Lloyd has no plans — and she’s good with that
Now retired at home in New Jersey, one of soccer’s generational talents has no regrets.
MEDFORD, N.J. — Eight days into retirement, Carli Lloyd had yet to break a sweat on purpose.
“I haven’t run. I haven’t done anything,” she said, more with glee than guilt.
For the first time in nearly two decades, there are no more games on her calendar. No more chilly morning workouts to push through, no more solitary training sessions or sacrificing evening visits with family and friends to an early wake-up call.
That drive made her a two-time world player of the year and a two-time World Cup and Olympic champion.
It put her name on the short list of the greatest women soccer players of all time. But, at 39, she’s shifting from drive to neutral and it’s a transition that will take some time.
“This feels like sort of an offseason,” she said. “I don’t know if retirement has fully hit me. I’m going to miss World Cups, miss Olympics.
“[But] I think I’m just ready to live life.”
Dressed in a gray sweatshirt and black sweatpants and sitting on a sofa in the covered patio behind the four-bedroom home she shares with Brian Hollins, her high school sweetheartturned-husband, Lloyd smiled often during an hour-long chat. That’s another change from her playing days, when joy and happiness were considered obstacles to grim-faced success.
The house, where the couple have lived since 2018, is hidden at the end of a narrow quarter-mile-long road and surrounded by eight acres of pitch pines and red maples. Bambi is their closest neighbor.
“The deer sometimes come up at night and eat the grass,” she said.
It’s an idyllic hideaway, one where the quiet is deafening, the outside world just
[Elliott, game that we play. We want to build cohesion and chemistry in every game that we play. But we all know it’s going to take time. We have to understand that. And those guys in the locker room are competing their tails off and staying together, and believing in what we can be.”
It’s difficult to picture great things in the Lakers’ future after seeing their 19 turnovers Friday, the twofor-13 shooting by James from three-point range, the off-balance performance from Anthony Davis, who made nine of 22 shots (and none of the five he attempted from deep) in his first game back after missing the finale of their recent trip because of a fever. They had no clue how to stop guard De’Aaron Fox, who burned them for 34 points, or Buddy Hield, who scored 17 of his 25 points during the three overtimes.
In assembling an AllStar team this season, they’ve sacrificed defense — which was vital to their 2020 bubble championship — in favor of offense and nostalgia. That formula isn’t working now, and there’s little reason to believe it will work later. It’s easy to criticize Vogel’s rotations, but the roster he’s working with isn’t meshing with his strengths as a coach.
Davis, though admittedly frustrated, insisted he can imagine the team turning
things around dramatically, and soon.
“You know, 10-11, I mean, we could go on a 10-game winning streak, 12-game winning streak, now the narrative is different. You know, 10-game winning streak, we’re 20-11. Now we’ll shut everybody up,” he said. “But it’s on us. We’re going to have to do it. It’s not just going to be easy.
“We knew coming into the season that nobody was going to give us nothing. No one was going to feel sorry
for us. No one was going to feel bad for us. We’ve got to go out and take it. And that’s the fun in it. It makes it all worth it in the end when you’ve got to grind for it and work for it like we have to. Holding the trophy at the end of the year is going to feel a lot better.”
A 10-game winning streak would double the number of wins they have. Their longest winning streak so far this season is three, padded by back-toback games against lowly
Houston in late October. The way the Lakers have played so far offers little hope that they’re poised to go on any kind of long winning streak, not after they’ve fumbled their way through what should have been a cushy schedule the first month and lost to teams they should have beaten.
Asked why it has been such a grind for the Lakers so far — and why he has even the smallest shred of confidence they can pull off the kind of win streak he mentioned — Davis spoke matter-of-factly.
“We’re the Lakers, so any team we play, it’s going to be a grind. Everybody wants to beat the Lakers, AD, Bron and Russ, and Melo,” he said, referring to himself, James, Russell Westbrook and Carmelo Anthony. “It’s evident that any time we play a team and the guys who’s struggling from three or struggling from the field or whatever have great games against us. So we have to know that going in.
“But the second question, we’re the Lakers.”
It isn’t enough to expect the team’s history and tradition to carry them. “Listen, we’re all disgusted at losses,” James said. “That’s the way it is. But at the same time you’ve got to stay even keel throughout the whole process and understand that we can get better from our losses, we can get better from our wins.”
The schedule isn’t letting up. On Sunday they’ll face the Detroit Pistons, a rematch of a game last week in which James was ejected and suspended one game for throwing an arm that left a bloody cut on Isaiah Stewart’s face. Stewart was suspended two games for trying to get at James. On Friday, Stewart repeated that he thought the blow was deliberate but James insisted otherwise.
“The actual chopdown was on purpose to get his arm off of me. That part was on purpose. But the point of my hand hitting his face was not on purpose,” James said. “He kind of got offbalance when I chopped down and that’s how his head went into my hand.”
James also said he feels no individual motivation in facing Detroit again. “I don’t go into that game with any expectations besides us trying to come out victorious and get back to .500,” he said. “That is the most important thing and that’s always been my mindset.”
Imagine that, the Lakers having a .500 record as a goal. But that’s who they are, for now.