Simply looking at the Lakers 11-2 record tells you they’ve been playing really well to start the season. Irrespective of the competition, you simply don’t win at this rate — including seven games in a row after Wednesday’s victory in Milwaukee — without doing way more things right than wrong.
That said, one of the benefits of watching a team on a day-to-day basis is that you gain perspective on what you’re watching, are better able to contextualize the results and can speak to the differences between,
say, an 11-point win against the Bucks vs. a 10-point win against the Hawks against a six-point win over the Raptors.
The details from any one of those games matter and help provide the arc and narrative of where the team has been and, maybe more importantly, where they could be going. You can also find the themes that help you, even this early in the year, establish what the team actually is.
For example, the numbers tell you the Lakers are the best offense in the league and that Luka Dončić is on the sort of start to the season that forgest MVP campaigns. These things are related and are easily the top data point for why the Lakers have the record that they do.
Again, though, watching this team every day gives you access to more than what a visit to the NBA Stats page or Cleaning the Glass would tell you about the team. Those tools help contextualize what you watch, but they cannot replace what you observe with your own eyes. They also cannot prove the nuance of and aforementioned details that go into the progression — or in some cases, regression — that comprises the march through what is a marathon of an 82-game campaign.
Which leads me back to why I’m here in the first place.
While the Lakers are 11-2, I’d argue they are just now starting to find their way of what they are and who they can as a team. Because their record is what it is, I think it would be easy to conflate their success with them hitting the ground running, but that would be a mistake. It’s not that the team isn’t playing well — of course they are, look at their record! — but it’s more that the version of well they’re playing is just now beginning to become more well-rounded.
For example, when the Lakers’ winning streak started seven games ago, Luka was in full destroyer of worlds mode, scoring 45, 42, 40, and 53 points in consecutive games. If we’re being honest, the Lakers wouldn’t have needed much beyond Luka playing to that level for them to win, but they were still getting complementary performances from Austin Reaves and Walker Kessler — both of whom scored in double digits in all those games too — as well as other role players stepping up on any given night.
Over the last three games, however, things have started to diversify more, with Luka and Austin taking turns sitting out in the Sunday and Monday back-to-back games in Detroit and Atlanta. Add in Quentin Grimes missing the contests against the Hawks and Bucks, and the rotation has been stress-tested with different players needing to absorb usage while stepping into larger roles.
And, with those opportunities for others to step up, we have seen the Lakers begin to better establish the team they can actually become rather than simply rely on Luka going nuclear while fueling the NBA’s best offense.
Sandro Mamukelashvili’s uptick in production the past two games is a perfect example of this. Mamu was not necessarily playing poorly before these past two games against the Hawks and Bucks, but he was most helping the team by being a connective passer whose ability to drive and attack closeouts was helping grease the wheels of the team’s offense.
Against the Hawks and the Bucks, however, Mamu showed an uptick in offensive aggression, looking for his own shot more often and paying off those attempts with made baskets. After scoring a total of 16 points in wins over the Kings, Blazers, and Pistons, Mamu erupted for 23 points in both Atlanta and Milwaukee, bested by only Luka on both nights.
Following the win in Milwaukee, Mamu spoke about playing with more confidence and how it’s taken time to grow into believing in himself to the same degree the coaches and organization have believed in him by signing and putting him into the role he’s occupied.
Beyond Mamu, we’ve also seen a better play from Collin Sexton, both individually and in reestablishing his connection and chemistry with Walker Kessler. After missing all of training camp, Sexton has been up and down to begin the year, but the recent uptick in touches and playing as the lone lead guard on the court with Luka and Austin both missing games has not only given him more chances to lead the team’s offensive attack, but his placement into more units where he’s gotten to play with his former Jazz teammate, Kessler, has given him a familiar partner who he clearly has a feel for playing with.
In the last three games, the 42 minutes Sexton has played with Kessler is the most he’s been paired with any teammate. While their plus-minus together is only plus-six in those minutes, when you consider Sexton’s season-long plus-minus is a -22, this recent trend upwards is a huge shift from how his year began.
Much of this is fueled by them flashing an understanding of how to play off of each other, with Sexton seeking out and feeding Kessler for easy baskets on one end of the court and Kessler helping to insulate Sexton defensively by patrolling the paint and protecting the back line on the other.
When you add in that on any given night the team is also getting strong performances from Ziaire Williams offensively, well-rounded floor games from Jake LaRavia, defensive playmaking and shot making from Matisse Thybulle, hard-nosed defense and rebounding from Jarred Vanderbilt and mostly mistake-free minutes boosted by elite athleticism from Adou Thiero, the Lakers are looking more and more like a full team that is complementing each other instead of a one- or two-man show of Luka and Reaves that just so happens to be supported by a mostly anonymous group of role players.
To what degree the Lakers’ record can keep up with their great start remains to be seen. I absolutely do not think nor believe they’ll maintain an .800+ winning percentage all season. But that’s sort of the point here.
The Lakers may not ultimately be as good as their record through 13 games, but they’ve also been winning without playing nearly their best basketball. They’ve only very recently started to resemble a group that understands how to play together and what to do in the various scenarios different opponents offer with their specific game plans tailored to their own personnel.
And that, in and of itself, is exciting.
You can follow Darius on BlueSky at @forumbluegold and find more of his Lakers coverage on the Laker Film Room Podcast.
