The Los Angeles Lakers looked like a contender in February after Luka Dončić‘s arrival and an All-Star break for LeBron James.
However, that stretch run turned out to be a fool’s gold after they were easily bounced in the first round despite claiming the No. 3 seed and a homecourt advantage.
They lost 4-1 to a Minnesota Timberwolves team that did not stand a chance against the young and defensive-minded Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals.
With these in mind, former Laker Danny Green doesn’t believe the Dončić-James pairing will lead to a Lakers championship.
“They’re explosive offensively,” Green said on the “All The Smoke” podcast. “I think they lack a lot defensively… I don’t know how many years he (James) has left longer, and it’s think it’s just really hard to win a championship when your best player is 40 years old… Next year LeBron going to be 41….He can still average 30, 20 something but I just don’t see them winning a championship with that formula right now.”
The three-time champion Green won his last with the Lakers in 2020 in the Orlando bubble with a 36-year-old James and a 26-year-old Anthony Davis. That Lakers team was packed with two-way wings and defensive-minded centers.
The same cannot be said with this current iteration of the Lakers that have two below-average defenders — Dončić and Austin Reaves — and an aging superstar leading them.
‘One of the Worst Defensive Performances’ in Elimination Game
The issues that hounded Dončić on his way out in Dallas haunted him in his first playoff run with the Lakers.
The Timberwolves repeatedly hunted Dončić, who was the Lakers’ weakest link on defense.
Mike Jagacki of LockdownHoops.com slammed Dončić’s atrocious defense in the Lakers’ Game 5 loss.
Jagacki said it was “one of the worst defensive performances” he’d ever watched “in a must-win playoff game.”
The basketball analyst pointed out that Timberwolves stars Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle hunted Dončić down because “Luka just has such a wide base and poor movement fundamentals on defense.”
It was the same problem the Mavericks had when they lost to the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals last year, which pushed Harrison to trade him for Davis, an All-Defensive center, albeit six years older than Dončić.
“Lakers can’t even hide Luka in the zone. Gets blown by on the wing, poor footwork – wide base, lung steps, no explosive slide, no positive pelvic angle to generate lateral movement. Looking around for his help – the true sign of a bad defender,” Jagacki wrote on X.
Lakers on Top of Luka’s Conditioning at EuroBasket
Lakers coach JJ Redick made it clear during his end-of-season press conference that he wants his players to report on training camp in championship form.
“I’ll start with the offseason and the work that’s required in an offseason to be in championship shape,” Redick told reporters following their first-round exit. “And we have a ways to go as a roster. And certainly, there are individuals who were in phenomenal shape. There are certainly other ones that could have been in better shape. That’s where my mind goes immediately, is we have to get in championship shape.”
In line with Redick’s mandate, the Lakers will send one of their coaches to oversee Dončić’s conditioning and recovery program when he suits up for Slovenia in the FIBA Eurobasket tournament this offseason.
Matej Erjavec, the president of the Basketball Federation of Slovenia, relayed this news to Slovenian station RTV SLO, EuroHoops reported on May 27.
“Within two minutes in a meeting with Rob Pelinka, he stressed, ‘Well, you will get Luka and one coach, and that’s it.’ And with that, we were done. There was no debate at all.”
Former Lakers Champion Drops Bad News on LeBron James-Luka Dončić Future