Okay, the Los Angeles Lakers’ locker room is just as big as ever. One had to fear that they would have to grow before this season; not because of the strict Covid rules of the North American basketball league NBA, because of which the catacombs in the arena have become a maze. But because of the numerous egos that they have gathered at the most famous basketball club in the world.
But no, the room is still small, and given the mixed record at the start of the season (6: 5 after 126: 123 against the Charlotte Hornets last night), people are asking themselves: Will everything work at some point due to the tense atmosphere and the tightness high? Or is there a fire down there because of the friction that nobody can put out?
The Lakers have a grotesque squad of old professionals
Manager Rob Pelinka has put together a grotesque squad. Basketball connoisseurs would click their tongues – if you were in 2010. Or so: LeBron James (36 years), Dwight Howard (35) and Carmelo Anthony (37) were already part of the American Olympic selection in 2008, in 2012 Russell Westbrook ( 32) there, 2016 DeAndre Jordan (33) – but no current Lakers player was invited to the Olympics in Tokyo in the summer. Rajon Rondo (35), Kent Bazemore (32), Trevor Ariza (36) and Avery Bradley (30) complete the club of aged ballers. The age of those who were on the floor against Charlotte from the beginning: 155, on average 31 years. It was Anthony Davis, 28, who lowered the cut a little.
It’s actually supposed to be something like a Dream Team The motto since the Olympics in 1992 (the only dream team worthy of this name) has been: You gather the best individual talents in the world and hope that after a few weeks of training together they will become a unit – should that only work to a limited extent , you still have the better individuals, and against the Hornets you could see what that means in the absence of the ailing James (abdominal muscle strain).
Charlotte is – despite the highly talented LaMelo Ball, 20 – truly not a candidate for the title, and it was clear to see: If the Lakers only put pressure on for a few minutes, if they move and pass, but especially if they defend well and together, then they apparently easily pull away by ten points. If they do not do that, they let the opponent approach in a pathetic way; the dream team becomes a slapstick troop.
If the Lakers get serious, it works. But only then
With 14 points they were leading nine minutes before the end, and they still had to go into overtime – which they won because they then have great individual talent: Davis on a pass from Westbrook, Anthony on a pass from Davis; a single action by Davis and two converted free throws. The leaders achieved the last nine Lakers points together, while allowing only two opposing points. Well, it works, somehow.
Only: It has often not worked out this season. Against Oklahoma City Thunder, also not a candidate for the title, they gambled away a 26- and then a 19-point advantage – because of the Covid rules, clubs usually play their away games one after the other. They often quarrel on the floor, and Howard and Davis recently fell out on hiatus; Davis pushed his colleague towards the stands. Then they played down the incident: It could happen, something like that, everything cleared up.
Manager Pelinka’s hope: There are not just a few weeks of training, the entire regular season should be used for finding and playing up to the start of the playoff in April. Westbrook, Anthony, Jordan and Bazemore have not yet won a championship and will, another hope of Pelinka, subordinate themselves to the two alpha animals James and Davis for the triumph. It is the test of whether the whole is as much as the sum of the individual parts, especially since these individual parts are no longer worth as much as they were a few years ago – starting with LeBron James.
Yes, he’s still one of the best basketball players in the world – when he’s fit. Last season he missed 37 regular time games; one reason why the Lakers suddenly slipped and qualified as defending champions just so, 103: 100 in the playoff game against the Golden State Warriors, for the playoffs. There they were eliminated, James was still not really recovered, in the first round against the Phoenix Suns. This year, James already missed five out of eleven games – small wounds such as abdominal muscle strain, which nevertheless show that Gevatter Zeit is still undefeated, even against a top-class athlete like James.
They have been saying for weeks that everything is fine, but it is not; And that could also be seen against Charlotte: Anthony and Westbrook debated with the referees and each conceded technical fouls, also because of the resulting free throws, the Hornets came up in the final quarter. Playmaker Rondo was suspended shortly before for an unsportsmanlike foul – and of course it was due to the flu, but you could also see it as a symbol of the condition of these Lakers: Davis had to vomit in the third quarter – and was still needed urgently in the end.
You now have four more home games in a row; including against Miami and Chicago – two real tests of how things are currently with the ailing Lakers. James is allowed to return, and so must he. The mood in the changing room is probably not exploding, on the contrary, it is on the verge of collapsing.
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