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The Lakers' 2018-19 campaign is finally off and running as they played their 3rd preseason game today, winning 128-123 against the Sacramento Kings. They certainly looked good enough to be a playoff team on the night, while Brandon Ingram stood out with the most impressive preseason showing by any player in the league.
Preseason in the NBA can be misleading. Success or failure here isn’t always a good predictor of what will happen in the regular season. Minutes are distributed differently than they will be when the games count and coaches feel empowered to experiment with their lineups in order to gauge who fits best against specific opponents.
Luke Walton certainly used the opportunity to the fullest, and our first glimpse at the new-look Lakers did provide plenty to take away:
#1 The center problem
It's one thing to have JaVale McGee starting when you are the 2-time defending champions and have used him in that role for 2 straight seasons without missing a beat on either end of the floor.
But, try as they might, the Lakers will never accrue as much talent as the Warriors possessed last season, never mind the 5 All-Star lineup they'll field at some point this season.
The Warriors had a bazillion centers they could call upon at any time in any game depending on the matchup they faced. The Lakeshow will have no such luxury as they are constructed right now.
The Lakers will definitely have to swing a trade or two to stand a chance of making a deep playoff run. The likes of the Nuggets, Jazz, Thunder, Rockets and the Spurs all have at least one elite big man who will need to be matched up with by a 7-footer for 30 minutes a night.
LeBron as a small-ball center won't cut it against these teams, McGee doesn't have the fitness to average more than 24 mpg and Kuzma is just about learning and keeping afoot with the new position that he's been asked to play.
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#2 3-point shooting
The Lakers finished 29th in 3-point shooting last season as a team, and they got rid of a legitimate stretch 5 after that and added non-shooters like Rondo and Lance Stephenson to the squad - two of their major non-LeBron acquisitions.
LeBron could realistically be the Lakers' best high volume shooter other than Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. He has never played with players so averse to shooting 3-pointers or just below league-average at it.
This means the Lakers are going to attempt fewer 3-pointers than they did last year, and their distance shooting will likely be less-than-stellar this season as well. In a day and age when teams have finally started living by the mathematical efficiency of eschewing long 2-pointers for 3-pointers, the Lakers seem to have tried to take a step back.
#3 Skillset overlap
Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen, but one other problem the Lakers added to Luke Walton's plate with their summer acquisitions was that many of their players now have the same strengths, in addition to the same non-strengths/weaknesses.
Rondo and Lonzo are old-school point guards who can knock down the occasional open jumper but are playmakers by default on every play. Josh Hart and KCP are their prototypical 3-and-D types who can occasionally create for themselves and others off the dribble.
Lance and Brandon Ingram are mostly the kind of players who rely on their own handles to create their shots rather than playing off-ball - Ingram attempted very few 3-pointers last season for the volume of minutes he played.
Kuzma Michael Beasley are mostly isolation scorers - Beasley hasn't taken a high enough volume of catch-and-shoot 3-pointers in his career at a high percentage, and neither has Kuzma.
It remains to be seen how the Lakers use their players, but in games when both players in the pairs we've referred to are having bad shooting nights, the Lakers will have problems.
#4 Development of their young core
Kuzma, Ingram and Lonzo Ball showcased some real game last season. All 3 of them are quite clearly talented enough to be All-Stars in this league at some point and to reach that point in their careers, they will need to play heavy minutes in roles that they excel in the most.
The addition of LeBron, however, changes the equation. James is likely to play 35-38 minutes per game, and most of those minutes will come as a small forward, power forward or a point guard. This leaves less room for Ingram to develop at the 3 position, the same way that it will hamper Kuzma's development at the 4.
Lonzo's minutes are already going to be at a premium if he doesn't start off on a hot shooting streak from downtown, given Rondo's presence in the squad.
Josh Hart's minutes will suffer in all cases given that KCP and Lance play the same position as him.
#5 Growing pains
Any team with such great year-on-year turnover and an unproven head coach in charge is quite suspect to a slow start to their regular season campaign. The Lakers are exactly that, on top of all 4 of the aforementioned problems.
Rotations need to be decided, players need to hit peak form and acclimatize to playing with the pressure of playing on a LeBron-led team. Anything short of a peak performance from the start will consign the Lakers to playing catch-up with the rest of the Conference, given how good teams around the league have gotten through the course of this summer.
