The LeBron James- 23-24 NBA Playoffs & Off-Season Thread -(NO PERSONAL ATTACKS & BAITING)

[thebigbird]

This is a direct result of the Lakers not making any trades, using a first rounder to pick an utterly useless player, and refusing to fire the Hambecile. The front office refused to go all in, and this is what that gets you.


It’s a damn shame that LeBron is probably going to resign with the Lakers. The front office is incompetent and a large percentage of the Lakers’ fanbase hates the guy because he’s better than Kobe. He should go back to Cleveland. That’s where I liked him playing the best.

[Ian Scuffling]

This is a direct result of the Lakers not making any trades, using a first rounder to pick an utterly useless player, and refusing to fire the Hambecile. The front office refused to go all in, and this is what that gets you.


It’s a damn shame that LeBron is probably going to resign with the Lakers. The front office is incompetent and a large percentage of the Lakers’ fanbase hates the guy because he’s better than Kobe. He should go back to Cleveland. That’s where I liked him playing the best.

100%. And I love "Hambecile". Spot on.

[RRR3]

This the most damning video of Ham I’ve seen. I encourage you all to watch the whole thing because it’s truly incredible.

Read on Twitter

?s=46

[lessthanjake]

Jamal Murray is not an all-NBA player. He has played like one in some playoff series, but that’s not what he is overall IMO and that’s *definitely* not what he has played like in this series. Murray is a borderline all-star player (who probably isn’t even playing at that level in this series). Gordon, MPJ, and KCP are of course role players, but they are all genuinely good starting NBA players. Meanwhile, the Nuggets bench is okay at best.

The overall picture in terms of talent for the Nuggets is not overwhelmingly high. If we are just evaluating rosters, their advantage on other teams (including the Lakers) comes obviously at #1, as well as at #3-5 (with #4 and #5 being particular strengths, IMO, regardless of which Nuggets starters you define as their #4 and #5 guys). Their #2 spot and the bench are relative weaknesses. The overall talent picture is good but not overwhelming.

But, as we know, stacking talent isn’t everything. Some teams just play better together and are better than the sum of their parts. There’s a ton of factors that go into that. There’s coaching, natural style-of-play chemistry between players, familiarity with each other, group confidence and mental game, etc. I think the Nuggets excel in this in general. Most obviously, Gordon and Murray both have fantastic chemistry with Jokic, in a way that really makes those guys substantially more valuable on this team than they’d be somewhere else. Of course, it also helps that a lot of the team has a good bit of experience playing together. Moreover, I think that mentally the team as a whole has a quiet confidence that isn’t over-emotional, which likely stems from the mental makeup of Jokic, Murray, and Malone and filters down to everyone—not to mention the obvious confidence a team gets from having won a title together. This sort of calm confidence is really helpful in key moments. Another chemistry thing that is also in part a mental thing is that I think Jokic’s style of play naturally filters down to the rest of the team and helps the team’s on-court chemistry a lot—with guys making the extra effort to make cuts and extra effort plays, having confidence that the rest of the team (and in particular Jokic) will reward them for it. It’s a lot more likely for guys to play stagnant basketball if they don’t think expending some of their limited energy to do something will actually be rewarded. Another thing about having success as a team and having an MVP-level guy like Jokic is that it makes players more likely to accept their role and to build on it more optimally. For instance, MPJ has IMO improved a good bit on defense, and I think part of that is that he’s accepted what his role is on the team and that he needs to contribute positively on defense—on a different team, I could see MPJ feeling like he needs to be a key offensive option and conserve his energy on defense.

Anyways, there’s a lot of other things as well. The bottom line is that I think there’s not a huge talent gap between the two teams (and to the extent there is, it’s largely just because of Jokic), but the Nuggets are better than the sum of their parts. Meanwhile, the Lakers are probably less good than the sum of their parts—at least they certainly were in the regular season IMO, though I think some of that was just trying out weird rotations, which doesn’t necessarily reflect on how good their actual playoff rotation is. That and some luck has resulted in the Nuggets having a huge win streak against the Lakers. It’s not like the Nuggets are just blowing out the Lakers left and right though—the talent is enough to keep the Lakers in it, but just perpetually slightly below.

