4. The Lakers were a solid defensive team in 2017-18
Whether bell bottoms, Members Only jackets, Doc Martens or LiveStrong bracelets have been the “in” thing, defense has always been the key to winning championships. Especially if you want to be a fast break team, as Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka have stated this offseason. As the old basketball saying goes, you can’t run if you don’t have the ball.
From the 2013-14 season through the 2016-17 season, the Lakers were no better than 28th in defense efficiency. But with head coach Luke Walton and his staff preaching defense and hard work, they made a huge jump to 12th in defensive efficiency this past season. It’s pretty fair to say that by now, defense has been ingrained into the Lakers’ burgeoning culture.
On the current roster, Ball, Ingram, Stephenson, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Hart, Rondo and McGee all at least have the potential to be good defensive players this upcoming season. Improving on their paltry 23rd ranking in offensive efficiency should also help by virtue of cutting down on their opponents’ transition opportunities and allowing the Lakers to get back on D more often.
The main question mark, however, seems to be how the Lakers will deal with defending widebody centers like Karl-Anthony Towns, Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, Nikola Jokic, Rudy Gobert and Jusuf Nurkic. These bigs and their teams can force the Lakers to play a slow-down, grind-it-out game that’s dependent on getting lots of defensive rebounds, interior defense, drawing fouls and hitting free throws.
History has shown that going from good to elite on the defensive end can take a team from pretenders to contenders. The Warriors were 14th in defensive efficiency during the 2012-13 season when they won 47 games and lost to the Spurs in the second round of the playoffs. Two seasons later, they improved to first in defensive efficiency en route to their first world championship since the Rocky Horror Picture Show was released in theaters.
If the purple and gold finish in the top six or seven in defensive efficiency during the 2018-19 season, it could single-handedly boost their record and their chances of a deep playoff run.