Last season laker team looks better than the upcoming laker team
I definitely agree. The reaction of a few to signing backup players from other teams has been very baffling. Lakers fans thought they could maybe get irving, trae young or Lilliard through sign and trades. They ended up with gave vincent and taurean prince and people have complained the league is unfair.
I agree that the Laker off-season has been overrated, but why does last year’s team look better? Haven’t they brought back pretty much everyone in the rotation other than Schroder? They also added Vincent, Prince, Reddish and Hayes; nothing special but still decent and I would say they’re at least on par if not a little better than last year’s team
They also lost Lonnie Walker, who was useful in the playoffs, which is probably a wash with Prince (even if they are different players). Reddish and Hayes haven not shown anything in their careers that say they’re rotation caliber players for good teams — they’re just different deck chairs than the departed Beasley, Bamba, and Gabriel.
I’d rather bet on Vincent than Schröder at this point in their respective careers, but marginal improvements in their 7th and 9th men isn’t a home run of an off-season as some are making it out to be.
Very well said even if I disagree in Schroeder and Vincent. Tp. Lakers needed a big but to catch up to nuggets (and maybe a healthy suns team). Lebrons 10% decline is going to be a bigger difference than their 7th or 8th man. Also they had unusually good health from Davis in the playoffs last year. That is far from a guarantee. Even a player like beal would have helped immensely for taking pressure off Lebron who they can’t ask to do what they did last year anymore.
Ultimately I still think it's mostly going to come down to the health of Lebron and AD. Lebron isn't Lebron anymore, which is completely understandable since he's 39 years old. But they definitely need the help around him more so than previous Lebron teams (Cavs, Heat), so if AD gets hurt or they suffer multiple injuries across the roster, it'll hurt them.
They had an awesome 2nd half last year and a deep run thanks to AD returning healthy, and also their acquisitions at the deadline as well as Reaves taking that step. Idk if Reaves will continue to improve or if this is his ceiling though.