SAN FRANCISCO — As the world has been slowly edging back to normalcy, many NBA teams have been swinging their doors open.
Golden State, Atlanta, Utah and Memphis are some of the teams that have held practices open to the public, allowing them to get a closer glimpse of the game after being held at arm’s length for a year and a half. On Saturday, the Nets held a practice in Brooklyn Bridge Park, with even Kyrie Irving in the fold after approval from public health officials.
The Lakers have opted to keep most of their work behind closed doors, tinkering with a superstar-laden lineup in practices that have been described as intense and competitive, with only a few moments open toward the finish. Those sessions seem to provide a wellspring of optimism for the Lakers’ sky-high ambitions because a rough start for the LeBron James-Russell Westbrook pairing that will be the bedrock of the team didn’t seem to shake anyone.
The duo was 5 for 19 from the floor (0 for 3 from 3-point range) with six combined assists and 11 combined points with just under 18 minutes apiece. The Lakers were outscored during both players’ minutes against Golden State, trailing by 10 at the half when James and Westbrook called it early.
The reaction was a collective shrug.
While Westbrook fussed over his turnovers – six in the first quarter without making a shot – he said many of the corrections involve him making easy reads, “which I’ve done for many years.” Coach Frank Vogel chalked it up to one rough night: “This game and short sample size is not indicative of how he’s looked with our group.”
James minced the fewest words about his feelings on the preseason: It’s a time for veterans like himself to get in shape and get used to the physicality, not to demonstrate the kind of team that they are.
“I’m not going to learn anything,” James said of preseason games. “Nothing. That means zero.”
The reason he prefers monitoring the progress of practices over games in the preseason, James offered, is the chance to fix mistakes live. When plays and schemes break down, coaches and players can stop the action and talk through the mistakes. With the team implementing what James called “a whole new offensive system” and most of the newcomers learning Vogel’s defensive scheme for the first time, there’s still a lot of learning happening.
But it’s getting close to the time for the Lakers to start showing their work, and while an 0-3 preseason start isn’t discouraging, the team hasn’t provided a lot of demonstrable sequences for fans to feel the buzz that is reverberating in the gym.
Vogel hasn’t been shy about expressing caution about giving his stars preseason minutes. The plan publicly outlined is to play Westbrook and James in at least one of the remaining three preseason games.
“We’ll huddle up before each game and see if it makes sense and when, even though this is the first time you all have seen these guys play together,” he said. “They’ve been doing it pretty regularly for a week or two now and they’re getting the necessary work.”
What also might help the Lakers is a soft early-season schedule: Only four of their first 15 games come against teams that played in the first round of the playoffs last season, and 12 of the 15 are at home. If they’re still piecing together the on-court chemistry when the regular season rolls around, there will be some give.
But still, the time for such lessons is limited, and for a veteran team like the Lakers, class isn’t supposed to be the main component anyway. Struggles in the preseason might not matter much, but at some point, they will. The results need to show up in places that not just the Lakers can see.