Silver Linings to Look for During Los Angeles Lakers' 2014-15 Season
In every cloud there is a silver lining, so the saying goes. And looking for such glimmers in the Los Angeles Lakers’ upcoming season presupposes that the larger outlook will appear gloomy and gray.
But what if the Lakers rock an absolutely awesome 2014-15 season? That would mean the whole thing would be lined with silver and maybe even gold, and we wouldn’t have to search for consolation prizes, right?
On the other hand, last year’s 27-55 season might not be a fluke, in which case fans could either gather torches and pitchforks or look for targets of opportunity among the thunderheads.
We could also look at this as a chance to pragmatically consider positive outcomes in what could be a challenging period of time, as a venerable franchise looks to rebuild in order to resume its rightful place as an elite NBA superpower.
With a new coach, the team enters the season reciting familiar championship aspirations but knowing there’s a lot of heavy lifting ahead, with aging stars, undervalued role players, former draft busts and hopeful rookies.
The Return of Kobe Bryant
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Lakers fans have gone too long without seeing Kobe Bryant on the court. After a lengthy rehab from a fractured knee, along with a recent annual Orthokine treatment in Germany, he now appears ready to resume his place as the team's reigning superstar.
But age (36), injuries and a hefty two-year contract extension have also fueled criticism from many observers.
If Bryant can come back and demonstrate that he hasn’t lost his deadly skill set and competitive fire, even a losing season will have entertainment value. His successful return could also bode well for the second year of his extension—if the team can add some free-agent muscle around him during the summer of 2015.
In the interim, what can we expect to see from the five-time NBA champion?
He'll be intensely focused and driven as always. And perhaps he'll be channeled into a more specific methodology, working a lot in the post and along the elbows, getting the ball in his sweet spots and going to work with his legendary footwork and pump-fakery.
As he told Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated, “I’ll be sharper. Much sharper. Much more efficient in areas. I’ll be limited in terms of what you see me do, versus a couple years ago. But very, very methodical, very, very purposeful.”
If we weren’t looking for silver linings, we might be talking about another ring for the Mamba, or at least a deep push into the playoffs. And that would be nice, indeed.
But at the most basic and understandable level, longtime Lakers fans are hungry to see Bryant back in action again—uncompromising, fierce and running back up court in his twilight years, awash in bright white light and sweat after another basket made.
A New Chapter of System Basketball
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Don’t look now, but the Lakers have burned through a lot of coaches over the past four years.
There was the last dance of Phil Jackson and his famed triangular principles, Mike Brown’s dogged enthusiasm and diminishing returns and Mike D’Antoni’s unmitigated score-first disaster.
And now there’s Byron Scott and the return of system basketball. Scott is the antithesis of an analytics movement that is geared toward easy layups and bombing away from beyond the arc.
For today’s small-ball acolytes—many of whom credit D’Antoni as a seminal influence—the old half-court ways are dinosaurs.
But Scott is a fundamentalist, preaching the virtues of sweat equity and helping the helpers on defense. And, his offensive system will blend similar schools of thought that date back nearly a century—the Princeton and triangle offenses.
As Scott said, per Lakers.com, “The Princeton offense, you have to know how to play the game of basketball. It's like the triangle, a lot of similarities. I know that Kobe is very familiar with it.”
It will take time and patience to assimilate this hybrid offense. There will be players who simply can’t grasp the nuances, and some of them won’t make the jump to the following season.
But even if losses pile up, the return to a certain basketball dogma could be a silver lining.
The Development of Young Players
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The Lakers had one of their best NBA draft nights in recent memory when they nabbed Julius Randle as their No. 7 pick. With brute strength, good ball-handling ability and a ferocious competitive streak, the 19-year-old power forward out of Kentucky is viewed as a potential future franchise cornerstone.
And then LA unexpectedly bought the No. 45 pick from the Washington Wizards and selected Jordan Clarkson—a 6’5” guard with great speed and agility who can get to the rim at will.
Clarkson feels he has something to prove, per Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News: “I have a chip on my shoulder from the draft. I feel like I was one of the better point guards in the draft, maybe the best.”
But it is not only the rooks who bear watching this season. This current roster is loaded with young players—10 have five or fewer years of NBA experience and 11 of them are still in their 20s.
It is easy to look at young players who haven’t lived up to the hype or promise and label them as busts. But the Lakers have a lot of players with legitimate attributes—whether athleticism, particular skill sets or natural ability—who could easily become assets for the future.
It just takes development.
Jordan Hill may be earning a big paycheck this season, but he’s still raw and has a lot to learn. Management has an option on him for next season and will be watching closely to see if he’s truly worth the price.
Jeremy Lin’s best professional basketball remains his brief ascension to dizzying heights with the New York Knicks during the 2011-12 season. He just turned 26 and spoke this summer with Alex Kennedy from Basketball Insiders about the opportunity to learn from Bryant and Steve Nash: “It’s really exciting. What can you learn from them? People have been asking that question a lot, and it’s kind of, like, I want to learn everything.”
It goes on and on, with Wesley Johnson, Xavier Henry, Ed Davis and others—all who still should, in theory, have their basketball primes ahead of them.
Can learning be a silver lining? Definitely.
Expiring Contracts and Cap Room
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A best-case scenario is a winning season, and if the Lakers don’t achieve that, they’ll accept any number of positives, from player development to good health. There is also an ongoing rebuild to consider, and that takes salary-cap space.
Good news here—the team once again has a ton of expiring contracts.
That means the ability to trade players and, if they’re not tradable, to simply be done with their financial obligations at season’s end.
Hill’s new two-year contract is for $18 million in total, but the team holds an option on next season. Lin will earn $15 million, but only $8 million counts against the team’s cap. He will be a free agent next summer.
Similarly, Nash is in the final leg of his three-year, $27 million contract.
You can toss in a whole host of much lesser one-year deals like Carlos Boozer, Wesley Johnson, Xavier Henry and Wayne Ellington.
When all is said and done, the Lakers only have $36 million on the books for next season and a little over $5 million tied up for 2016-17.
This gives Mitch Kupchak and Jim Buss a lot of options—whether swinging some trades midseason or having cash on hand for free agency next summer and beyond. Another silver lining.
Nick Young
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If silver linings are found during dark, cloudy days, Nick “Swaggy P” Young certainly qualifies.
He almost single-handedly rescued the abysmal 2013-14 season, at least as far as entertainment value was concerned. Imagine how miserable it would have been without the effervescent cheer of Young as the team’s leading point-getter, as well as its sixth man.
Young is the pure joy of basketball, the kind of player fans can’t help but cheer for—even when his shot-happy grandstanding isn’t exactly the most methodical component of a team’s overall schematic.
One of the great odes to Young was written a couple of years ago by Michael Baumann for Liberty Ballers, sampled here in small part:
"He is at his most endearing when he is at his most harmful to the team. He is the rejection of the orderly, personified. There is nothing managed, or cultivated, or even adult about him. He gives the impression of being endlessly fascinated by basketball, and in every sense, he plays with an intensity and a get-up-and-go that makes you wonder if he's discovering the game anew every time he steps on the floor.
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In other words, the 2014-15 season could be great or a train wreck, but even if all else fails, we’ll still have the irrepressible Swaggy P lighting up the scoreboard and swerving back up court with his peekaboo finger routine.
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