Road wins are hard to come by in the NBA. Last year, 18 teams had a record under .500 on the road. At home, only 11 franchises lost more than they won.
So, with the Lakers embarking on their first extended
time away from Los Angeles, it had to be considered that things could get tough. Even still, this trip has been a dud for the Lakers.
Los Angeles was dominated by Atlanta, and Oklahoma City showed what championship basketball looks like. These results were disappointing and, as head coach JJ Redick admitted, until the team proves otherwise, this is who they are.
So, don’t expect much positivity in this week’s journal, but, as Harvey Dent said in “The Dark Knight,” the night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming.
5 things I liked and didn’t like
1. The Lakers failed to try in Atlanta
LA is labeled as a glamorous and glitzy town. But really, it’s a city of grinders. To survive here, you have to be your best every day.
It’s why Kobe Bryant and his Mamba Mentality mantra are what many Angelino lives by. It’s why his quote, “Job not finished,” is recited by other LA teams and people around town.
It’s also why the easiest way to anger fans of a sports team in Southern California is by not giving a full effort. The Lakers are lucky they played in Atlanta because if they brought that performance to Los Angeles, the boos would’ve been raining down inside Crypto.com Arena.
The Hawks entered the contest not just on the second night of a back-to-back, but also without Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Jalen Johnson, Luke Kennard, Kristaps Porzingis and Trae Young. Instead of taking advantage of the situation, the Lakers turned it into an embarrassing loss.
The only good thing about this kind of defeat is that Redick made it clear he was just as disgusted as anyone with his team’s play in his 90-second postgame press conference.
During an 82-game season, these kinds of losses happen. Unfortunately for the Lakers, they had two of them over the past three games.
2. The Lakers fail test in Oklahoma
If the matchup against the Thunder was a test of how close they are to the champs, then they failed. What made the result disheartening is that it seemed the Lakers once again didn’t give their best effort. Austin Reaves said it best during his postgame media availability.
“Just to be blunt, they beat the s— out of us tonight,” Reaves said.
Sure, it’s just one game and if this were a series, you can be certain the Lakers would compete better and Redick would make adjustments. But it’s also clear there is a gap between these two teams.
This is an inconvenient truth that the Lakers have to deal with. Can players returning and some more reps as a team help close the gap? Probably. Will it be enough for the Lakers to beat the Thunder in the playoffs? Probably not.
“I don’t think it’s been a great road trip for us just in terms of how we’ve played,” Redick said after the Thunder loss. “Second half against Charlotte, I liked everything that I saw, but the Atlanta game and tonight I don’t think are reflective of who the group is going to be, but it clearly is who the group is right now.”
3. LeReturn is imminent
On the bright side, one can’t judge the Lakers until LeBron James is back.
I think it’s important to remind everyone that LeBron is still, at age 40, an All-NBA player and, at worst, the second-best player on this team.
His IQ is off the charts, he’s as strong as an ox, and he can still score at will over any defender.
Sciatica has kept LeBron from making his season debut, but the time is almost here. He practiced with the South Bay Lakers on Wednesday and, if things go well, it won’t be long before he’s back on the court.
Then, we can see just how good the 2025-26 Lakers can be. The Lakers, even with an improved roster, will only go as far as LeBron can take them. He isn’t a luxury, he’s a necessity. May he return as soon as possible.
4. Can anyone on the bench play?
The Lakers can’t get consistent offensive production from their reserves.
Jarred Vanderbilt is a defensive specialist. Jaxson Hayes is dependent on others for production. Jake LaRavia is inconsistent and young players like Bronny James and Dalton Knecht are clearly not yet ready to be rotation players every night.
Against the Thunder, the Lakers found themselves down quickly. They needed a spark off the bench to help get them going. They got next to nothing from anyone.
The Lakers are currently dead last in the NBA in bench scoring, averaging 24.5 points per game.
It isn’t fair nor sustainable to ask the starters to be incredible every night. Something has to change. Either players returning will slot others into more appropriate roles and help improve the bench or Lakers President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka will have to start looking for a trade to add some scoring to the roster.
I can’t promise much, but I can give you the Charles Barkley guarantee that if the Lakers have the worst scoring bench in the NBA, they will not even sniff a Western Conference Finals appearance, much less an NBA title this year.
5. All things considered, it’s not so bad
I like to think I’m a pretty level-headed person. I keep my emotions in check and am rarely too high or too low. If you continue to do good work, I believe things will ultimately work out. This is my motto for life, but it works in sports as well.
The Lakers aren’t usually going to be as bad as they were this week. They also aren’t going to be as good as they were when they won games while shorthanded. They’ll likely end up somewhere in between their best and worst selves. Right now, that has them sitting at 8-4 in the Western Conference.
