The Good
The continued development of Marvin Bagley has been a bright spot. Bagley once again played in and started all 82 games and led the team in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots. The Lakers really need to become relevant soon if they are hoping to retain Bagley long term.
There were a couple of interesting surprises with our rookies also. The Lakers drafted sharpshooter Dikembe Dixson with 25th pick and the rookie played in 71 games starting 35. While his numbers were not highly impressive, we were pleased with his developing perimeter game (38% from three) and he brought something unusual to the shooting guard spot - an ability to block shots. He averaged 1.2 blocks per game looks to develop this skill further in his second year.
2nd rounder Cameron Oliver has been another pleasant surprise. Its tough for second rounders to get consistent playing time in CSL but Oliver averaged over 25 minutes a game in 77 games and 26 starts. While not a great defender, his ability to make plays from small forward spot has been huge for the Lakers as he averaged over 3 assists per game along with 9 points and 4 boards on 43% shooting. Not too bad and we are looking for him to take on a larger role during his second season.
The Bad
Losing never feels great and the Lakers clearly under-achieved last year. We are hoping to take a step forward with a unch of youngsters coming back and a couple of new players expected to be added via draft. It is unknown if the Lakers are planning to make moves in FA or trade.
The draft lottery was a disaster as usually for the Lakers. with 2 picks heading into the lottery, the worst possible outcome happened where both picks dropped. The Lakers are due to pick 5th and 8th and will try to make the most of these. Not much else to say here.
We were also struggling to incorporate D'Angelo Russel into our offense and that may mean he will be shipped out of LA sometime during this offseason. Russel was a liability on both ends and shot below 40% on high volume of shots. Eventually we had to bench him in favor of Dixson which allowed the rookie to develop but also gave Russel and opportunity to establish as a Kevin Martin type of a scorer off the bench. Jury is still out on whether Russel failed or succeeded. If he is still on the Lakers roster at the start of next season, we expect him to come off the bench, at least initially.
The Future
We are hoping to get 2 quality starters in the draft. Perhaps at least one will be able to step in a become a solid contributor as early as next season. We have some solid players coming back next year and, with a strategy tweak or two, we should be able to improve. Playoffs is not something we are thinking about at the moment but next step is to get to 30 or more wins which should be achievable.