[Jurassic_Park]

Huge LeBron fan but I gotta be objective with this realizations

1. Jokic may actually be peaking higher than LBJ (at least on offense). It’s pretty close

2. Jokic is doing this with traditionally less help than LeBron in a tougher conference

Can you imagine jokic facing demar lowry raptors or hibbert pg pacers. He would absolutely wreck them.

He also would have 3-peated with wade and bosh. Jokic is that dude.

[Colbinii]

Jamal Murray is not an all-NBA player. He has played like one in some playoff series, but that’s not what he is overall IMO and that’s *definitely* not what he has played like in this series. Murray is a borderline all-star player (who probably isn’t even playing at that level in this series). Gordon, MPJ, and KCP are of course role players, but they are all genuinely good starting NBA players. Meanwhile, the Nuggets bench is okay at best.

The overall picture in terms of talent for the Nuggets is not overwhelmingly high. If we are just evaluating rosters, their advantage on other teams (including the Lakers) comes obviously at #1, as well as at #3-5 (with #4 and #5 being particular strengths, IMO, regardless of which Nuggets starters you define as their #4 and #5 guys). Their #2 spot and the bench are relative weaknesses. The overall talent picture is good but not overwhelming.

But, as we know, stacking talent isn’t everything. Some teams just play better together and are better than the sum of their parts. There’s a ton of factors that go into that. There’s coaching, natural style-of-play chemistry between players, familiarity with each other, group confidence and mental game, etc. I think the Nuggets excel in this in general. Most obviously, Gordon and Murray both have fantastic chemistry with Jokic, in a way that really makes those guys substantially more valuable on this team than they’d be somewhere else. Of course, it also helps that a lot of the team has a good bit of experience playing together. Moreover, I think that mentally the team as a whole has a quiet confidence that isn’t over-emotional, which likely stems from the mental makeup of Jokic, Murray, and Malone and filters down to everyone—not to mention the obvious confidence a team gets from having won a title together. This sort of calm confidence is really helpful in key moments. Another chemistry thing that is also in part a mental thing is that I think Jokic’s style of play naturally filters down to the rest of the team and helps the team’s on-court chemistry a lot—with guys making the extra effort to make cuts and extra effort plays, having confidence that the rest of the team (and in particular Jokic) will reward them for it. It’s a lot more likely for guys to play stagnant basketball if they don’t think expending some of their limited energy to do something will actually be rewarded. Another thing about having success as a team and having an MVP-level guy like Jokic is that it makes players more likely to accept their role and to build on it more optimally. For instance, MPJ has IMO improved a good bit on defense, and I think part of that is that he’s accepted what his role is on the team and that he needs to contribute positively on defense—on a different team, I could see MPJ feeling like he needs to be a key offensive option and conserve his energy on defense.

Anyways, there’s a lot of other things as well. The bottom line is that I think there’s not a huge talent gap between the two teams (and to the extent there is, it’s largely just because of Jokic), but Nuggets are better than the sum of their parts. Meanwhile, the Lakers are probably less good than the sum of their parts—at least they certainly were in the regular season IMO, though I think some of that was just trying out weird rotations, which doesn’t necessarily reflect on how good their actual playoff rotation is. That and some luck has resulted in the Nuggets having a huge win streak against the Lakers. It’s not like the Nuggets are just blowing out the Lakers left and right though—the talent is enough to keep the Lakers in it, but just perpetually slightly below.

Players like D'Angelo Russell, Rui Hachimura and Austin Reeves aren't additive players. You don't add him to a roster and the roster gets better. They don't defend at a high level [See Aaron Gordon and KCP], they aren't good off-ball players who attack space well [See Aaron Gordon] and they aren't unbelievable shooters on a consistent basis with difficult shots [See MPJ].

Denver added players around Jokic who have skill-sets which scale up around Jokic and Murray. None of D'lo, Rui or Reeves are really players you look at and can envision being main pieces on a championship cast. They have poor feel for the game and are incredibly inconsistent [See D'lo playoff track-record and Reaves scoring when he isn't living at the FT Line] while being poor defenders [Notably Reeves and D'lo, Rui is at least respectable].

Then you move down the rotation and you see Taurean Prince as the only other serviceable wing, yet he is a spot-minute caliber player, not a 20 MPG, first player off the bench player like the Lakers use him as.

