Getty LeBron James, Lakers
You might have heard, with all the changes the Lakers have had heading into this NBA season, it’s going to take time for the team to come together as a group and begin playing its best. You’ve probably heard it because it seems that the Lakers say it after every loss—the latest came at home against the dysfunctional Kings—despite the fact that, at 10-11, we are now past the quarter-pole mark of the season.
Time. Big picture. Triple-overtime loss to Sacramento. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Thankfully, one reporter in the Lakers’ postgame press conferences, apparently Dan Woike of the L.A. Times, had the temerity to call out the team’s insistence that prosperity is just around the corner even as things look so grim.
Woike asked LeBron James, “Is the calm really there or is that you guys just putting on a happy face about the issues?”
And in James’ initial reaction, there was hope that he might actually see that, this deep into the season, there are real flaws with this team—the lineups often make little sense, they don’t move the ball, they don’t rebound enough and they’re inconsistent on both ends.
James said what a lot of Lakers fans, disappointed in what they’ve seen so far, wanted to hear. For a moment at least.
“Listen,” James said, “we’re all disgusted at losses. That’s the way it is.”
Hallelujah and amen to that.
LeBron Backtracks & Preaches Patience
However, it did not take long for James’ answer to meander back into the old pabulum about needing time. He is right, of course, that the Lakers have been slapped together this offseason, with only three players—James, Anthony Davis and Talen Horton-Tucker—left over from last year’s group.
And there have been health issues, with James missing 11 games, mostly because of an abdominal strain, Horton-Tucker out for 13 games to start the season, shooter Wayne Ellington having been out for eight games and, still, rotation players Trevor Ariza (ankle) and Kendrick Nunn (knee) yet to make an appearance this year.
Said James:
We’re also, at the same time, going to stay even-keeled about the whole process and understand that we can get better from our losses and we can get better from our wins. It’s not like we wanted to be .500 a fourth into the season but, you know, we got a lot more room to improve. We haven’t been full to start the season. Obviously, I haven’t played many games, guys have been in and out of the lineup, we still have two of our guys who haven’t played at all yet, in TA and K-Nunn.
Make no mistake, we still gotta play Laker basketball, we still gotta defend at a high level, we gotta share the ball, not turn the ball over, obviously tonight, horrible turnovers on my part. I feel like I played a horrible game individually, and I hold myself to a higher standard than that.
Frank Vogel Sticking With Big-Picture View
The big question for the Lakers is, at what point do they no longer see themselves mired in the early-season feeling-out process? What if we get halfway through the season and they’re still .500? Shouldn’t this team, even with the injuries and unfamiliarity, be good enough to beat, say Sacramento and Oklahoma City and Minnesota?
It should. But after the Kings loss, there was coach Frank Vogel, taking his usual position: We need more time.
“When you’re up 13 in the fourth quarter, you got to get that W.” Frank Vogel with a few takeaways from tonight’s #Lakers loss.
“We knew the early season was gonna be bumpy,” Vogel said. “This season is about peaking at the right time and understanding that we’re gonna use the 82-game season to learn each other and to grow each day, each game. You want to win games like this but there is a big-picture mindset we are taking with this team. … We want to win every game that we play. We want to build cohesion and chemistry every game we play. But we all know it is going to take time.”