Lakers scrutinized after superstar moves
Even after the recorders flipped off and the cameras paused, Russell Westbrook stayed put at the microphone, scrutinizing the box score with a furrowed brow on Sunday night.
It was as if he couldn’t believe his own evening. After notching six turnovers on Friday at Golden State, he had nine more against Phoenix. His expression was bemused, never losing the smile in his eyes.
As he rose up to walk off, he quipped to the media that when he gets 20 assists, he wants them to “keep that same energy.”
An 0-4 start to the preseason does not appear to have shaken the Lakers. LeBron James chuckled when talking about how little the games mean to him, while Westbrook noted: “I never really worry about it because it’s preseason.”
The court of public opinion has a different timeline. Westbrook’s struggles in his first two games have been obvious. Early injuries to Talen Horton-Tucker and Trevor Ariza are squeezing the depth chart at the swing positions, which are critical to building the smaller lineups that the Lakers have played effectively in the last two seasons.
Defensively, they’ve swung back and forth, cobbling together fine stretches like a 14-0 sequence against Phoenix, but giving the points back just as easily. With a constantly rotating set of lineups, cohesion has been hard to come by.
The initial idea was that the Lakers’ veteran-laden group would blend seamlessly, and upbeat reports from mostly closed-door practices underscored that notion. But now, the Lakers
seem to be preparing to shift back their timeline to becoming the contender their offseason moves portended.
“We want to be good — but we don’t want to skip steps,” All-Star big man Anthony Davis said. “You can’t rush the process of what we’re trying to do and win championships. We know, possibly, there could be struggles to start the season.”
That has rarely been the case recently. The Lakers galloped out to a 24-3 start in their first season with James and Davis, essentially a wire-to-wire run to the top seed in the Western Conference. Last season, the Lakers started 216, which was still one of the conference’s best records. Just before Davis was hurt in February, the Lakers were in second place behind only the Utah Jazz.
It’s no surprise that the basketball world is ready to pounce on the Lakers, who in trading for Westbrook over Sacramento’s Buddy Hield made a direct value judgment. Having stars, and having as many as possible, is more important than having a roster that seems complementary on paper. It’s the same kind of pressure that has followed James throughout his career (see Heat, Miami), but it is amplified by bringing in Westbrook, a player who is polarizing among hoop heads and analytics mavens.
Other decisions — like letting veteran defender Alex Caruso leave for Chicago as a free agent — reinforced that what the Lakers believe matters is overall talent, regardless of age, fitness and other factors. The basic tenet: Great players can figure out how to play great together.
Westbrook was the first to acknowledge that he is making mistakes he says are easy to fix. Of his 12 shots against the Suns, just four were within 8 feet of the rim, and he missed them all. In many other instances, Westbrook cut inside and committed a turnover on a mistimed lob, or a pocket pass that skittered off his teammates’ fingers.
“Normally, I’m so used to guys on other teams playing me to score; now they play me to pass a lot, which is different for me,” he said. “But I’ll figure it out. It’s just some easy reads for me. Once I dunk a few, people will start coming and helping, and I’m there diming. It’s up to me to be that.”
Westbrook has struggled early in seasons in the past. In Houston, he had to figure out how to be less ball-dominant alongside James Harden, finding himself only when the Rockets traded away their centers to allow Westbrook to play more in the paint. There was a slow start with Washington last season as he recovered from a quadriceps injury, but after the All-Star break, his scoring, assists and rebounds increased, and he switched from a net negative player (minus-5.9 net rating) to a net positive (plus-1.6 net rating) while dragging a mediocre Wizards team into the playoffs.
But as much as Westbrook craved the bright lights of his hometown, that comes with a lot of demand. It was only one calendar year ago Monday that the Lakers finished off the Heat for the franchise’s 17th NBA title, showering in confetti and champagne and partying in Orlando until the early morning hours. It feels somewhere between a blink and an eon that last season passed by, and with it shortened the fan base’s patience for another.
The sun is setting on the James era (though you can argue the pace of the sunset), and the roster is built to win now. A miscalculation here or there could leave the franchise scrambling to keep the championship window open in future seasons, even with Davis tied to the team for the long term. If Westbrook isn’t a fit, it will be a difficult prospect to move his contract — especially without many draft assets available to sweeten trades.
It’s a little early to put that all on the line. The buzz is that the Lakers will debut their star trio today, and that might be when the clock actually starts ticking on the franchise’s big gamble. But just a year removed from the highest high of the sport, it’s a bit jarring how quickly the good faith wears off, and how urgent it becomes for the Lakers to get back there again.