Sports: Trouble in Lakerland

2012 NBA Playoffs Update


As I suspected in my playoffs preview column, there have been plenty of surprises in the NBA postseason this year.  I'll at least mention a few notable ones at the end, but this post is primarily about my favorite team, the Lakers, and the early yet unsurprising end to their season.  Of course, every time the Lakers have fallen short in the Kobe era, basketball pundits have declared an emergency and called for drastic action.  This time, I'll add my own take to the situation.  (If you aren't interested in a recap of their season, skip to What To Do Now?)




A Season of Change


Even before the first game of the 2011-12 season, the Lakers faced several events that would dramatically effect their ability to compete for a third championship in four years.  First, of course, was the lockout, which pushed the start date of the season back to Christmas, even though the league still squeezed 66 games out of the condensed season calendar.  So many back-to-backs, and even back-to-back-to-backs, figured to be tough on the Lakers' aging roster, particularly Kobe in his 16th season.  The Lakers also replaced the best coach in the league's history, Phil Jackson, with Mike Brown, the guy who led LeBron's undermanned Cavs' teams to several strong seasons which nevertheless fell short of championship-level success.


Once the new collective bargaining agreement was made, each team had to scramble to sign the free agents they wanted and/or make the trades they needed.  The Lakers nearly got the best point guard in the league, Chris Paul, in a trade that would have sent away valuable big men Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom.  After the league vetoed the trade, however, the Lakers quickly traded - perhaps gave away is more accurate - Odom to the Mavericks.  It's impossible to know how well Odom would have done playing for L.A. this season, but in Dallas he rapidly fell apart to the point of being forced to "part ways" with his new team.


So, before the season even began, the Lakers were looking at a grueling schedule and outraged at being denied a superstar addition - but also got rid of at least one potential distraction (Odom).  Once the season began, the Lakers hovered just above .500, playing well at home and lousy on the road.  The Clippers, who ended up landing Paul, got all the early L.A. basketball headlines with a strong start.  Their defense improved under Mike Brown, to no surprise, whose Cavs also played stifling D.  On the other hand, their offense, especially in the first half of the year, was often painful to watch and rarely got to 100 points in a game.


Ron Artest (yes, I know, he's now Metta World Peace, but I refuse to use that "name") played quite badly for most of the season, but he started to improve in March and ended up playing better than he had in years.  Bynum's improvement was even better:  he posted career highs in points (18.7) and rebounds (11.8) per game, in addition to 2 blocks per game and good shooting (56% from the field, 69% from the line) - and he stayed healthy, playing over 90% of the schedule.  He became the Lakers' clear second scoring option, and even outscored Kobe on more than a few occasions.  Finally, the addition of Ramon Sessions in mid-March drastically improved their production at point guard.  He averaged 12.7 points and 6 assists per game, as well as nearly 50% shooting on 3s.


Despite a tough schedule at the end of the season, the Lakers grabbed the Pacific Division and 3rd seed in the West from the rapidly sinking Clippers.




Playoff Woes


The Lakers' first round matchup with the Denver Nuggets was an interesting one:  the Lakers preferred a slow pace controlled by their bigs, where the Nuggets preferred a lightning pace with lots of easy buckets.  The Lakers featured three great stars, while the Nuggets relied on an overall solid lineup (including their bench).  Quite appropriately, then, the series went seven games (even though the Lakers had the chance to end it at home in five).  Despite having Sessions' fresh legs at PG, the Lakers were still blown away far too often by the Nuggets' youthful speed and explosiveness.  Eventually, the Lakers' big three were just too much for the feisty Nuggets.


Round two, of course, was a different story.  The Thunder are no longer the run-and-gun team that they were when the Lakers beat them in the first round two years ago (en route to their second straight championship).  No, the Thunder simply did everything better than the Lakers.  L.A. did lose two games that they had great chances to win, true - but whereas last year I felt shocked by their loss to eventual champion Dallas Mavericks, this year it just seemed a matter of time.  Even the Lakers' best strength, the 7-foot duo of Gasol and Bynum, was pretty easily nullified by OKC's Perkins and Ibaka.  Kobe gave a few great performances, but it was increasingly obvious that he at least felt like there was no one else on his team who could help him win a game.  The subpar bench, which did OK in round one, completely collapsed here, too.




What To Do Now?


The Lakers find themselves going home early for a second straight year.  But when it comes to their future, the most important thing to remember is that they still have Kobe Bryant, for good or ill.  He is one of the all-time greats, and while he's still among the league's best, he's obviously going downhill with his age.  Taking into account his legacy, the pride and reputation of the Lakers organization, and his astronomical salary, there is no doubt he is going to finish his days as a professional basketball player in purple and gold.  It's one of the few certainties facing the team right now.


If there was a simple way forward from here, this post would not be worth writing.  But, of course, there aren't any simple solutions to the Lakers' situation.  The Lakers and their fans want to both A) win at least one more championship with Kobe Bryant, and B) retain a core from which to quickly rebuild once Kobe's best days have passed.  I rather doubt it is possible to achieve both of these outcomes, however (and, in a nightmare for fans like myself, perhaps neither is possible).  Still, if I were in charge of the Lakers here is what I would do...


So you want to win one or two more with Kobe...


