The Los Angeles Lakers are back in business
It’s been 8 years since LA Lakers won their last championship and since then, the Californian team was only a shadow of what it used to be. One of the greatest players ever, Kobe Bryant, retired and Jeanie Buss, the owner of the team, was left with a lot of problems and a bunch of young talents.
The first thing she did is that she hired Luke Walton, a former Laker, as the coach of the team. Then, Jeanie fired her own brother and Mitch Kupchak, the general manager, and replaced them with Magic Johnson, the Lakers legend, and Rob Pelinka, a basketball mastermind. Magic and Rob started to do a tremendous job with the organization, making space for superstars, growing the talents of the young guys they had, while instilling a great mentality in the mind of the players. The results didn’t fail to appear and in the summer the Lakers surprised everyone by convincing LeBron James to join the team.
Now, the second most successful franchise in the history of basketball had almost everything it wanted: a big superstar and some great young kids eager to learn from one of the best. But, Magic wasn’t pleased with what he had so the Lakers signed JaVale McGee, Rajon Rondo, Lance Stephenson, and Michael Beasley. Of course, no one expected them to go and win a championship, but at least it was expected for the Lakers to get in the playoffs.
Finally, the season started, but the Lakers didn’t play very great. They didn’t defend, the offense was focused around LeBron James and the team lost some tough games. Also, there were some matches in which, Lakers had a big lead and then in the fourth quarter, the players failed to keep it. So something needed to be done. Magic Johnson called Luke Walton into his office and it was thought that he would fire him, but Magic said that it was only a discussion about the way the team plays. Another solution appeared a few days later when the Phoenix Suns released Tyson Chandler, a great defender, who was convinced to sign with the Lakers.
Immediately, the changes started to be observed. The defense was much better, this meaning that LeBron James could focus more on the offense. Since they added Tyson Chandler, LA Lakers won 5 games and lost only one, in Orlando. In this period of time, the average of points allowed dropped from 120 to 104.8, the opponents’ field goal percentage dropped from 48% to 42%, the opponents’ points in the paint dropped from 59 to 41, while the turnovers increased from 16 to 17.3.
Now LA Lakers has 9 wins, 7 losses and is the 7th in the Western Conference but more important than this, it seems that the relations between the players are finally getting stronger. It is interesting to watch if they can keep up this way of playing and eventually get to the playoffs. Also, this story shows us that in the regular season every piece of the team is important, and Tyson Chandler was definitely the missing piece in the Lakers roster.
David Istrate, info@brainbasketball.net