Then, you realize that the Lakers have 4 Point Guard-sized players in their 8-man rotation [Reeves, D'Lo, Dinwiddie and Vincent] and you have to ask yourself who constructed this roster and why did they pick the players they did.

What's frustrating for the LeBron fan's is they could have simply kept KCP, Kuzma and Caruso and they would have significantly more size and wouldn't have had to sacrifice shooting all that much, while also negating Denver's ability to have KCP.

[Mos_Heat]

I guess I just don't understand what parts and what talent are you guys see on this LA roster. Hachimura is like what 50th-60th best forward in the league, Russell is an all time playoff choker and their backup big is Jason Hayes

[donnieme]

Most damning thing is how they are about to take the same L that ended their season last. You have one job, heck even losing in 6 games would have technically been an improvement

[Djoker]

Here is my take on the Nuggets roster.

Jamal Murray to me is a sub all-star in the regular season and low level all-star so maybe top 20 in the playoffs. He's had some monster series for Denver like last year's WCF but he's also had low points like this series where he isn't really that special other than hitting the game winner. He's a good player but he's among weaker rather than stronger second options historically.

Aaron Gordon is a good defensive big but he's undersized to protect the rim. Offensively he's only really good around the basket and he's benefited immensely from playing with Jokic. In Orlando, Gordon averaged 68.0% at the rim on ~3 attempts a game while at Denver he's elite at 76.7% at the rim on ~5 attempts a game and that's what's driving his offensive impact. He needs others to draw the defense to generate those great looks. Usually it's Jokic but yesterday it was Murray and MPJ finding him for dunks a few times. He's the guy most dependent on the system to produce. All in all, he's clearly below all-star level.

MPJ is a good solid role player who is big for a SF and so is a versatile defender and he can hit 3's and put the ball on the floor. He's a poor man's version of Klay Thompson. He's generally pretty portable and succeeds on many teams IMO. Clearly an above average starter overall but again clearly below all-star level although he has the potential to improve more.

KCP is a standard 3&D guy who makes you a bit better on both ends but clearly just a role player.

On the Denver bench, you have Jackson who is a bit of a hothead. He's a good ball handler and a confident player but also makes a ton of mistakes. Westbrook vibes. Braun is an energy guy but just not that good. Watson is athletic and helps on D but not that good offensively. Can't shoot and too small to be a rim threat.

Altogether Nuggets are a very good squad because of what Ben Taylor calls a "low viscosity offense". Ball moves well, guys trust each other and their starters are all guys who can contribute on offense and defense and part from the Joker himself quite switchable on D as well. Gordon and MPJ can guard 1-5 decently well and even Murray and KCP can take forwards ok. Their very thin bench is a huge issue though. They really only go five deep. If they face the Wolves in the 2nd round, that could be very bad for them because I can see their second unit get obliterated putting a lot of pressure on their starters to make up for the difference.

[Colbinii]

Here is my take on the Nuggets roster.

Jamal Murray to me is a sub all-star in the regular season and low level all-star so maybe top 20 in the playoffs. He's had some monster series for Denver like last year's WCF but he's also had low points like this series where he isn't really that special other than hitting the game winner. He's a good player but he's among weaker rather than stronger second options historically.

Aaron Gordon is a good defensive big but he's undersized to protect the rim. Offensively he's only really good around the basket and he's benefited immensely from playing with Jokic. In Orlando, Gordon averaged 68.0% at the rim on ~3 attempts a game while at Denver he's elite at 76.7% at the rim on ~5 attempts a game and that's what's driving his offensive impact. He needs others to draw the defense to generate those great looks. Usually it's Jokic but yesterday it was Murray and MPJ finding him for dunks a few times. He's the guy most dependent on the system to produce. All in all, he's clearly below all-star level.

MPJ is a good solid role player who is big for a SF and so is a versatile defender and he can hit 3's and put the ball on the floor. He's a poor man's version of Klay Thompson. He's generally pretty portable and succeeds on many teams IMO. Clearly an above average starter overall but again clearly below all-star level but he has the potential to improve more.

KCP is a standard 3&D guy who makes you a bit better on both ends but clearly just a role player.

On the Denver bench, you have Jackson who is a bit of a hothead. He's a good ball handler and a confident player but also makes a ton of mistakes. Westbrook vibes. Braun is an energy guy but just not that good. Watson is athletic and helps on D but not that good offensively. Can't shoot and too small to be a rim threat.