99% of Laker fans, and many NBA analysts, are calling for Pau Gasol to be traded, even more than they did after last year's playoff exit.  I have also frequently been frustrated with Gasol, but if you want to go the win-with-Kobe route, the Lakers shouldn't trade him, for several reasons.  One:  he won't get much in return, and certainly no stars that would significantly upgrade their roster - Laker complaints are not made in a vacuum, and teams wouldn't feel the need to offer great value for him.  Two:  he is perhaps the Lakers' steadiest player, both on the court and in his head - his drop in production is mostly due to both Bynum's enlarged role and the team's adjustment as a whole to Brown's new offense.


So, if you want the win-with-Kobe route, Lakers, you should trade Bynum.  Why?  One:  he is by far your most valuable trading chip - he's only 24, he just finished the season with Dwight Howard-like numbers, he stayed healthy this year, and he has just one year left on a reasonable contract.  Two:  he STILL has maturity issues, and L.A. is clearly not a place to work those problems out.  Three:  yeah, he was healthy this year, but who knows how long that will last?  Four:  the Lakers' biggest obstacle for the future, OKC, clearly has the strategy and personnel to contain him at the moment.


Trade Bynum, and you could potentially get Deron Williams and maybe a role player or two in return.  Or maybe Steve Nash and your pick from the rest of the Suns' roster?  Etc. etc. etc.  I think the Lakers could do pretty damn well with a starting lineup of Kobe, Deron Williams, Ron Artest, Jordan Hill and Pau Gasol, with Blake, Sessions, Barnes, McRoberts (if he shows improvement), Ebanks, and any other role players you get from New Jersey Brooklyn.


So you want to build a future dynasty...


Obviously, in this scenario, you have to keep Bynum who would (hopefully) be the centerpiece of a post-Kobe Laker squad.  And if you're going to keep Bynum, then of course the Lakers will want to trade Gasol (which so many people seem to want to do anyway), since he is already in his 30s and seems unlikely to regain his maximum efficiency sharing post production with the more dominant Bynum.  What can you get for Gasol?  This is the interesting part.  As I said earlier, the Lakers won't be able to get much star power in exchange for Pau, so they can either get a handful of role players or perhaps a nice cache of draft picks.  With my strategy, of building for the future, the draft pick choice is obviously better - but the Lakers and their fans obviously want it both ways, and will want at least some known quantity to help them right off the bat.


As long as Kobe is still around, he will fight like hell to win more championships.  The risk with being too blatant about building for the future is that Kobe will return to his pre-2008 days of demanding trades loudly left and right (remember when he thought Bynum was useless?).  Of course, there are also risks to building around Bynum.  I already mentioned that his injury history is quite frightening, and his lack of consistency and maturity on and off the court makes him a dubious team leader at best.  Another point to mention is that maybe the game has simply moved on to the point that you can't win a championship when your best player is a center.  Look at Orlando:  Dwight Howard is a defensive monster, and they surrounded him with great three-point shooting on offense.  Yet the farthest they've gotten is losing the Finals in five games to the Lakers (and only got that far because the Celtics didn't have KG for the playoffs).  Bynum has a lot more potential at the offensive end, but he's no where near as good a defender as Howard and never will be.


My choice...


If I suddenly became the Lakers' owner, I would choose the first option.  Deron Williams would be the best choice for the Lakers at this point (trading for Howard might improve them but only by a few degrees - see above).  By doing this, you keep Kobe motivated and happy, and excited to have a superstar point guard teammate for the first time in his career.  You get rid of a potential distraction and/or season wrecker in the form of an unsurprising knee injury.  You get a more up-tempo style of play to match the rest of the league.  You completely erase OKC's biggest edge over you (Westbrook), perhaps even turning it to your advantage, while making their silver bullets (Perkins-Ibaka) far less meaningful as well.  And even if you still fall short of another championship, at least you can say you were a major power at one of the most competitive eras in the league's history (the Bulls' Rose plus smothering defense; the Heat's Big Three; OKC's Batman and Robin; etc.).  Stay with Bynum, Lakers, and you're simply a crotchety old basketball power who has been passed by unceremoniously.




A Few Other Playoff Thoughts


I feel so sorry for the Chicago Bulls and Derrick Rose, who tore his ACL and MCL in game one, right at the end as they were securing the win in the first game of the playoffs.  The Bulls and Rose deserve better than that, and then Noah's was just insult to injury... On the other hand, props to the 76ers for beating a still-formidable Bulls team despite having no stars of their own... The Hawks were the same old Hawks again, blowing game 2 at home despite no Rondo.  Oh, and Joe Johnson again "earned" his $18 million salary with 17 PPG, 37% FG and 25% from 3.  Don't worry, Hawks fans, just four years and ~$90 million of that scintillating play left!... Punching fire extinguishers doesn't help you beat the Miami Heat, as Amare painfully learned... I've finally seen it with my own eyes:  the Spurs have been destroying everybody.  Resistance is futile... Biggest series-wide shocker of the playoffs for me so far - the Clippers beating the Grizzlies.  The first three quarters of game one seemed to validate my thoughts on how the series would go - and then Chuck Norris intervened via humble souls bearing the long-scorned jerseys of the L.A. Clippers.  Basically nothing played out logically in that series, especially the fact that L.A.'s subs won it for them in game 7 in Memphis... Durant is a beast, and he will not let OKC go down quietly against anybody... I'm extremely impressed at how competitive Philly and Indiana have made their respective series in the semifinals.  All the more so when they happen to drop their guard for a moment; you see how ridiculously outgunned they are when Miami and Boston pounce on them...


Enjoy the rest of the playoffs!