Contextualizing that record with no LeBron and Luka and Reaves missing four and three games, respectively, and you can see that, all things considered, this has been a good start for Los Angeles.
If they can get healthy and continue building their chemistry, they can improve and be a force come this spring. Fans just need to deal with the growing pains that will have to take place this winter to reach that point.
Stat of the Week
This week’s Stat of the Week highlights LA’s incredible shooting during the early part of this season. The team’s overall field goal percentage of 50.4% places them third in the league, just decimal points away from the Wolves, who are shooting a league-best 50.9% from the field.
It’s been a while since a Lakers team has shot that well during an entire season, the last occurrence coming in the 1988-89 campaign. In fact, only 10 Lakers teams have shot over 50% on the year in franchise history.
LA won the title on five of those occasions, reached the NBA Finals two other times and made the playoffs in the other three seasons.
If the Lakers stay above 50% from the field on the year, they’ll be a historically great shooting team and their odds for a long playoff run will look even brighter.
Player of the Week
The Lakers only had one win this week, and in that game, Hachimura was unbelievable. He scored 21 points, was a perfect 7-7 from the field in the second half and got it done on both sides of the ball.
His jump ball against Hornets rookie Kon Knueppel that led to one of his three 3-pointers was a contender for Play of the Week. It didn’t win that spot, but it’s those kinds of plays that earned Hachimura the Player of the Week.
Play of the Week
Whenever Luka dunks, it will probably be the Play of the Week. Last season, he never did it in a Lakers uniform. This year, it’s happened twice already.
The first one, though, was a dunk by definition only. Luka barely touched the rim, and it was the kind of weak dunk you see Steph Curry do from time to time. In the Lakers’ win over the Hornets, he got some air and flushed it down with authority.
Let’s break down the play.
The possession begins with Luka pushing the ball up the court as Hornets forward Miles Bridges defends him. Deandre Ayton then sets a ball screen for Dončić. Moussa Diabaté shows high off the screen, but gets a bit overzealous, allowing Luka to cross over and get by him. Bridges doesn’t get a chance to help and recover as his teammate, Tre Mann, pushes LaRavia into him.
The Hornets’ weakside help was KJ Simpson, but despite being in a position to contest, he made a business decision. As a result, no one ever interrupted Luka’s path and he was able to slam it home.
Luka is a player who always plays with raw emotion. He’ll yell at referees, banter with opposing fans and have some fun with his teammates.
It was good to see him hanging on the rim and celebrating a rare jam, which Redick noticed and liked.
There likely won’t be many Luka dunks this year, but each time it happens, it’ll be a pleasant surprise.
Stories of the week
“Top 25 NBA players of the 21st century: Where do LeBron, Kobe and Steph rank?” – The Athletic
I typically hate lists. They don’t solve anything, people complain until they are blue in the face and, in the end, nothing gets resolved.
However, there are exceptions to the rule and this list intrigues me. It’s a scary thought to me that we’re already deep enough into the 2000s that an article on the best NBA players of this century is a fair one to make.
This piece by The Athletic staff is short and sweet and it’s fun to get a hit of nostalgia for days we still vividly remember. Is Allen Iverson too low at No. 17? Should Nikola Jokić be ahead of Shaquille O’Neal? Is LeBron the best player of the 2000s? Embrace debate.
No one established their dominance quite like Kobe Bryant.
It was a zig-zag of exhilaration and frustration. Bryant believed in his ability to will the Lakers to victory and was stubborn about it. That was great at times. There were others when you pleaded with him to pass the ball. But on June 17, 2010, there was no denying Bryant’s legacy.
He stood on the scorer’s table, arms outstretched and the basketball in his left hand. He’d secured his fifth championship and vanquished the Lakers’ longstanding rival, the Boston Celtics, to do so. Bryant shot a miserable 6 of 24, but grabbed 15 rebounds and had four assists and willed the Lakers from 13 points down in the third quarter for the win.
“Why the Mavs fired Nico Harrison and what’s next in Dallas” – ESPN
The Mavs did the inevitable and fired their general manager, Nico Harrison. We all know why they did it, but Tim MacMahon breaks down how we got here and just how bad things were inside the American Airlines Center in a way only a professional who has his boots on the ground can.
What’s the vibe inside the locker room?
The atmosphere at the American Airlines Center has been so miserable that the Mavs considered home court to be a disadvantage.
“These people don’t want us to win,” one player bemoaned, according to a team source.
The Mavs’ home-heavy schedule has only made maintaining decent morale more difficult. Dallas is 2-5 on its home floor, and while there hasn’t been any bickering between players, maintaining decent morale has been difficult as the losses have mounted.
Now, with Harrison gone, the ‘Fire Nico” chants can be put to rest. Something tells me, though, that the “Thank you, Nico” chants will persist here in Los Angeles for quite some time.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