Altogether Nuggets are a very good squad because of what Ben Taylor calls a "low viscosity offense". Ball moves well, guys trust each other and their starters are all guys who can contribute on offense and defense and part from the Joker himself quite switchable on D as well. Gordon and MPJ can guard 1-5 decently well and even Murray and KCP can take forwards ok. Their very thin bench is a huge issue though. They really only go five deep. If they face the Wolves in the 2nd round, that could be very bad for them because I can see their second unit get obliterated putting a lot of pressure on their starters to make up for the difference.

All this to say--significantly better roster construction than the Lakers.

[lessthanjake]

Jamal Murray is not an all-NBA player. He has played like one in some playoff series, but that’s not what he is overall IMO and that’s *definitely* not what he has played like in this series. Murray is a borderline all-star player (who probably isn’t even playing at that level in this series). Gordon, MPJ, and KCP are of course role players, but they are all genuinely good starting NBA players. Meanwhile, the Nuggets bench is okay at best.

The overall picture in terms of talent for the Nuggets is not overwhelmingly high. If we are just evaluating rosters, their advantage on other teams (including the Lakers) comes obviously at #1, as well as at #3-5 (with #4 and #5 being particular strengths, IMO, regardless of which Nuggets starters you define as their #4 and #5 guys). Their #2 spot and the bench are relative weaknesses. The overall talent picture is good but not overwhelming.

But, as we know, stacking talent isn’t everything. Some teams just play better together and are better than the sum of their parts. There’s a ton of factors that go into that. There’s coaching, natural style-of-play chemistry between players, familiarity with each other, group confidence and mental game, etc. I think the Nuggets excel in this in general. Most obviously, Gordon and Murray both have fantastic chemistry with Jokic, in a way that really makes those guys substantially more valuable on this team than they’d be somewhere else. Of course, it also helps that a lot of the team has a good bit of experience playing together. Moreover, I think that mentally the team as a whole has a quiet confidence that isn’t over-emotional, which likely stems from the mental makeup of Jokic, Murray, and Malone and filters down to everyone—not to mention the obvious confidence a team gets from having won a title together. This sort of calm confidence is really helpful in key moments. Another chemistry thing that is also in part a mental thing is that I think Jokic’s style of play naturally filters down to the rest of the team and helps the team’s on-court chemistry a lot—with guys making the extra effort to make cuts and extra effort plays, having confidence that the rest of the team (and in particular Jokic) will reward them for it. It’s a lot more likely for guys to play stagnant basketball if they don’t think expending some of their limited energy to do something will actually be rewarded. Another thing about having success as a team and having an MVP-level guy like Jokic is that it makes players more likely to accept their role and to build on it more optimally. For instance, MPJ has IMO improved a good bit on defense, and I think part of that is that he’s accepted what his role is on the team and that he needs to contribute positively on defense—on a different team, I could see MPJ feeling like he needs to be a key offensive option and conserve his energy on defense.

Anyways, there’s a lot of other things as well. The bottom line is that I think there’s not a huge talent gap between the two teams (and to the extent there is, it’s largely just because of Jokic), but Nuggets are better than the sum of their parts. Meanwhile, the Lakers are probably less good than the sum of their parts—at least they certainly were in the regular season IMO, though I think some of that was just trying out weird rotations, which doesn’t necessarily reflect on how good their actual playoff rotation is. That and some luck has resulted in the Nuggets having a huge win streak against the Lakers. It’s not like the Nuggets are just blowing out the Lakers left and right though—the talent is enough to keep the Lakers in it, but just perpetually slightly below.

Players like D'Angelo Russell, Rui Hachimura and Austin Reeves aren't additive players. You don't add him to a roster and the roster gets better. They don't defend at a high level [See Aaron Gordon and KCP], they aren't good off-ball players who attack space well [See Aaron Gordon] and they aren't unbelievable shooters on a consistent basis with difficult shots [See MPJ].

Denver added players around Jokic who have skill-sets which scale up around Jokic and Murray. None of D'lo, Rui or Reeves are really players you look at and can envision being main pieces on a championship cast. They have poor feel for the game and are incredibly inconsistent [See D'lo playoff track-record and Reaves scoring when he isn't living at the FT Line] while being poor defenders [Notably Reeves and D'lo, Rui is at least respectable].

