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It hasn’t taken very long for the NBA to start fining players this season. James Johnson, Cody Martin and Caleb Martin were all fined big money for the altercation that took place between the Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday. While the NBA fining players is nothing new, Los Angeles Lakers veteran Jared Dudley had a problem with how much the players were fined.
Dudley is okay with players getting punished but he thinks the amount of money the players are getting fined is simply too much.
The veteran dropped some more thoughts on the matter.
Obviously, the NBA would prefer for their players not to be fighting on the court. Fining players is a way to deter such behavior and suspension also serves the same function. As a player, it would make sense why Dudley would want to see his fellow players keep more of their money. However, the NBA won’t likely change how they punish players anytime soon.
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Lakers off to Decent Start to Season
Dudley hasn’t played a lot of minutes for the Lakers this season which means they haven’t been winning by a lot of points. Through five games, the team is 3-2. It hasn’t been a perfect start but it’s been decent. They have strong wins over the Mavericks, Timberwolves and Spurs and two bad losses to the Clippers and Trail Blazers.
The Lakers shouldn’t put too much weight into the regular season. The team is playing for championships and those aren’t won in the regular season. With fans not likely to be in the stands anytime soon, homecourt advantage doesn’t really exist. The focus shouldn’t be to finish with a top seed, it should be to finish the season with their best players healthy.
Anthony Davis Still Hasn’t Gotten Things Going
The Lakers are chugging along to start the season but there has been one issue. Anthony Davis hasn’t been playing his best basketball quite yet. The team’s leading scorer last season is only averaging 19.8 points in four games played. He just hasn’t been very involved this season quite yet. Head coach Frank Vogel knows it’s important to get him going.
“I think we didn’t do a good enough job making sure he was involved in the offense the first half,” Vogel said after the loss to Trail Blazers on Monday. “We just got to do a better job of that. A little better in the second half. Just one of those nights we were stuck in mud a little bit.”
The fact that Davis has been a bit banged up to start the season hasn’t helped. He’s already missed one game with a calf issue. The Lakers are wise to take it easy on their superstar this early. If he gets hurt, they won’t be winning a ton of games. It’s been a rocky start for Davis but he’ll figure things out eventually.
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