How To Get The Lakers Back On Track

Any person who follows basketball has seen that the biggest disappointment five games into this young NBA season has been the Los Angeles Lakers, who currently sit at the bottom of the league with a 1-4 record. Their most recent defeat came last night at the hands of the 2-3 Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City. After the home-opening loss to the Dirk-less Dallas Mavericks, many fans and people around the league have looked to the head coach as the problem and have been calling for Mike Brown’s job. But Mike Brown isn’t the problem and shouldn’t be getting all the blame for the lack of success the Lakers have been having so far into this season. And I, for one, am not calling for Mike Brown’s job just yet.

The Lakers aren’t exactly running the triangle anymore, and Pau Gasol seems lost on offense. By Ben Chaney (http://www.flickr.com/photos/epioles/5359481072/) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The problem so far this season isn’t Brown, nor is it the players’ fault. It is a mixture of the offense being run under Eddie Jordan, the lack of bench production and the lack of time this team has had to play together. The main problem for the Lakers so far is their running of the Princeton offense. I think the frustration of the offense has led to lack of defense. Last season, the Lakers were regarded as one of the better defensive units. That shouldn’t be any different this season since the team traded for three-time defensive player of the year Dwight Howard. The frustration on offense has led to many fast break points and points off of turnovers for Lakers’ opponents. But when the Lakers actually get to set up their defensive schemes, it looks pretty looks with nice switches and interior defense.

A Solution:

If the Lakers want to fix their problems on offense, they need to ditch the Princeton offense, fire Eddie Jordan and bring on offensive minded coach Mike D’Antoni as assistant coach. While D’Antoni ran himself out of New York, his teams were still some of the most explosive offensive teams in the NBA. Keep Brown as head coach and let him run the defense and use D’Antoni as strictly offense. D’Antoni used his fast paced offense with average point guards in New York and it worked, so why would it be any different in Los Angeles where he would have such players as Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol at his disposal. Of course D’Antoni would be the reunited with Steve Nash as well. The two spent time together in Phoenix for six years, two of which were Nash’s back-to-back MVP seasons. Yes, Nash is older, but the 39-year old can still run and gun as he showed last season in Phoenix, averaging 17.8 points a game and 10.1 assists per game with a mediocre Suns team. Bringing in D’Antoni won’t solve all the problems but it would sure up the offense, something the Lakers desperately need as they sit at 1-4 in the standings.

Many people also forget that the team has played only has three games where all the players were on the court together and Dwight Howard and Jordan Hill weren’t even fully healthy. That isn’t much time together to learn how to play cohesively and get it clicking. Chemistry plays a huge part in any team sport and that is something that the Lakers are lacking at the moment and will continue to lack until after the All Star Break, when everything will be clicking and all this talk will just be a thing of the past. Also, this is a very new group of players, many of whom need more than a few games to come together. Once Dwight Howard is fully healthy and can do the things on the court that we as basketball fans are accustomed to him doing and when Nash gets back on the floor, this team will be fine.

Bench Play:

The Nash injury also hurts this team very much. While Steve Blake is an above-average backup point guard, he isn’t meant to be a starter and playing so many minutes. He is meant to come off the bench and shoot — that’s it. He shouldn’t be running an offense that includes Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol. If the Lakers want to make sure that they get at least a decent point guard to plug into their starting five while Nash is hurt or is Nash gets hurt at any other time throughout the season, they need to either trade for Jose Calderon of the Toronto Raptors or sign veteran Delonte West whom they had interest in during the offseason.

With Blake starting, the bench production is even lower than it should regularly be. The Lakers have never had super-strong bench play (even in their championship seasons), but with the depth many NBA teams have, it’s something that they need to work on. Antwan Jamison, the biggest name the Lakers added to the bench during the offseason, has been a bust so far, averaging 3.8 points a game after exploding last season in Cleveland for 17.2. Jamison isn’t a “go to” guy anymore, but that still doesn’t excuse his lack of production. Another player the Lakers signed and expected to be a part of the bench was Jodie Meeks who hasn’t really seen much playing time for some odd reason, playing in only three of the five games this season. Jordan Hill has been the only consistent bench player for the Lakers this season. If the bench play doesn’t become more productive, the entire Lakers team will be in trouble when they get later into the season.

While many people in Laker town are worried or concerned about the slow start for the team, they shouldn’t be yet. It is still VERY early in the season and the Lakers will get it clicking, give this team time, that’s all they need. It probably doesn’t help the team that all their fans and all the writers have turned on this team five games into the season. IT IS ONLY FIVE GAMES. If they are 3-17 or anything like that after twenty games into the season, then there should be cause for concern and Brown should be fired but until that happens (and I don’t think it will), Laker fans and all the writers should do what Kobe Bryant says and “Shut up!”