Then you move down the rotation and you see Taurean Prince as the only other serviceable wing, yet he is a spot-minute caliber player, not a 20 MPG, first player off the bench player like the Lakers use him as.

Then, you realize that the Lakers have 4 Point Guard-sized players in their 8-man rotation [Reeves, D'Lo, Dinwiddie and Vincent] and you have to ask yourself who constructed this roster and why did they pick the players they did.

What's frustrating for the LeBron fan's is they could have simply kept KCP, Kuzma and Caruso and they would have significantly more size and wouldn't have had to sacrifice shooting all that much, while also negating Denver's ability to have KCP.

I think these are valid points—and I do think the Lakers probably would be better off having kept the guys you mentioned. But I don’t agree with the downplaying of some of the current Laker players. Like, Austin Reaves absolutely is good enough to be a significant player on a championship team. He’s not a major star obviously, but he’s a genuinely good player. Rui and DLo certainly haven’t been good in this series (and I’m not personally a huge fan of DLo or players like him in general), but they’re absolutely solid players too overall. Would I take MPJ, KCP, and Gordon over Reaves, DLo, and Rui? Yeah, I would. As I said, in terms of roster talent, the Nuggets derive advantages on teams at #1 and at #3-5 (with #1, #4, and #5 being the biggest strengths there). But the Lakers players you’re downplaying are not actually weak players. They are solid players—even if one or two of them have had a disappointing series against the defending champs. I’ll also note that part of MPJ, KCP, and Gordon being better is a product of superior chemistry on their team—Gordon in particular is made way more additive than he’d normally be, due to his great chemistry with Jokic. And part of the Lakers perhaps being less than the sum of their parts is that the guys you mentioned don’t have that kind of great chemistry with the rest of the team. Also, you only briefly mention bench players, but I think it’d be hard to argue that the Lakers don’t have more talent on their bench than the Nuggets do. The Nuggets bench is genuinely thin, and the Lakers bench has talented guys. I think one can make a valid assertion that the Lakers bench skews a bit small, but the Nuggets bench genuinely doesn’t even have a natural PF or C that is remotely serviceable.

In any event, when you talk about the Nuggets having “players around Jokic who have skill-sets which scale up around Jokic,” I think you’re really just getting at the same thing that I was saying. The Nuggets are better than the sum of their parts, and the Lakers are not. I think the credit for this goes in significant part to Jokic—he’s an easy player to fit around and have great chemistry with, I think his calm confidence is contagious, I think guys are incentivized to play the right way around him because they know he’ll find them, and being an MVP-level guy is also just good for having other guys know their role and focus on optimizing it. But obviously there’s more to it than just Jokic. If the roster construction was bad, the Nuggets obviously wouldn’t be as good as they are. And indeed, when the roster construction was a nigh-unprecedented dumpster fire in 2021 and 2022, even peak Jokic couldn’t make the Nuggets more than early-round playoff fodder.

[AEnigma]

Love the complaint about Gordon being undersized when one of the main reasons Jokic has mediocre to bad on/off in the postseason is because Gordon is an extremely effective small-ball centre.

Reaves can start on good teams but if he is by far a team’s third best postseason player, that is a blatant disadvantage and signals a team which will struggle to go anywhere.

[Colbinii]

Jamal Murray is not an all-NBA player. He has played like one in some playoff series, but that’s not what he is overall IMO and that’s *definitely* not what he has played like in this series. Murray is a borderline all-star player (who probably isn’t even playing at that level in this series). Gordon, MPJ, and KCP are of course role players, but they are all genuinely good starting NBA players. Meanwhile, the Nuggets bench is okay at best.

The overall picture in terms of talent for the Nuggets is not overwhelmingly high. If we are just evaluating rosters, their advantage on other teams (including the Lakers) comes obviously at #1, as well as at #3-5 (with #4 and #5 being particular strengths, IMO, regardless of which Nuggets starters you define as their #4 and #5 guys). Their #2 spot and the bench are relative weaknesses. The overall talent picture is good but not overwhelming.

