It’s once again that time, Los Angeles Lakers fans – Mailbag Monday is upon us.
It hasn’t been a pretty first four preseason games for the guys. They stand winless. They’re dealing with injuries already to Trevor Ariza, Malik Monk, and Talen Horton-Tucker. It all sounds rather dreary, but this is all a part of the long drag that is the NBA season.
As mentioned, their winless ways are definitely unwelcomed. It’s giving Mike Brown Lakers. For Frank Vogel, I heavily doubt that he will suffer the same fate. Brown was dismissed and sent to Chik Fil-A.
The lack of victories is reminiscent of exactly what they are: a team with a bunch of new players. The trend caught the eye of my man, David Chia. He provided us with the following question:
now that we've lost 3 preseason games (as of this tweet), are we officially a rebuilding team?
— David Chia (@chiapet74) October 11, 2021
Tonight’s home loss to the Phoenix Suns puts them at 0-4. I guess at this point we are a rebuilding squad. As mentioned above, you could really mark them as a franchise that’s reinventing themselves similar to a rebuilder.
The last two seasons, the Lakers prioritized putting defensive size and versatility around Anthony Davis and LeBron James. Now they’ve added Russell Westbrook to flank them and form a dynamic trio. The perimeter has undergone a huge facelift. This year is going to be far from the dominant ways we witnessed in their title run and healthy games last season.
Offensively, they don’t have the kind of guys like Danny Green or Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Those are deadeye shooters that teams cannot give an inch of deadlight. Now they’ve shifted to capable ballhandlers with some shooting to boot. The droughts and injuries last year have put them in a state of offensive PTSD. They would rather frontload on offense over anything.
So yes, the Lakers are a “rebuilding” team. Within their race to celebrate two championships in one parade, they are making things up on the fly. I mean this statement in the sense that they are implementing new systems on both ends. Their hope is that the combination of coaching and IQ will shine through. If it doesn’t, we may have to revisit this conversation and put it in its proper perspective.
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