Are The Los Angeles Lakers Behind The Times?
Poking fun at the Los Angeles Lakers has become something of a hobby in recent years. The jokes write themselves. Kids trying to step out of Daddy’s shadow, an overpaid and aging superstar, and a coach so laughably bad his press conferences might replace late night “Friends” reruns. Sure, the Lakers current situation is thanks in part to innumerable variables, but one thing rings undeniably true.
The Los Angeles Lakers have become a walking and talking exemplification of the appeal to tradition fallacy.
Look, the Lakers are far and away the model of success in the NBA. That prestige has been earned over decades of uninterrupted relevancy and a history of championships won in strings. They accomplished all that, however, in a different era. Sure, the Lakers helped build the league into the TV monster it currently is, but as a whole, it’s hard not to feel like the NBA has passed up this franchise.
Can the Lakers catch and/or keep up?
We already heard from ESPN’s Baxter Holmes about the analytics closet department. Mitch Kupchak credited Pat Riley and Bill Bertka for inventing the plus/minus stat decades ago. Mitch, if that’s the Lakers leading the charge in analytics, you’re in trouble. Riley has since left the franchise and led the Miami Heat to three titles. Bertka is still with the Lakers, but is 87 years old. Not exactly an up-and-coming superstar in the ranks, there.
Mitch, if that’s the Lakers leading the charge in analytics, you’re in trouble.
Does such mathematical ineptitude extend to other areas of the organization? Probably, would be my guess.
I sat down with Stephen Kurtz, CEO of MuscleSound, LLC about his company and any conversations he’s had with the Lakers about his product, which specializes in using ultrasound to measure glycogen levels to ensure proper nutrition in muscles; preventing soft-tissue injuries like tears, strains and pulls. The company sounded incredible, and other teams and players from various leagues (including the NBA) have already begun using the product. I asked if he’d had any conversations with the Lakers.
“We’ve spoken, but the talks didn’t go anywhere. They didn’t sound very interested,” he said.
Shocker.
Lakers players combined to miss 320 games last season due to injury. Their salaries for those games added up to more than $44 million, which easily led the league. No other team was in the $30 million range. There are other factors there (Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant missing time while getting supremely overpaid, for example) but one would think that after essentially lighting that much money on fire, the organization would invest more heavily in potential solutions for this problem.
More from Lakers News
- Darvin Ham adds to Max Christie hype train after Lakers preseason opener
- Is LeBron James playing tonight? Latest Lakers vs Warriors update
- Can Darvin Ham put all of the Lakers puzzle pieces together?
- Lakers news: Darvin Ham knows his fifth starter, LeBron James and Rui Hachimura, Jalen Hood-Schifino praise
- Michael Malone’s painfully ironic comment has Lakers fans heated
But that would be too smart, wouldn’t it? This season, Lakers players are again on track to miss more games combined than any other team. I asked Kurtz what type of investment teams would have to make for everything MuscleSound has to offer. “It comes out to roughly a couple hundred dollars per player, per month.”
So, wait, one of the most profitable organizations in all of sports isn’t willing to spend that amount of what equates to petty cash if it might mean not burning more than 1,000 times that investment on injuries? By no means am I proclaiming that doing so would completely prevent such catastrophic losses, but could it cut it in half? If it did literally anything to help isn’t it worth looking into? We always hear about the Phoenix Suns’ training staff and how it extended careers. In my adult life, I have never heard that said about Gary Vitti and his team of trainers. Yet Robert Sarver, owner of the Suns is called cheap.
In terms of personnel moves, Kupchak deserves his share of the blame. On the positive side, he somehow turned Kwame Brown and Andrew Bynum – neither of whom are in the league anymore – into Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard. He then lost both centers to free agency, netting nothing in return.
This season, in the midst of a complete rebuild, Kupchak had pieces who could have been worth at least a couple second round draft picks. I’ll admit that Jordan Hill, Ed Davis, Wayne Ellington and Jeremy Lin are the type players GMs would find in a TJ Maxx. None of whom are the type of player that turns a team around. But, I’ll never be convinced none of those guys could’ve helped a contender.
Again, though, that’s just not how the Lakers do things. Sam Hinkie runs the Philadelphia 76ers like a hedge fund. He’s done everything in his power to strip the team of any and all assets for full flexibility in case a superstar becomes available. Mitch trading any of the aforementioned players would be a foray into Hinkie Town that the Lakers aren’t comfortable making; but it’s also the right thing to do, given current circumstance.
To Mitch’s credit, he’s managed to find great value at the tail end of the draft. Jordan Clarkson has looked as solid as any rookie this year and Ryan Kelly had shown flashes whenever used as a power forward, his more natural position. That should drive fans even more crazy, as moving Hill, Davis, Ellington or Lin would give Kupchak more opportunities to do what he’s seemingly best at: judging NBA talent late in the draft.
More from Lake Show Life
- Darvin Ham adds to Max Christie hype train after Lakers preseason opener
- Is LeBron James playing tonight? Latest Lakers vs Warriors update
- Can Darvin Ham put all of the Lakers puzzle pieces together?
- Lakers news: Darvin Ham knows his fifth starter, LeBron James and Rui Hachimura, Jalen Hood-Schifino praise
- Michael Malone’s painfully ironic comment has Lakers fans heated
Can the Lakers build around the Kelly, Clarkson combination? No. But they’re young pieces who could develop into decent assets on great contracts, which makes rebuilding all the easier.
No, the Lakers will continue on this theme of, “we’ve done it this way before, we can do it again.” Sure, Byron Scott won titles as a Laker; that totally means he’ll do so as the Lakers coach. Yeah, Kobe Bryant is one of the greatest and most fascinating players ever to set foot on an NBA court. Yup, the Lakers have made it this far without those newfangled statistics. Why change anything at all?
The NBA is as deep in terms of average quality of player as it’s ever been. It’s also never been nearly as smart from top to bottom as it is in 2015. Teams won’t make the types of trades that Laker fans have come to expect, expecting that Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant and other superstars will just end up in purple and gold. The Lakers have to adjust.
Instead, Byron might be one of the worst coaches I’ve ever watched, Kobe only has one available foot to step onto NBA courts with, and teams utilizing analytics are running circles around those that don’t; that would be you Los Angeles Lakers. Ladies and gentlemen, these are your 2015 Los Angeles Lakers, and if things don’t change quickly, 2016 could be more of the same.