But, as we know, stacking talent isn’t everything. Some teams just play better together and are better than the sum of their parts. There’s a ton of factors that go into that. There’s coaching, natural style-of-play chemistry between players, familiarity with each other, group confidence and mental game, etc. I think the Nuggets excel in this in general. Most obviously, Gordon and Murray both have fantastic chemistry with Jokic, in a way that really makes those guys substantially more valuable on this team than they’d be somewhere else. Of course, it also helps that a lot of the team has a good bit of experience playing together. Moreover, I think that mentally the team as a whole has a quiet confidence that isn’t over-emotional, which likely stems from the mental makeup of Jokic, Murray, and Malone and filters down to everyone—not to mention the obvious confidence a team gets from having won a title together. This sort of calm confidence is really helpful in key moments. Another chemistry thing that is also in part a mental thing is that I think Jokic’s style of play naturally filters down to the rest of the team and helps the team’s on-court chemistry a lot—with guys making the extra effort to make cuts and extra effort plays, having confidence that the rest of the team (and in particular Jokic) will reward them for it. It’s a lot more likely for guys to play stagnant basketball if they don’t think expending some of their limited energy to do something will actually be rewarded. Another thing about having success as a team and having an MVP-level guy like Jokic is that it makes players more likely to accept their role and to build on it more optimally. For instance, MPJ has IMO improved a good bit on defense, and I think part of that is that he’s accepted what his role is on the team and that he needs to contribute positively on defense—on a different team, I could see MPJ feeling like he needs to be a key offensive option and conserve his energy on defense.

Anyways, there’s a lot of other things as well. The bottom line is that I think there’s not a huge talent gap between the two teams (and to the extent there is, it’s largely just because of Jokic), but Nuggets are better than the sum of their parts. Meanwhile, the Lakers are probably less good than the sum of their parts—at least they certainly were in the regular season IMO, though I think some of that was just trying out weird rotations, which doesn’t necessarily reflect on how good their actual playoff rotation is. That and some luck has resulted in the Nuggets having a huge win streak against the Lakers. It’s not like the Nuggets are just blowing out the Lakers left and right though—the talent is enough to keep the Lakers in it, but just perpetually slightly below.

Players like D'Angelo Russell, Rui Hachimura and Austin Reeves aren't additive players. You don't add him to a roster and the roster gets better. They don't defend at a high level [See Aaron Gordon and KCP], they aren't good off-ball players who attack space well [See Aaron Gordon] and they aren't unbelievable shooters on a consistent basis with difficult shots [See MPJ].

Denver added players around Jokic who have skill-sets which scale up around Jokic and Murray. None of D'lo, Rui or Reeves are really players you look at and can envision being main pieces on a championship cast. They have poor feel for the game and are incredibly inconsistent [See D'lo playoff track-record and Reaves scoring when he isn't living at the FT Line] while being poor defenders [Notably Reeves and D'lo, Rui is at least respectable].

Then you move down the rotation and you see Taurean Prince as the only other serviceable wing, yet he is a spot-minute caliber player, not a 20 MPG, first player off the bench player like the Lakers use him as.

Then, you realize that the Lakers have 4 Point Guard-sized players in their 8-man rotation [Reeves, D'Lo, Dinwiddie and Vincent] and you have to ask yourself who constructed this roster and why did they pick the players they did.

What's frustrating for the LeBron fan's is they could have simply kept KCP, Kuzma and Caruso and they would have significantly more size and wouldn't have had to sacrifice shooting all that much, while also negating Denver's ability to have KCP.

I think these are valid points—and I do think the Lakers probably would be better off having kept the guys you mentioned. But I don’t agree with the downplaying of some of the current Laker players. Like, Austin Reaves absolutely is good enough to be a significant player on a championship team. He’s not a major star obviously, but he’s a genuinely good player. Rui and DLo certainly haven’t been good in this series (and I’m not personally a huge fan of DLo or players like him in general), but they’re absolutely solid players too overall. Would I take MPJ, KCP, and Gordon over Reaves, DLo, and Rui? Yeah, I would. As I said, in terms of roster talent, the Nuggets derive advantages on teams at #1 and at #3-5 (with #1, #4, and #5 being the biggest strengths there). But the Lakers players you’re downplaying are not actually weak players. They are solid players—even if one or two of them have had a disappointing series against the defending champs.

