5 Questions the Los Angeles Lakers Need Answered During the Preseason
Preseason results have no bearing on regular-season performance. It doesn't matter that the Los Angeles Lakers took a 40-point beatdown at the hands of the Golden State Warriors.
What these exhibition games do provide, however, is a chance for guys to audition for new roles, for new teammates to figure out how to play with one another and for the team to put the new philosophies of Byron Scott into practice.
There are myriad questions swirling around the team this preseason.
Here are five that need answering.
Are Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash Ready to Go?
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Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash didn't play a single minute together during the 2013-14 campaign. In fact, if you combine their total minutes from last year, they add up to less than Kent Bazemore's—and Bazemore was only on the team for two months.
Nash, of course, hasn't been able to stay on the court since arriving in L.A. Bryant is coming off two major leg injuries that may have sapped all the explosiveness out of his game.
How they look in the preseason will be a strong indication of how they will perform in the regular season.
Thus far, the results have been mixed.
Neither man appears physically unfit—though some concerns cropped up around Nash's health in the last game—but neither are playing the game with the ease we are accustomed to seeing from them.
Their playing styles remain similar, but every movement seems to lag, and they are struggling to create separation from defenders. This means that they aren't forcing defenses to rotate toward them and leave other Lakers free for open looks.
Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes sums it up nicely, saying that "watching Bryant shoot those leaned-back faders is like watching Steve Nash navigate his way into the lane. The things he's doing are aesthetically similar, but the degree of difficulty is immeasurably greater than it used to be."
Sunday night's loss to the Warriors was a particularly rough night for the duo, as they combined to make only three shots (on 18 tries) from the field.
The Lakers will need their starting backcourt to carry the load offensively come the regular season.
Can Julius Randle Contribute Right Away?
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The Lakers selected Julius Randle with the No. 7 overall pick in last June's draft.
Randle is the bridge to the future in L.A. As such, there's a lot riding on the young man to step in and contribute immediately to the team's success.
He looked the part in his debut, scoring in double figures while hitting five of his eight two-point attempts.
His past two performances have not gone as smoothly.
According to Bill Oram of The Orange County Register, Byron Scott thought Randle looked lost on the floor.
In two outings against the Warriors, Randle shot under 32 percent from the field and made just half of his free throws while racking up eight personal fouls in 37 combined minutes.
An adjustment period is to be expected, but Randle still has a lot of work to do to live up to his lofty expectations.
Will Jeremy Lin Live Up to the Hype?
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Jeremy Lin's acquisition from the Houston Rockets this summer was the Lakers' loudest move of the offseason.
Lin's time in Houston is viewed as a mild disappointment. He was backing up Patrick Beverley by the end of his run there, but he is actually a better basketball player today than he was even during the peak of Linsanity in 2012.
He has quietly developed into a threat from beyond the arc and shaved key percentage points off of his turnover rate.
Through two exhibition games, Lin has looked good running the offense, totaling 14 assists against just two turnovers.
It was also nice to see him bounce back from an 0-of-6 shooting performance in the opener to make all four of his field goals his next time out.
Even with a healthy Steve Nash in the lineup, Lin will be relied upon heavily. It remains to be seen if he's up to the task, but the early returns are promising.
How Will the Big-Man Rotation Shake Out?
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The Lakers are stocked with quality big men, and their respective preseason performances may go a long way into determining how Byron Scott doles out their minutes when the games start to count.
So far Scott has stayed consistent, starting the pairing of Jordan Hill and Carlos Boozer in each contest.
Hill has done what he always does, shooting a high percentage from the field and gobbling up rebounds, but Boozer has started off a bit slower.
The former All-Star is leaning heavily on his mid-range jumper. He's yet to crack 50 percent shooting in any of his appearances and has attempted just six foul shots in 60-plus minutes of action.
Julius Randle and Ed Davis are the ones jockeying to take minutes away from those two.
We covered Randle in an earlier slide, so let's focus on Davis here.
The former lottery pick has looked excellent in his first two games. He kicked things off with a bang in the opener against the Denver Nuggets, scoring 12 points on 6-of-7 shooting and swatting four shots in just 12 minutes.
Davis followed that up with a 3-of-4 shooting performance where he also hauled in five offensive rebounds in 16 minutes.
He looks like L.A.'s only viable rim protector, and he remains an efficient finisher around the basket. It will be interesting to see if Coach Scott increases his minutes in the regular season—assuming Davis continues to impress—and who's playing time is clipped as a result.
Are There Signs of Improvement in L.A.'s Defense?
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New head coach Bryon Scott took the job vowing to get the Lakers into shape defensively.
His new schemes haven't seemed to catch on quite yet.
The Lakers had a good showing in their exhibition debut, holding the Denver Nuggets to 95 points and less than 40 percent shooting from the field.
But their two subsequent performances against the Golden State Warriors were unmitigated disasters.
Golden State torched L.A.'s defense, dropping 120 and 116 points in back-to-back outings while hitting an unreal 56 percent of their field-goal attempts in each tilt.
The greatest concern is how the Lakers' starting unit has performed on defense.
So far, the Lakers' opponents have had their highest scoring output of each game in the first quarter, and the third quarter is just behind that.
In fact, if you add the points the Warriors scored in the first and third quarters of their two preseason meetings with L.A., the Lakers allowed 145 points over that 48-minute stretch. The majority of that damage came against the starters.
Whether it's personnel adjustments or better execution of the game plan, the Lakers have to get their act together on the defensive side of the ball before the regular season tips off.
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