The “Super Team” is a failure. These Lakers were always overrated. This group was never going to mesh, there is only one basketball. They are a disaster and David Stern’s master plan has failed. This isn’t a real team, this was a “good on paper team.” They don’t care about defense. They should have kept Bynum. OMG the Lakers suck. And so does Jim Buss. And Chinatown. And Malibu beaches. And the food truck craze.
The Lakers went 0-8 in the preseason and an earthquake is about to drop Los Angeles into the ocean.
Has everyone got that out of their system? Good. Let’s move on now.
Before you start to shovel dirt on the Lakers and their super team, maybe we should see them with their regular roster in a game that actually matters.
There is really no situation where going 0-8 is ideal. Not even preseason NBA basketball. But as Pau Gasol said after the loss on Wednesday: “We’d all love to be 7-0 instead of 0-7. Would that make us win more games in regular season? Probably not.”
Injuries (to Dwight Howard and Kobe Bryant primarily), keeping the minutes down on veterans, the key lineup barely playing together, experimental rotations, a whole lot of things doomed the Lakers in the preseason.
Those things disappear next Tuesday when the Lakers open against the Mavericks.
(Well, maybe not Kobe’s foot injury, but I still expect him to play because, well, he’s Kobe Bryant. He always plays.)
If Lakers fans really want something to fret about there are a couple things they can take away from this ugly stretch of preseason, issues that should be of some concern. Depth for one. The Lakers weren’t a deep team to start with and preseason games are about the bench getting a lot of run. And it wasn’t pretty. The Lakers also were a turnover machine — 149 in 8 games — as they adjusted to new players in a new offense.
But that was all part of the process of forming this collection of talent into a team. That process is not over. It will start to look different next week, but the Lakers likely don’t hit their stride for a couple months.
Still, things will be different next Tuesday. If the offense gets stuck Steve Nash is going to run the pick-and-roll with Dwight Howard. Pau Gasol is going to play 35 minutes. The Lakers will be playing their strongest rotations, not just experimenting.
If you are rooting for the Lakers to fail, revel in the 0-8 preseason record for the next few days. Because as of next week it doesn’t matter. And we all know things are going to look different.