In this episode of the Laker Film Room Podcast, Pete and I discuss our expectations for the 2018-19 Lakers.
The convo starts with Pete talking about the shift in reality this team will face after adding LeBron; how his addition alone changes the perception of what is a good year vs. what would be disastrous. And then we both get into how the changes to the roster, in general, leave us a bit unsure of how this team will perform from night to night.
That leads us down the path of what our expectations are of the young players and how they’ll need to play in order to live up to these new, ramped up, expectations for the team. What does that look like for Ingram? For Lonzo? We explain what we’ll be looking for.
Further, we get into how we expect the Lakers to perform on both sides of the ball — Can LeBron make the team a top 10 offense by himself? How can the coaches adjust the team’s schemes to aid in that? What type of defensive style will the team play? Will they switch all the time? What will that mean for this group and, if so, how does that play to the strengths of LeBron and the other vets added + the team’s young players? Some of the answers and stats we got into here may surprise.
Overall, this was really good conversation that, I think, helped us both work our way through how we both view a season that, due to all the roster change and addition of LeBron, we don’t have as great a feel for as we might typically have.
Give the full episode a listen below.
https://soundcloud.com/user-456873398/expectations
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