The Lakers get defensive (just not on the basketball court)
Hello. Thank you for subscribing to the free list for Good Morning It’s Basketball. This is a free preview of today’s newsletter — subscribe to the paid version of GMIB to unlock the rest of this post and everything else we produce (five newsletters per week) plus access to the GMIB Discord. Or don’t! It’s your life. The Lakers get defensive (just not on the basketball court)Things are unraveling quickly for ... well, everyone.Good morning. Let’s basketball. Charles I at the Hunt, Anthony van Dyck, 1635 The rumors that Frank Vogel is nearing the end of the line in his time as the L.A. Lakers’ head coach have been flying the past few days as the would-be contender hovers around .500. To be clear, firing Frank Vogel would be stupid. It’s not his fault the roster has been stripped of much of its defensive talent and that there are not many plus offense or plus defense five-man units available. It’s not his fault Anthony Davis, someone who can erase a lot of problems himself, has been injured. It’s not his fault that in fact Russell Westbrook absolutely does not fit on a team like this. Firing Vogel doesn’t fix much. But it’s clear that Vogel believes the rumors, because if you think you’re going to be here in April you don’t do this.
Yes, Vogel benched a cold-as-ice Westbrook for the end of the game (the Lakers lost anyway). Someone on the coaching staff anonymously told ESPN’s Dave McMenamin exactly why Westbrook got benched, too.
Yeah, that was a bad defensive moment in a season filled with them. (You can see the play here.) That said, LeVert cooked the entire Lakers team in the fourth quarter en route to 22 points on 8/9 shooting. Westbrook was a problem but not the problem, just as has been the case all season. Other problems have been benched so there’s no problem there. Except those other problems don’t make $40 million and those other problems aren’t stars known specifically for their pride. ... Subscribe to Good Morning It's Basketball to read the rest.Become a paying subscriber of Good Morning It's Basketball to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. A subscription gets you:
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