by Paul Teetor
Well, that didn’t take long.
On Wednesday night the Minnesota Timberwolves put the Lakers out of their self-induced misery, pounding in the final nail of a 4-1 near sweep of the best-of-seven first round series.
There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth throughout LA, and indeed across the sporting world. To make it even worse, the 103-96 loss took place at the Crypt, where all the usual semi-famous celebs and affluent, Tesla-driving LA fans could witness the Lakers being out played, out toughed and out skilled on their own home court.
Luka and LeBron out of the playoffs?
In the first round?
Why? How? Who’s to blame?
When the phones started ringing Thursday morning, Tony from Torrance, Bernie from Beverly Hills and Randy from Redondo all had hot takes they wanted to share on sports talk radio.
But before the blame game could barely get started, Lakers Coach JJ Redick tried to shape the narrative.
Thursday morning – less than 12 hours after the loss — Redick fired the first shot in what is sure to be a ferocious and prolonged debate over how and why the Lakers failed – once again – to make it out of the first round, let alone to meet the delusional championship aspirations of the front office and the title dreams of Lakers Nation.
During a postseason news conference on Thursday morning, Redick and general manager Rob Pelinka answered a variety of questions about what went wrong. But one comment from Redick immediately lit up the internet and fueled the raging debate about who is to blame.
The first-year coach mentioned in his opening remarks that the Lakers players “have to get in championship shape” this offseason.
Pressed on that comment, Redick, who made a living as a sharp shooter in the NBA for a dozen years before turning to broadcasting and then coaching – the Lakers were his very first coaching job — let fly with a three-point verbal bomb.
“We have a ways to go as a roster, and certainly there are individuals who were in phenomenal shape, and there’s certainly other ones that could’ve been in better shape. That’s where my mind goes immediately,” Redick said.
As far as passive aggressive criticism goes, it doesn’t get any more aggressive than that. Redick has a reputation for not playing well with others, and he was still smarting over the shocking loss and his role in it.
So, let’s parse Redick’s declaration phrase by phrase.
“We have a ways to go as a roster,” means that he’s not going to single out any one player, like, say, Luka Doncic, who has the most notorious Dad Bod – puffy and ground bound, no discernable muscles when he flexes – in the entire NBA. He’s just going to talk about “the roster” and keep it diplomatic.
“Certainly, there were individuals that were in phenomenal shape,” means that he wishes all his players were like LeBron James, who at age 40 is far and away the most physically fit player on the Lakers.
LeBron has boasted that he spends more than $1 million each summer working on his fitness, and his dedication has allowed him to get a great return on his investment by maximizing his incredible talent. He has an option for $52 million next season, and the guess here is that he will exercise that option and keep playing for the Lakers. That’s a pretty good return on a $1 million investment.
“There are certainly other ones who could’ve been in better shape. That’s where my mind goes immediately,” means just try and imagine how great Luka could be if he got in the gym with LeBron every day in the summer, dedicated his work primarily to fitness – he’s already the most skilled player in the NBA – and showed up next fall at training camp jacked, ripped, and ready to run with the speed merchants, jump with the sky walkers, and defend with the lock-down defenders.
Redick didn’t mention Luka’s name, but he didn’t need to: anyone with a working brain knew who he was talking about.
Redick was one of the most vilified players in the history of college basketball during his four years at Duke – a worthy successor to the even-more-hated Duke superstar villain Christian Leattner — because he has a touch of arrogance, is usually the smartest guy in the room, and doesn’t try to hide his contempt for fools. He’s also one of the smartest guys ever to take on the Lakers coaching job and knew the impact his words would have – on Luka and on the fans.
Now the question is how will Luka react? Will he double down on his beer-and-burgers summer regimen or will he join Lebron in the gym and dedicate himself to winning a title for LA?
The initial comment from Luka was encouraging for Laker fans.
“I think he’s a hell of a coach,” Luka said when asked about Redick’s comments. “Not many coaches in their first year do the stuff he did. I’m really glad he coached me.”
OK, so there’s no feud – at least publicly — between the coach and the player expected to lead the Lakers franchise for the next decade.
Now a big question looms over the franchise: will Luka sign the four-year, $229 million extension the Lakers can offer him starting on August 2 of this summer. It’s not as much as the $345 million the Dallas Mavericks could have offered him before they traded him in early February, but the NBA’s salary cap is designed to incentivize star players to stay with the team that drafted them.
That’s the path Luka was on with Dallas, until suddenly he wasn’t.
All the chatter about Luka being fat and out of shape is a valid talking point. Despite making first-team All-NBA each of the last five years, he has not maximized his other worldly talent by working himself into LeBron shape.
But the brutal truth is that the Lakers never had a chance once they traded their one legit big man in Anthony Davis to Dallas and failed to replace him with anybody on the roster. It didn’t have to be another AD – there’s not many around – just a legit NBA center to control the boards and throw down an occasional dunk.
In that sense Pelinka is the main cause of this horrendous defeat, and his actions in the aftermath of THE TRADE are still inexplicable.
In his first week in LA, Luka went to Pelinka and asked him to acquire a legit NBA center, someone who could catch Luka’s clever alley-oop lobs for dunks and also protect the rim when players blew by Luka and looked to score on a layup.
Luka explained that he had two such players in Dallas in Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively, and that he would be much more effective with at least one center like that on the roster.
Pelinka, to his credit, scoured the league for a deal and came up with the perfect trade: the Lakers would give the Charlotte Hornets a first-round draft pick and star rookie Dalton Knecht for the Hornets Mark Williams, a 23-year-old, 6-foot-11 center out of Duke who was averaging 15 points and ten rebounds a game.
Voila!
When the trade was announced Pelinka was hailed by his mainstream media minions as a Jerry West-style personnel genius who had solved several Lakers problems in one fell swoop. But 24 hours later the Lakers “rescinded” the trade and said something vague about having concerns about the physical exam Williams took before donning the purple and gold.
No specifics, just “concerns,” whatever the hell that means.
Naturally, local media assumed Williams would not be able to keep playing for the Hornets with all his physical problems. Instead, he played every game after the trade deadline had passed, averaged the same 15 points and ten rebounds, and the Lakers never explained to the press or public exactly what their “concerns” were.
Could the Lakers have beaten Minnesota with Williams as their starting center?
We’ll never know the answer to that mystery. But we do know the answer to the question of who is to blame for the Lakers first round exit.
GM and President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka.
Clippers Collapse
As for the pathetic Clippers game 7 loss to the Denver Nuggets, in which the Nuggets pulled ahead by 35 points before the Clippers closed to within the final score of 120-101, all there is left to say is that James Harden pulled the biggest choke job ever seen from an allegedly great player. With just seven points on eight shots, he was invisible and showed zero fight.
He looked scared of the Nuggets and overwhelmed by the moment – as he has been in so many other big moments in his career.
Harden, soon to be 36, does not deserve a new contract from the Clippers. If they do give him one, they are declaring they’d rather be a first-round loser every year rather than have some down years, draft some young talent, and rebuild a good team.
Harden has a $36 million option for next season. Let him exercise that option, prove he’s not the playoff choker he has been his whole career, and then give him a new contract if he deserves it.
Anything else would just continue the Clippers Curse for another wasted year.
Owner Steve Ballmer never would have put up with this kind of shoddy performance at Microsoft.
He shouldn’t accept it here either.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. ER
