pass up?

Ingram might never be a superstar on the level of PG, but I think Randle has the chance to be something big if he continues his improvement. Losing ranfle for the sake of signing big names would be a step back imo

especially if you look at Julius's improvement in this year alone.

[NovU]

But the Lakers have to be careful on Randle evaluation. Randle's older, age of 23. A lot of players hit their ceiling at that age or progresses little thereafter. Otherwise for special occasions, we do get pretty good idea what we'll get from a player and whatnot. So the reason why age is valuable in draft and Thon Maker is a sham.

Both Ingram and Ball are much younger than Randle so they have 3-4 more years of window span.

[[Q]]

So IT reinjured the troublesome hip. I'm so excited for more Tyler ennis.

[dwayne2005]

Isaiah Thomas' play coinciding with every successive assist by LeBron James:

Code: Select all

15 15.00 (W1-L0): 13.00 PTS (50.00%-60.00%-100.0%)
14 14.50 (W2-L0): 13.50 PTS (45.00%-44.44%-83.33%)
11 13.33 (W3-L0): 13.00 PTS (42.42%-35.29%-83.33%)
9  11.60 (W4-L1): 14.00 PTS (44.07%-32.00%-76.92%)
8  11.00 (W5-L1): 14.50 PTS (45.07%-33.33%-70.59%)
7   9.67 (W5-L4): 16.00 PTS (44.23%-34.04%-81.82%)
6   9.00 (W6-L5): 16.73 PTS (42.86%-31.25%-83.02%)
5   8.14 (W7-L7): 15.50 PTS (37.99%-27.16%-86.76%)
2   7.67 (W7-L8): 14.73 PTS (36.08%-25.29%-86.76%)

(Every assist represents an 'or above' assessment. So for 2 assists, it's 2 or above or every game the two played for an average of 7.67 assists by LeBron.)

For 11 of the 15 games, offensively he wasn't that bad. When James got 8 or more assists, they went 5-1 with Isaiah. When he didn't get 8 assists, they went 2-7. So maybe LeBron and Isaiah weren't such an incompatability after all? Beyond LeBron throwing deliberate impossible to catch passes at Isaiah that is.

That said, I have little hope for a return to form from Isaiah. During his final 4 games of the playoffs last year from a date (May 12) that he was said to have aggravated his hip, he went 18.8 PPG for 34.3% from the field. Similar to all of this year, except he was getting 8.8 assists per game and twice as many steals during that stretch. For the other 11 games of the playoffs, he was averaging 24.9 PPG on 45.55% shooting.

In all likelihood, IMO, he is pretending his hip was mostly healed before and playing through injury to trick a team into giving him the best contract possible. I wouldn't be surprised if he got a good contract if he sat out much of the first season.

[shadowgrin]

Seeing Lonzo create his own shot tells me his weird shot mechanics isn't really a big concern anymore, he's gonna be fine.

phpBB [video]

[[Q]]

It never has been an issue, except when dumb people like ESPN have nothing better to talk about. He's been shooting like this all year with hot and cold streaks as you'd expect a rookie to have.

Meanwhile, Brook Lopez continues to make us wonder why he jacks up so many threes when he's so damn effective within 10 feet

[NovU]

Lakers youngsters remind me of nice young 76ers team.

Ball
Ingram
Randle
Kuzma
=
Michael Carter-Williams
KJ McDaniels
Wroten
Nerlens

[Dee4Three]

It never has been an issue, except when dumb people like ESPN have nothing better to talk about. He's been shooting like this all year with hot and cold streaks as you'd expect a rookie to have.

Meanwhile, Brook Lopez continues to make us wonder why he jacks up so many threes when he's so damn effective within 10 feet

Watching Lopez pull up for 3's on that fastbreak is killing me....

He is so talented around the hoop, but he literally tries to imitate Steph Curry out there sometimes.

[[Q]]

Also forgot to mention Julius went head to head with former star Blake Griffin and seemed to have gotten the better of him despite the team loss. There's that clip of him driving right through him for the facial at the beginning of the game.

[Dee4Three]

Also forgot to mention Julius went head to head with former star Blake Griffin and seemed to have gotten the better of him despite the team loss. There's that clip of him driving right through him for the facial at the beginning of the game.

Not hard to own Blake Griffin the second half of this season. Dude is struggling in Detroit.

[Andrew]

I understand wanting to expand your game and evolve as a player, especially with the game changing and stretch bigs being in vogue. There's something to be said for sticking to what you're good at though, not to mention working on certain things in the offseason.

[NovU]

I know. I think it's ugly too especially their shooting form. Cousins has been taking over 6 threes per game this season as well. Brook suddenly started taking threes since last year. Seems that's just where modern era bball is heading.

I bet Andrew Bynum would have loved to play today's ball game.