Three Goals Lakers Must Accomplish Before End Of Season
By Hannah Kulik
With the season about to resume for the Lakers following the all-star break, the question now is what must the team accomplish during the balance of the season to get a jump-start on next year? It is likely that the roster will look different next season, but still, the Lakers should do whatever is possible to make productive use of the rest of this season. Here are three important goals they should focus on.
1. Determine whether Jordan Clarkson will be the starting point guard next season.
Despite the five championships the team has won since 2000, it has been many years since the Lakers had an elite point guard. In fact, one could argue that Magic Johnson is the only truly great point guard in Laker history. That might have been workable in an earlier time period where the emphasis was on size in the front court, but this is the era of incredible point guards especially in the Western Conference. Players such as Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, Tony Parker, and Ty Lawson have dazzling talent and are leaders who, night after night, inspire their teammates and fans alike.
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If the Lakers are to return to prominence they must find a great point guard at long last. Perhaps Clarkson is that player, but it is far too early to tell. There will be a number of free agent point guards this coming off-season, including Rajon Rando and Goran Dragic. The team will try to sign one of them unless they are convinced Clarkson is the point guard of the future. The Lakers have many needs, so they must determine if Clarkson is their man and if so, it will allow them to focus on other positions which would be great. If we reach the end of the season unsure of Clarkson’s future, it will constitute another enormous failure among many this year.
Byron Scott wasted too much of the season with Clarkson on the bench. The number 1 goal for the rest of the year is to play Clarkson as much as possible so an informed decision can be made this off season whether to pursue a free agent point guard or focus on other positions
2. Determine if Ed Davis should be asked to return.
Most experts agree that Davis has been one of the few bright spots in this otherwise dismal season. Yet, his playing time and position in the rotation have been have been poorly managed. There are nights he only plays sixteen minutes – while Robert Sacre, of all people, plays nearly double that amount of time. For awhile Davis was starting, but most of the time he has come off the bench. Sometimes he plays during crucial moments at the end of the game, but sometimes he barely plays in the fourth quarter at all. Given how he bounces around in the lineup, Davis never knows what teammates will be on the floor with him on a given night which makes it impossible to maintain any sort of consistency.
Because of how he has been mishandled, the Lakers still do not know how good Davis can be. Is he a potential starter? Is he better as a capable reserve? Or is he not good enough to be either on a really good team?
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Goal number 2 for the Lakers during the rest of this season is to play Davis 30 minutes a night to get a true sense of how good he might be. Julius Randle is most likely the power forward of the future, meaning next season. Can Davis be the starting center? The Lakers must find out.
3. Determine if Byron Scott can adjust to basketball in the modern era.
Scott has lived off of his connection to the Showtime Lakers and his early coaching success with the New Jersey Nets. The problem is, that happened a long time ago and Scott’s NBA record since then has been dismal. His stops in New Orleans and Cleveland were entirely forgettable, and his won-loss record as a coach is embarrassing.
Currently, he is the leader of a Lakers team that will have by far its worst record in the history of the franchise. He has largely gotten a pass so far from the team and the media because of his friendship with influential former Lakers and reporters covering the team. At some point, Lakers management will have to come to grips with whether Scott, who is very old-school, can really coach in the modern era.
Scott is a fan of the Princeton offense, which previous coach Mike Brown favored leading to his dismissal. It is highly questionable whether that offense can possibly work in an age where teams are playing smaller line-ups which emphasize speed. When he arrived at Laker camp, Scott famously announced that he did not favor the three-point shot. This was embarrassing, since any student of NBA basketball today knows the team that makes the most three-point shots is usually the team that wins.
Scott has made many mistakes in his half season as the Lakers’ coach. During the balance of the season it will be interesting to see if he has learned from his mistakes and if he is able to create some measure of stability and creativity that can carry over to next season. The Lakers have developed a losing culture over the past few years. Scott must show that he is the kind of leader who can turn the ship around.