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The New Lakers Video from LD2K is Flames

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So, we’re in the dog days of summer and, as is the yearly ritual, it’s time to take a bit of a break from the game before things ramp up again in September with training camp and then preseason. Usually, the lack of news makes stepping away a bit easier.

Things are less easy, though, when friend of the site LD2K drops fire videos to get you excited about next season. I mean, how am I supposed to relax when this comes on?

The excitement about next season is real and truly is difficult to put on pause even in the doldrums of August. I’ve no clue about how good this team will actually be, but the prospect of them truly turning a corner and finding their way back to nightly fun is enough for me to be ready to start the season now.

Shout out to LD2K for keeping the adrenaline pumping. I can’t wait until September now.


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Comments

  1. Chearn says

    The video clip doesn’t represent any highlights from anyone in the projected starting lineup other than Lonzo. Of course, we all recognize that the probability of the Lakers decreasing the 56 game losses emanates with the rookie Ball. Too, we are painfully aware that Ingram must become a robust, rugged, and resilient player, remaining available to the team in addition to amplifying his usage rate as the focal point of the Lakers during his sophomore campaign. Randle’s basketball IQ both offensively and defensively has to correlate with the other players in the starting unit or we may find Larry Nance wresting that spot away from him. Last season, Coach Luke repeatedly benched Randle when he and most notably Brandon grew exasperated with Julius continually missing his defensive assignment. Those points withstanding, like the clip expresses, I too am amped and thrilled with the way things are shaking out for the Lakers on and off the court.
    I find it simultaneously perplexing and disrespectful the way the fans treat Jordan Clarkson in bandying about his name in conjunction with Deng as a means to reduce the team’s payroll for two max players in 2018. Jordan exemplifies a professional representative of the Lakers culture even when the organizational structure was in flux–consider the shenanigans of Russel and Swaggy, and the promises and team structure of Jim and Mitch. Unfortunately for Mitch he was trapped in between a family struggle and could have constructed rosters directing the Lakers back to prominence if he was untethered. Back to Clarkson, recently Magic Johnson spent time at Clarkson’s Basketball Camp proclaiming he challenged Jordan to be in the discussion of Sixth Man of the Year and to concentrate on defense similar to his Sixth Man of the Year off the bench, Michael Cooper. He even stated that he expects Clarkson to be on the team that secures him his eleventh championship ring. I doubt that Magic makes that presentation in front of young Jordan and Lakers fans making those proclamations if the team was not satisfied with Jordan’s development, thus far. Anything is possible in a year or two but it appears Clarkson is pegged as a player in the organizations future. Since the Lakers acquired him from the Wizards, Jordan has accepted and exceeded every challenge the Lakers placed in front of him, and I expect nothing less from him as he forays towards the position of a prominent player off the bench.

  2. RR says

    Pelton’s and 538’s metrics both show Clarkson’s deal as being a significant negative in terms of money spent/on-court value. Both of those systems also immediately red-flagged the Mozgov deal long before he had played a minute for the Lakers.

    I agree with Darius in that I think Clarkson is best used as a lead guard. His best year statistically was his rookie year. So, from that angle, I would have rather had Ian Clark than Tyler Ennis. When Clarkson started getting PT three years ago, I compared him (as did some other places) to Rodney Stuckey. It is not that Clarkson is a bad player per se, and neither was Stuckey in his prime. The problem is that Clarkson does not do anything especially well. He is just another guy, and he is no longer a bargain.

    As to Magic’s comments, two points:

    1. Since the Russell deal, Magic has been talking guys up in the media. I expect that is Pelinka’s influence–Pelinka telling Magic that bashing your guys in public is not a good look.
    2. Magic is a promoter, a life coach, a salesman. I think it mostly comes naturally to him to talk guys up as long as they haven’t crossed him.

    But the bottom line is that if the Lakers are really going to try to make a huge leap by signing multiple FAs, then they are better off with Clarkson’s deal off the books, and I expect that Clarkson knows that. Players do a lot of signalling on social media now, and right after the Russell deal, either Clarkson or someone around him took all the Lakers colors and logo off his Twitter feed, changing all that space to solid black. It may be a coincidence, but I doubt it.

    • R says

      Fans on this very site immediately started brain storming ways to mitigate the damage of the Moz (and Deng) deals before either of them played a Laker minute. I don’t know that any of them consulted an algorithm to come to the conclusion they were WTF deals.

  3. Kareeme says

    I was in the defender category of “they overpaid, but leadership and this this and this metric”. Nope. Bad terrible worst deal. Especially as the salary cap is lower than projected. In retrospect, Deng and Mozgov were two of the worst deals that year, although the whole class was full of WTF deals, including Biyombo and Mahinmi. If I remember correctly, many critics of the Mozgov deal wanted us to sign one of the other two “top” interior players available (I definitely had that preference). In retrospect, all of those deals were bad overpays. I think many critics of the deal won’t own that they were advocating other bad signings. Clearly we should have just stood pat. If we hadn’t signed Mozgov (and Deng), we might have been able to keep Russell, and potentially, we could have traded him alone for greater assets, if that’s what the club so desired.

    • RR says

      I have looked at a couple of those threads, and while I didn’t like the signings at all, I actually went too easy on the FO about it (mattal and Robert did not). I would have been OK with it, and said so at the time, if the Lakers had signed Biyombo. In spite of his severe limitations on O, I thought his low-usage game and good D had a chance to fit here, and he is much younger than Mozgov. I also said at the time that I would have been OK with the team going cheap at the 3 and not doing anything big.

      But, of course, everybody makes predictions and everybody gets stuff wrong sometimes. The real issue was that the dysfunction at the top made it very difficult for standing pat to be an option, and the Lakers will be paying for that for quite some time.

      • Kareeme says

        I wasn’t speaking just about you, but rather how critics of the FO were upset with the one year rentals of the past seasons. The criticism was that they should have pursued some mid-level talent. The FO did something along those lines last season, they just completely botched it. The MP FO is doing a much better job of it. I think that you’re right about the timeline. It walked the FO into a couple of really bad deals and it only got worse the closer to their final trade deadline last season. Fortunately they were relieved of their duties before they could do something that would set us back even further.