₦airaland Forum

This one go just dey Nairaland 247 dey bad belle Lakers and LeBron. No go find work.

Just when LeBron is about to break the scoring record, people are bringing up the notion that it's easier to score in this era This insecurity dey pepper my eye. Una go dey alright las las

The way the Suns without Booker went to the Garden and made easy work of the Celtics though

birdman:
Man, they made that game vs Pacers look like a playoffs game. Down to the wire. How many of these type of heartbeat games can a lakers fan take

On the other hand, you gotta love Pat Bev that guy makes any team interesting, and he is looking comfortable on the lakers right now. The guy is a perfect mix of ugliness and confidence

Every game is a nail biter. Looks like it will be that way until the tail end of the season

Pat Bev, I like him, but he almost cost us that game with the missed FTs

Insecurity everywhere

All that showboating by Halliburton for nothing Tragic

Lakers and their drama sha, kai

Passed Mark Jackson & Steve Nash for #4 on the all time assist list.

ESPN: pic.twitter.com/R6HQJgqE4I

— 4 4 4 (@SlimSleepr) February 1, 2023

Hahaha, ESPN tripping. At this point it's hard not to believe there's an organised agenda to demarket LeBron both by the media and the league They didn't bargain for this level of GOATness

birdman:
The stats say the opposite actually. Lakers have gotten more favorable calls than bad.

Which stats? Show me the stats abeg

birdman:
Ill say it again, the easiest way to know if you are a bad team is if ref calls is being blamed for win/loss.

Who said we're a good team? We're a bad team that needs all the break we can get. But most importantly, this team has the potential to be better than it is now. Don’t forget we were missing AD for 5 weeks. That's almost half the season.

birdman:
This is not a good sign for the Lakers. If refs are having that much effect on you, it means you are playing in a way that is allowing those calls to change your win to a loss. This is the definition of a bad team. There was home cooking for celtics in that game, but hey, you still lost in OT. Time to stop whining and buckle up! All that emotional energy Lebron spent whining cost Lakers in OT. Whining and winners dont go together. My $2.

That reaction in the Celtics game was a culmination of all the bad calls he and the Lakers have had this year. This team is not really a great team, and when you add the injuries it's even worse. Despite all that, we've been able to go toe to toe against the best teams in the league only to get undone by the refs. We need these wins for belief and motivation, and of course to improve our record. Like LeBron said after the game, there's no margin for errors at this point. The refs almost cost us yesterday again against a good Knicks team when they called goaltending on a clean block by Hachimura, which was overturned after review. If you've noticed, these close games that are marred by bad decisions have come against title contenders or at least playoff contenders. Philly, Mavs, Celtics, Kings. Recently the Lakers have been beating the teams they're supposed to beat.

I'm happy LeBron reacted that way that day sha, at least the league and everyone is now aware of what is going one. How that affects them going forward is still to be seen.

NBA refs looking for ways to screw the Lakers.

Last 2 minutes report vs Celtics, Sixers, Kings and Mavs. All in the month of January. All games lost due to bad refereeing. The Lakers should be over .500 by now.

I've never seen a more blatant attempt at force feeding a team a win in my life. I wonder what LeBron and the Lakers did to the NBA sha, because this is not the first nor second nor third late game decision that has cost us a win. We go dey alright las las

How they switched from "this Lakers team is trash" to "this Lakers squad is complete" real quick though. It can only be agenda

Embiid cooking white boy

steady986:

Yet again

What a comeback. What a bleeping comeback. After having what might go down as one of the worst quarters of basketball in the 2nd. Monster games from Bryant and Schroder as well as LeBron.

And Patrick Beverley. Every team needs a Pat Bev

Even at 38. #LeBronNeedsHelp

Lol. A typical example of the saying "he's your favourite player's favourite player" Even stars are in awe of LeBron. Don't hate.

birdman:
Please, this was against the Rockets, who are trying every possible way to lose and get rid of the coach . The starting 5 shot 50%, even with our notorious spammer Jalen Green, so you guys were not playing defense. And Rockets returned the favor, allowing the old man to shoot 50% from 3

I feel more confident in my conclusion that Lakers are not mentally there yet, they are losing close games not because of AD, but because of they play to the opponents level. And it costs them the game in 4Q when they play the top teams.

I know there's still a lot of question marks about this team, but 2 turnovers is remarkable, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the opponent.

The Lakers had a franchise low 2 turnovers tonight

birdman:
Ya know, I was thinking about it as well. Two close losses to very good teams. I dont know if we are making too much of it though.

Speaking of trades, does a myles turner for westbrook trade make this team better in such close games? Hard to tell with the way Russ is playing these days.

Yea Russ is playing well, bar one or two bad decisions here and there. But that's what makes Russ, Russ. Taking away Russ means taking away a ball handler and playmaker, which means more load for LeBron. And that's not a good idea in year 20. Trade deadline is February 9th I think. If we can just get a run of games with the big 3 to see how things go. It looked decent before AD's injury.

These narrow losses against supposedly championship teams. It hurts, but it's also encouraging. Leaves me wondering how much better we could be with the full complement of our squad.

LeBron smells blood in the west. He's trying to drag this team into the playoffs or at least the play-in because he knows he has a shot against every single Western conference team in a 7 game series, especially with AD healthy. No team is the clear favourite. The only thing that can hinder then is injuries, as has always been the case with LeBron and the Lakers.

What a game in Sacramento. What a game

Skip Bayless is still the most terrible human in the world

The Hornets commentators said that if you took away all of LeBron's points off dunks and 3 pointers, he would still be 14th in the all-time scoring list

I don talk am before and I go still talk am again. No era of the NBA has had as much talent as this era. Luka, Jokic, Giannis, KD, LeBron, Steph, AD, Embiid, Ja, Tatum, Mitchell, Sabonis, Zion, Dame, Booker

Even the next tier is an all-star lineup: KAT, Butler, Brown, Kyrie, Harden, Halliburton, Garland, Shai, Siakam, Ingram, CJ, Ant, Gobert, DeRozan, Wiggins, Beal, Trae, PG, Kawhi, Lavine, Bam, Allen, Grant, Middleton, Jrue, Randle, Porzingis

This does not include guys like Klay, Russ, CP3 and Lowry who have passed their prime. This also does not include up and coming guys like Markennen, Bane, Lamelo, Mobley, Maxey, Jalen Green, KPJ. MPJ, Cam Johnson, Barret, Jaren Jackson, Anfernee, Banchero.

These are the people my LeBron had to go through. Poor LeBron. When you consider that he also had to go through guys like Kobe, Duncan, Shaq, Pierce, Garnett dem wey don retire. Baba don try abeg.

birdman:
For a supposed big market team, you guys consistently make underwhelming trades. Or stand and do nothing. Every year.

Blame Pelinka

Khanben:
Agreed with all you said, but this Lakers roster is barely 5 deep when it comes to players who can play quality minutes in the playoffs. So unless they want to waste a great AD and Lebron year, they need to make serious moves to bolster their rotation

LeBron, AD, Russ, Schroder, Walker, Reaves, Wenyen, Troy Brown will see good minutes in the playoffs either as key players or as role players. That leaves us with Pat Bev and Nunn. Both have been outright useless on offense this season so far and there's been talks of trading them to get someone manageable. I don't know if Darvin Ham can rely on Beverley's defense alone to give him substantial playoff minutes.

But looking at how we fell short tonight against Cleveland, who knows whether Russ is still there to be traded.