Los Angeles Lakers: 3 lessons from victory over Memphis Grizzlies

Lake Show Life has some advice for Frank Vogel. What you see between LeBron James and Alex Caruso is real, Rondo needs some DNP-CDs! 

This is no longer about Alex Caruso being a crowd favorite or a sideshow. This is no longer a feel-good story for the Los Angeles Lakers and the NBA to sell to the casual fan.

He is better than Rajon Rondo at this point in time. That’s it. That’s the truth. It seems that Frank Vogel is slowly coming to that realization too.

The +23 you see in the tweet above is a plus/minus analytics stat. At the time it is overused and manipulated. But as long as the playing time between Alex Caruso and Rajon Rondo drives some Lakers fans to punch their TV sets, even Lake Show Life will use it to make this championship-deciding point.

Plus/minus is almost never used in these post-game reports, so let’s first define it then use it to compare how the level of play between Rondo and Caruso is almost ridiculous at this point.

Here’s the definition:

Plus/Minus reflects how the team did while that player is on the court. If a player has a +5 PM, it means his team outscored the opponent by 5 points while he was on the court. If he has a -3, then the opposing team outscored his team by 3 points while he was on the court.

• Alex Caruso was a +23 in 23 minutes of play. This means the Lakers outscored Memphis by an absurd 23 points with the CaruShow on the floor.
• Rajon Rondo finished a -7 in 16 minutes. Meaning the Lakers were outscored by seven points with him on the floor.

Now let’s take a look at the box scores.

• Rondo registered five points, five assists and two rebounds.
• Caruso had nine points, four rebounds and an assist.

Here’s why the similar stats don’t matter.

Rajon Rondo is a turnstile on defense. He can’t guard a soul. Sorry. This game has passed him by. Alley-oops to the stars are not enough anymore.

Now, did Caruso get more minutes than Rondo in this game? Sure. But it has to go further. Frank Vogel and the coaching staff now have to figure out combinations of backcourt pairings featuring Caruso.

To prepare for the playoffs, Caruso needs to be paired with the other guards, Danny Green, Avery Bradley or (especially) Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. If Rajon is the basketball savant everyone claims, allow Rondo the option to help the assistant coaches.

Also, Lake Show Life believes Quinn Cook needs a look. Cook played with the Warriors during their dynasty. Did the man forget how to play NBA ball in six months?

Finally, the game that was canceled between the Los Angeles Clippers was rescheduled for April 9th.

If you can take three days off for a possible Western Conference Final, now is the time to get the vacation requests in. The Staples Center residents play three days in a row April 7th, 8th, and 9th.