I fundamentally disagree here. I do not think D'Angelo Russell is capable of helping a team win in the post-season. He is a career 14/3/5 playoff performer on Sub-50 TS% with 0 defense. The past 3 seasons [not counting 2019] he is at 13% Free Throw Rate in the post-season and he has 0 free throws so far in 3 games against Denver. He has drawn 4 Free Throw Attempts (2 fouls) in 7 games against Denver dating back to last post-season.

You can't, in good faith, say D'Angelo Russell is a "solid" player when his best role is a 6th/7th man on a playoff team and he is asked to be the 3rd option.

As for Austin Reaves being a significant player on a Championship Team? I mean, sure, against as a bench player, not a starter. He can't defend and he can't consistently break down a defense.

Can you expand on what role you think D'Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves ideal settings are in a post-season, championship-caliber team? Because I would have to squint awfully hard to see them as key contributors to title teams of the past decade+.

I’ll also note that part of MPJ, KCP, and Gordon being better is a product of superior chemistry on their team—Gordon in particular is made way more additive than he’d normally be, due to his great chemistry with Jokic. And part of the Lakers perhaps being less than the sum of their parts is that the guys you mentioned don’t have that kind of great chemistry with the rest of the team. Also, you only briefly mention bench players, but I think it’d be hard to argue that the Lakers don’t have more talent on their bench than the Nuggets do. The Nuggets bench is genuinely thin, and the Lakers bench has talented guys. I think one can make a valid assertion that the Lakers bench skews a bit small, but the Nuggets bench genuinely doesn’t even have a natural PF or C that is remotely serviceable.

D-E-F-E-N-S-E.

D'Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves are like Reggie Jackson defensively, except D'Lo and Reaves are both playing 30-35 MPG, in the starting line-up.

You can't win against elite players and elite teams when you have two traffic cones on the court for 30+ Minutes.

Gordon and KCP are all-defensive caliber defender's while MPJ is a very clear positive on that end. Reaves and D'lo are traffic cones on the defensive end.

[lessthanjake]

I guess I just don't understand what parts and what talent are you guys see on this LA roster. Hachimura is like what 50th-60th best forward in the league, Russell is an all time playoff choker and their backup big is Jason Hayes

When we talk about guys who aren’t major stars, I think it’s always going to be very easy to pick guys apart and criticize them as bad (after all, if they didn’t have things to pick at, they’d be major stars!). And people have winners’ bias and losers’ bias, so when a team isn’t doing well, they pick apart the role players, and when the team does well they think about the strengths that made those guys win. For instance, if the shoe were on the other foot, I think one would see a lot of Nuggets fans criticizing MPJ as being a black hole offensively that somehow isn’t a good defender despite his size. That would snowball into criticizing the coach for allowing MPJ to almost never pass the ball, etc. If they were losing, Gordon would probably be being criticized for his lack of shooting ability. Nuggets fans would probably be opining on the fact that the organization let the bench deteriorate compared to last year and has no viable backup big man. Murray would be being criticized for hogging the ball too much and having bad shot selection. Fans of teams that lose often have a favorite player that they don’t want to blame for the loss and so they pick apart the other players on the team or the coach or things about the organization in order to apportion the blame elsewhere. Often those criticisms end up being at least partially valid! After all, if one team is winning, then they very likely do have the better team and there are reasons they are winning. But when you compare rosters using that kind of losers’ bias (and, on the flip side, winners’ bias regarding the other team), then it’s not a great way to dispassionately compare rosters.

[Colbinii]

I guess I just don't understand what parts and what talent are you guys see on this LA roster. Hachimura is like what 50th-60th best forward in the league, Russell is an all time playoff choker and their backup big is Jason Hayes

