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Lakers 2015-16 Season: Week Four Reaction GIF Report Card

By Cody Williams

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The Lakers’ reaction GIF report card for week four of the 2015-16 season 

The Los Angeles Lakers have wrapped up their fourth week of the 2015-16 NBA season and, well, it’s been more of the same for this team. Each of their three games of the week all resulted in double-digit losses. The Lakers now sit at 2-11 on the season with the problems that have been there all season still persisting.

It’s no secret at this point that fans aren’t looking at a good basketball team. There may have been some hope of that being the case coming into the season, but those have been dismissed through the first 13 games of this season. Now, the name of the game is continuing to build and develop the infrastructure of this team going forward.

Subsequently, it’s important to gauge the progress of this type of team often. Call it a progress report or a report card. In that light, we’ll be taking a look at the Lakers on a weekly basis and looking at how things are progressing, developing, and generally going for this team.

Rather than just breaking down how all of these things are going, though, why not use something that everyone uses to express emotions or feelings on the Internet anyway: reaction GIFs. After all, for a team like the Lakers, mere words don’t always do them justice.

After the fourth week of the Laker’s season, here is the Reaction GIF Report Card.

Perimeter Defense:

Arguably the biggest issue with the Lakers this season has been their defense on the perimeter and that remained true this week. There are a billion stats that can talk about the defensive lineups and the efficiency of certain units for the Lakers. However, it’s quite exemplify to talk about how frustratingly terrible this teams was at defending on the perimeter: simply look at the production of opposing guards.

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On Monday against the Phoenix Suns, Brandon Knight dropped a triple-double with 30 points, 15 assists, and 10 boards while Eric Bledsoe added 21 points on 8-16 shooting. In Friday’s loss to the Toronto Raptors, Kyle Lowry finished with 25 points on 7-11 three-point shooting. Portland got in on the fun on Sunday night with Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum combining for 49 points, 18 assists, and 10 rebounds on 20-38 shooting from the floor.

Whether it’s closing out on kick-outs to the perimeter or simply containing when an opposing guard is attacking off the dribble, the Lakers backcourt is continuously getting torched. That’s not going to magically go away, but it’s something that needs major improvement going forward.

Kobe’s Shooting:

Even before reports came out of Los Angeles that Kobe Bryant’s inefficient, high-volume shooing and Byron Scott not calling him out for it was causing a problem in the Lakers locker room, Kobe’s shooting was an issue. He didn’t play in Monday’s game against the Suns, but in the two games he was active for, Bryant shot just 11-35 from the field. That’s just remarkably bad.

What’s worse is that level of inefficiency is in-line with his eight previous games that he’s played where he shot 33.6 percent on 16.4 attempts per game. Not only does that type of offense not lead to wins, but it also hinders the ultimate goal of bringing along the younger players like D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson, and Julius Randle.

Kobe’s Future:

Even with Bryant’s struggles this season, that doesn’t make his comments about his future any less staggering and saddening. Kobe said this past week that if things don’t change for him and the team, then this will be it for him in the NBA. He’s made similar comments before, but there’s finality in that kind of ultimatum.

Judging by how he’s playing and how it’s affecting the Lakers, it may very well be time to hang it up in terms of preserving his legacy. That being said, with what he’s given to this team and the league as a whole over his career, it’s going to be hard to watch Kobe go.

Lack of Ball Movement:

In terms of less speculative things and more things that are immediately going on in Los Angeles, the ball-movement—or lack thereof—is continuingly staggering. The Lakers currently are the fourth-worst team in the league in regards to assists per game, but even that doesn’t tell the whole story of how bad they’ve been moving the ball.

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Through 13 games, 32.3 percent of the Lakers’ shot attempts are pull-up jumpers, the highest rate in the league. Even a team such as the Golden State Warriors who are known for pulling up and knocking down threes in transition only shoot pull-up jumpers 25.1 percent of the time. Moreover, the Lakers rank 21st in the league in terms of percentage of shot attempts coming as catch-and-shoot jumpers.

All of this paints a picture of this team working far too much in isolation. They have to stop with players trying to get their own looks and start creating looks for one another by moving the rock. Not only will that help them immediately in terms of having a greater chance of success, but Russell, Clarkson, and the rest of the Lakers’ core will benefit in the long-run as well.

D’Angelo Russell:

Rookie point guard D’Angelo Russell is starting to become a bit of an enigma. It’s been great to see his workload increase, but that’s only made his performance exceedingly more confusing in frustrating. One game he looks like a potential star and the next he looks like a run-of-the-mill point guard.

Even more than his inconsistent performance and levels of aggressiveness is the fact that little stories keep popping up painting Russell as almost like a problem in the locker room. Whether these stories have merit or not, the fact that they’re leaking out only adds to the confusion regarding the No. 2-overall pick.

Jordan Clarkson and Julius Randle:

Anyone who has ever seen a basketball game could tell you that the Lakers’ best offensive options this past week have been Clarkson and Randle. The young guard-forward duo has been aggressive every time their on the floor and have even shown signs of working well together at times, despite Clarkson’s developing reputation as a pure scorer.

The key for the Lakers regarding Clarkson and Randle is to keep fostering their development in Los Angeles. It’s clear that they are both immensely talented, but they also have room for growth to further increase the ceiling of the franchise in the future. How the Lakers cultivate these guys who have been the bright spots in a dismal start will be interesting to see, especially with some of the decisions Byron Scott has made already this year.

Summary After Week Four:

What can Lakers fans do at this point besides sigh and just hope that things will improve. As of right now, only the Philadelphia 76ers have a worse record than the Lakers. While that could mean that Los Angeles gets to keep their top-three protected pick owed to the Suns, it’s still difficult to imagine 69 more games looking like the first 13 have. That’s the reality of the situation, though, so fans just have to take a deep breath and buckle in.

Outlook for Week Five:

Speaking of buckling in, Thanksgiving week has the potential to be absolutely brutal for the Lakers. Los Angeles has a road-home back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday against a Trail Blazers team they just loss to and a feisty Pacers team that has been rolling behind Paul George. Oh yeah, that all comes after a trip to ORACLE to take on the 15-0 Warriors.

Most weeks are going to be rough for a rebuilding Lakers team, but this next one could possibly result in just nothing but carnage after the upcoming trip to Golden State. Be scared, be prepared.

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