The 2025-26 season kicked off against the Golden State Warriors. The Lakers, coming off a herky-jerky training camp where multiple key players sat out multiple games, looked like a bunch of guys playing basketball together for the first time. The Warriors looked like, well the Warriors. Tight, familiar, and deadly from distance. The Lakers took a lot of threes but did not connect at the same rate and, along with a boatload of missed free throws and a general lack of chemistry, that was enough to start the season off on a sour note.
- Let’s start with some good vibes: Luka played amazing, looked solid, and was nigh unstoppable on his forays into post play. The Warriors only answer was to send aggressive doubles at him which is where the offense broke down on account of nobody other than Rui being able to hit a three pointer. Those misses cost Luka an opening night triple double. His stat line of 43/12/9/1/3 is impressive and, if that’s the line he drops night in/night out, bodes well for his MVP campaign. For the Lakers as a unit, however, that might not be best recipe for success we can create. Based on what we able to accomplish in training camp (not much), I would argue that Luka took the reigns out of necessity since whenever he or Reaves wasn’t driving the ball the team looked utterly flat and unorganized. Looks like he hurt his groin late but, according to him, it’s not serious.
- That’s the end of the good list, unfortunately… The Laker bench contributed very little (I’d single out Jake LaRavia for playing well within his role). I though Smart and his Draymond Green-style antics on defense were wholly unnecessary and helped give momentum to the Warriors at critical moments in both the 2nd and 3rd quarters. The fact that he had more turnovers (3) than assists (0) and more fouls (4) than rebounds (0) wasn’t encouraging. In general the Lakers bench felt very unbalanced. All of the lineups without Reaves or Luka struggled to get anything going on offense that wasn’t in transition. I feel for Smart, to a degree, in that he didn’t get much training camp and is learning his new team on the fly, or at least it looks like that when you watch him play. Lot of guys miscommunicating on defense, two guys rotating off of shooter or cutters leading to open/easy shots, and a slew of other chemistry, communication and timing-related issues. Overall though, the bench needs to be better across the board.
- Ayton looks lost. The fear that the Martian in his mind still rules the roost continues. Every three plays or so Ayton looks completely comfortable, really solid. The rest of the time he looks out of sorts. The lob is not working, he’s not a high fly act and it looks like he wants to just catch it, land, and make some moves. That’s not a lob, dude. That’s you over-playing your hand. He’s dropping easy passes, losing the ball on pretty rudimentary plays and, in general, looks like he has a lot of rust to his game. The only other option as of today is more Jaxson Hayes who is certainly a lob threat but provides little else. Coach Reddick has some work to do on the “integrating DeAndre Ayton” side of the world.
- I don’t like Gabe Vincent in the starting line up. Not one bit. Anyone of Jake, Vando or Smart would add so much more balance to the overall roster it’s silly that it’s taken Coach Reddick 2 games (and maybe more, we’ll see) to see what is plain as the NBA logo on the ball: all of your scorers are starting leaving nobody to score off the bench, dude. If it’s me I’m starting either Vando or LaRavia so that the starting five is a solid blend of scoring and defense. That leaves 2 guards off the bench (Smart and Gabe) and you’re not sacrificing defense in the process. With LeBron out, Vanderbilt makes the most sense to me since LaRavia can shoot and we’re already starting Rui. Vando can cover 1-4, is an elite help defender and rebounder. Slot him into the dunkers spot until Ayton figures out what planet he’s on and let him do damage with his offensive rebounding. If you go with LaRavia you might get slightly improved spacing out of it but it’s hard to tell since guys are still running into one another on offense. There were several possessions last night where multiple players off the ball ran to the corner and bunched up. No real discernable offense was run, just a lot of pick and rolls. Lakers need to be better.
- Reaves had an awful game. Foul trouble, missed shots and he got utterly picked on in the post on defense by Jimmy Buckets. Not the way Austin wanted to start the season, I’m sure, but of everything that went wrong last night, Reave’s game is the least of my worries. It’s not like anything we saw last night was a surprise: he gets abused on defense when the bigger guys back him down, his all around game is strong but not dominant in any singular area, and he’s a decent playmaker. He tied Luka with nine dimes, which is solid, but was also a part of every losing line up we trotted out with a team leading -14. When LeBron is out, when the chemistry isn’t there, when the defense isn’t getting stops…that where you see the difference in a $40+ million dollar player and an >$30 million dollar player. If you’re earning north of $30-35 mil you need to be able to take over a game, you need to be able to impose your will, and you cannot get abused on defense. So, if Reaves wants to cash in big, he might want to spend a little less time golfing and little more time on how to move your feet on D.
It’s one of 82, lots of season to iron all of this out but you have to start wondering what exactly the coaching staff was trying to put in during camp. There’s not a lot of movement on offense, there’s no communication on defense, and not all of these will be resolved when LeBron returns which is as feeble an excuse as one could come up with. Across the board the effort needs to be better, we can’t have yet another season under Reddick where the 3rd quarter is an after-thought, and the guys playing for a paycheck better start acting like it.
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