When we talk about guys who aren’t major stars, I think it’s always going to be very easy to pick guys apart and criticize them as bad (after all, if they didn’t have things to pick at, they’d be major stars!). And people have winners’ bias and losers’ bias, so when a team isn’t doing well, they pick apart the role players, and when the team does well they think about the strengths that made those guys win. For instance, if the shoe were on the other foot, I think one would see a lot of Nuggets fans criticizing MPJ as being a black hole offensively that somehow isn’t a good defender despite his size. That would snowball into criticizing the coach for allowing MPJ to almost never pass the ball, etc. If they were losing, Gordon would probably be being criticized for his lack of shooting ability. Nuggets fans would probably be opining on the fact that the organization let the bench deteriorate compared to last year and has no viable backup big man. Murray would be being criticized for hogging the ball too much and having bad shot selection. Fans of teams that lose often have a favorite player that they don’t want to blame for the loss and so they pick apart the other players on the team or the coach or things about the organization in order to apportion the blame elsewhere. Often those criticisms end up being at least partially valid! After all, if one team is winning, then they very likely do have the better team and there are reasons they are winning. But when you compare rosters using that kind of losers’ bias (and, on the flip side, winners’ bias regarding the other team), then it’s not a great way to dispassionately compare rosters.

The most important part about role players is being able to defend. Gordon, KCP and MPJ have all shown the ability and consistency to defend at high levels in the post-season. Regardless of whether or not their shot is falling, they have value, especially as Gordon can roam around the dunkers spot, but all 3 of these players can play good defense.

That is what a good role player is. The Lakers instead have 4 Point Guards in their line-up and 3 of them are bad defenders.

[Colbinii]

This is such a weird hill to choose to die on. The team with 4 Point Guards in their 8-man playoff rotation with Taurean Prince as the only bench wing is somehow a good enough cast to win a title.

Jesus Christ.

[Djoker]

Surprised no one mentioned it but I think the injury to Vanderbilt has hurt LA to some extent as well. If they had Vando, they wouldn't have to start Rui and would have another defender who is actually better against Jokic and better grabbing rebounds. And then they have a much better bench with Rui playing on the second unit. They also should have at least tried to play Vincent more because he can defend and he might get in rhythm and start knocking down shots and put DLo on the bench and use him as a flamethrower for 25 mpg. DLo is the kind of guy who might be out to prove doubters wrong if he was benched and actually play better. Just a hunch. Anyways Reaves has actually been solid on D on Murray in the first two games in particular so the hate in his direction isn't warranted. He's a solid starter on any good team IMHO. I just like Reaves. He plays with composure, shoots well, gets to the line and is an effort player on D. I think the future is bright for him whether it's in LA or somewhere else.

[Colbinii]

Meanwhile, Murray is somehow a "low end all-star" in the post-season.

Here are his stats from his past 3 post-seasons.

53 Games, 2060 Minutes, 4.7 BPM [4.6 OBPM], 58.7 TS%, 6.3 APG, 2.3 TO, 47/40/91 shooting splits on only 31% 2P FGA Assisted, 51% 3PA Assisted

Meanwhile, here is Steph Curry over his past 3 post-seasons [A very clear All-NBA player]

57 Games, 2103 Minutes, 6.4 BPM [6.1 OBPM], 60.3 TS%, 5.9 APG, 2.9 TO, 45/38/88 shooting splits on only 33% 2P FGA Assisted, 56% 3PA Assisted

[mademan]

Dunno how much it changes in the series (i dont think it stays a sweep), but in retrospect, refusing to include Reaves in a trade for Kyrie was crazy. If you wanna win, you need a higher level talent that can sustain it in the playoffs against strong defenses. Kyrie 2 man game with Jokic in the PnR coudlve been a game changer

[Colbinii]

Surprised no one mentioned it but I think the injury to Vanderbilt has hurt LA to some extent as well. If they had Vando, they wouldn't have to start Rui and would have another defender who is actually better against Jokic and better grabbing rebounds. And then they have a much better bench with Rui playing on the second unit. They also should have at least tried to play Vincent more because he can defend and he might get in rhythm and start knocking down shots and put DLo on the bench and use him as a flamethrower for 25 mpg. DLo is the kind of guy who might be out to prove doubters wrong if he was benched and actually play better. Just a hunch. Anyways Reaves has actually been solid on D on Murray in the first two games in particular so the hate in his direction isn't warranted. He's a solid starter on any good team IMHO. I just like Reaves. He plays with composure, shoots well, gets to the line and is an effort player on D. I think the future is bright for him him whether it's in LA or somewhere else.

Reaves doesn't get to the line well. He had a sub-30% FTR in the regular season and is at 5 FTA in this series. Last year against the Nuggets he was at 29% FTR, which is fine, but not "gets to the line"...unless you want to compare him to D'Angelo Russell, in which case Austin Reaves is Michael Jordan.