The Lakers’ best next move? Don’t Panic – Orange County Register

I woke up Tuesday morning to the sound of sirens blaring, alarms going off all over the city. Panic in the streets.

Armageddon?

No, a Lakers exit in the first round of the playoffs.

Nearly everyone raised arms after the Denver Nuggets excused the Lakers 4-1 Monday in a gentleman’s sweep that was as competitive as one could imagine. I hear you all arguing about who should go! The coach! His boss! His staff! The players! Which players? All except the stars! The stars?! Be serious.

Breathe deeply, LA Exhale. I know the spotlights are hot here, but that’s why we have air conditioning. Relax, everyone. Seek some shade, park it under a tree for a second.

Look, none of the pundits on your group chat, on your TV or at your local grocery store expect the Lakers, when they finish so far from the finish line, to pull this all together.

But hopefully they don’t overreact.

Let them take the lesson of living and learning offered by their previous first-round elimination — in 2021, after bowing out against the NBA Finals-bound Phoenix Suns in a series the Lakers led 2 -1 when Anthony Davis suffered a groin injury – and remember what that taught them: don’t panic.

You should hope they made a note of themselves: Next time, don’t trade Kentavious Caldwell Pope and Kyle Kuzma and let Alex Caruso leave to accommodate the addition of Third Star™ Russell Westbrook.

We don’t all agree on much here, but on this point we can agree: this decision resulted in a far worse fate than losing a fight to the reigning champions in the first round.

The Lakers should know: Reliable depth > Donovan Mitchell.

They should take the time to think and think: treat the whole patient, or go top heavy with Trae Young?

Handyman or torch? Move the baserunner (e.g., get a role player to rebound or, if Jarred Vanderbilt were to be out, one to defend on the wing, as they should have done at the trade deadline)? Or forever go down for the proverbial fences, no joy in Mudville?

The Lakers lost Game 5 on the glass.

2 crucial missed rebounds turned straight into Nuggets 3pters late. pic.twitter.com/FBQtCxfUVo

– Lakers Legacy (@LakersLegacyPod) April 30, 2024

You should hope that your Lakers take a long look at the current NBA landscape — more open than it has been in a long time — and see that the trend is not toward Super Teams, but toward Super Teams. teams. That the most successful teams have stars And players who are stars in their role, puzzle pieces that fit, lineups that click.

Players who, ideally, know each other, who trust each other enough and love each other enough to overcome adversity and emerge from it. And grow, and continue to grow.

Like the Nuggets did. Like the eighth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves a year ago, they shrugged off suggestions that their seven-foot tandem couldn’t work and now look like genuine title contenders, a team (around Anthony Edwards) with real teeth.

Just like the young, top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, a team growing together. Or, of course, the Boston Celtics, who have invested heavily – an essential requirement – ​​to keep their core together.

The Clippers — tied 2-2 with the Dallas Mavericks in their first-round series — aren’t out of this deal yet because they had so much depth that they could give up much of it in a trade for James Harden all retaining Terance. Mann and Norman Powell. This is what allows them to feel like they can get through this now, even without Kawhi Leonard injured.

Do you know who is excluded? The Suns. The team that emptied its cupboard in order to add a brilliant third option in $43 million man Bradley Beal and collapsed with barely a whimper in the first round, getting swept without care by Edwards and these Timberwolves.

You should hope the Lakers don’t do what head coach Darvin Ham did when he panicked over Austin Reaves’ early struggles and sent him to the bench, sitting him next to D ‘Angelo Russell and Rui Hachimura for too much of the season. Abandon plan A because the pressure to perform in this city is very high. What did he say to ESPN? “If you’re coaching a team and one of your starters is 10 games in a row, just (shitting) the bed, what are you going to do?”

But Ham eventually returned around the Lakers’ optimal lineup, and together the five of LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Reaves, Russell and Hachimura, once he was finally reinserted as a starter, scored 19-6.

What if it wasn’t Los Angeles, what if it were other places in the NBA where the microscope isn’t so finely tuned and the expectations aren’t so sky-high, what if this bus wasn’t driven by a superstar of 39 years old to the royal requirements. and naturally less patience as he gets older, you may actually be able to view this season’s W’s and L’s as wisdom and lessons.