And James still has some juice, but this is so completely Anthony Davis' squad at this point that it's a little bit terrifying. Because he's no sort of iron man and is going to take about 15% of the games he does play off in any given season.
And now they're getting just whupped on the glass.
I think they'll finish above .500. Maybe challenge 48 wins on the high side. But this team ain't very good.
LeBron was a top 10 player when healthy last year (and somehow doesn’t look like he’s lost much of a step still) but no way I’d pick him to play more than 60 games this year. 45 wins feels reasonable considering AD’s own injury issues. [Reply]
There’s also no way a 40 year old can continue to average 35 minutes a game so that will inevitably need to be cut down too. They don’t have the bench to really handle that. [Reply]
Feels like Davis and Edwards are about to make this a 1v1 showdown over the last 5 minutes.
I've said it a lot, but the Lakers cannot lose ANY games where Davis plays like this. He has maybe 35-40 games/season where he decides "Yeah, I'm just gonna be the best player in the world tonight. See if you can stop me..."
Gotta win all of 'em.
Because when he's not, you aren't winning many. [Reply]
Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
There’s also no way a 40 year old can continue to average 35 minutes a game so that will inevitably need to be cut down too. They don’t have the bench to really handle that.
I think Vanderbilt was the plan to suck up some of those minutes and his injury messed that up.
They'll try to make those lower use minutes where they can by going through Rui a bit more when the starters are out there as well.
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
{and p.s. the Lakers have been better with James on the bench than they've been with him in the lineup tonight anyway)
That won’t be the case in the games where AD doesn’t try (which is most of them). [Reply]