The Los Angeles Lakers survived a seven-game road trip and even finished it out with a win over the Charlotte Hornets. The road trip also produced one of the best wins of the entire season for the Lake Show against the Brooklyn Nets.
It has now been 13 games since LeBron James suffered a high ankle sprain and counting the game in which he was hurt, the Lakers are 6-8. The team has slid a bit down the standings, but it could have been much worse.
While there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel with Anthony Davis soon returning and LeBron not far behind him, there are still some issues around the team that could hinder its chances of repeating as NBA Champions.
New Laker Andre Drummond shined a light on perhaps the biggest issue the Los Angeles Lakers are facing. Per Mike Trudell of Spectrum SportsNet:
Andre Drummond on the challenge amidst all these minor injuries: "You can’t expect us to have much (offensive) chemistry when we have a different (starting) five every night … we hang our hat on defense."
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) April 14, 2021
This might seem like an inconsequential thing to say and you have to applaud Drummond for being painfully honest. And while some may look past this because Drummond is new to the team, it should be the biggest thing that Laker fans are worried about in the NBA Playoffs; besides health, of course.
Why Andre Drummond’s comments are telling for the Los Angeles Lakers:
I have to be completely objective here and acknowledge the fact that this exact same thing was my biggest criticism of the Los Angeles Clippers last season. The Clippers have a talented basketball team, but I personally never viewed them as a threat to beat the Lakers in a seven-game playoff series for one reason.
On-court chemistry.
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Because of load management and various other injuries to the Clippers last season, the team rarely had any chance to play together on the court. And even with a long lay-off to rest the stars, the Clippers’ lack of on-court chemistry showed.
Doc Rivers not only didn’t know how to handle the rotation at full strength but the team blew countless leads as their offense would grow stagnant because of the lack of chemistry. Frank Vogel is a better technical coach than Doc Rivers but it is still a concern.
This applies to LeBron James and Anthony Davis too. Those two obviously have chemistry together, but they have not played together with a lot of these role players.
This is not the same team as last year. Three of the team’s five best players were not on the Lakers last season (Dennis Schroder, Montrezl Harrell, Andre Drummond). Three players off the bench (Wesley Matthews, Ben McLemore, Marc Gasol) were not on the team last season either. Talen Horton-Tucker was on the team, but he hardly played.
The Lakers are not going to get much time to get that on-court offensive chemistry. If LeBron James returns in Adrian Wojnarowki’s reported timeframe, then Laker fans will see him at the beginning of May.
That gives him and the Lakers nine games, at most, to get that chemistry going. That is less than ideal.
Does this mean the Lakers cannot figure it out? Absolutely not. But we really start to split hairs in the NBA Playoffs with how good these teams are and if the Lakers cannot figure it out then they could be in trouble.
Andre Drummond saying it out loud only confirms the fact that this could be a problem for the Los Angeles Lakers.