6 Things the Los Angeles Lakers Must Achieve During 2015
It's the time of the year to make resolutions, and the Los Angeles Lakers could stand to follow through on a few of their own.
With the Lakers sitting in 14th in the Western Conference, the season is effectively over, but no team should capitulate on a season the way the Philadelphia 76ers and New York Knicks have done.
This is a chance to show the rest of the league—particularly players about to hit the free-agent market—that even in the worst of times the Lakers are a competitive outfit.
There are myriad things for Los Angeles to improve upon, both on a collective and individual level. We focus here on six particular things that the Lakers must achieve this season.
Kobe Bryant Must Find Better Balance
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Bryant has altered his game drastically since sitting out three games around Christmas time. He has made a concerted effort to deliver the ball to his teammates more, while trimming down his own shot attempts.
On the surface, things look better. Bryant has been more efficient, posting a true shooting percentage of 52.6 percent on 12.2 shots per game since returning. That stands in opposition to the true shooting percentage of 47.5 percent that he managed on 22.4 heaves a night before that.
His passes per game have risen by more than 50 percent, from 34.2 all the way up to 52.8, per NBA.com, and his assists have ramped up accordingly, moving from 4.8 a night to 7.8.
Those recent numbers seem to reflect a change for the better, but it's just fool's gold.
Though Bryant's assist percentage has spiked from 24.6 percent to 41.4 percent, his turnover rate has more than doubled along with it—from 11.9 percent early in the season to a whopping 26 percent over the past couple of weeks.
And his offensive rating has actually dropped, from 97 points per 100 possessions to 94, per Basketball-Reference.
The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction.
It often feels more like Bryant is trying to prove a point than actually trying to help his team win games. He's firing lasers at unsuspecting teammates, then animatedly showing his displeasure—instead of getting back on defense—when said teammates fumble the ball away in surprise.
He's also throwing riskier and riskier passes, as if to show that he can. Some of them are beauties that lead to easy baskets, but an increasing proportion of them are getting picked off by defenders, leading to fast breaks the other way.
Bryant needs to put emotion aside and strike the right balance between attacking and distributing to maximize the Lakers' odds of winning.
The Lakers Need to Move the Ball
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Too often, the ball is sticking in players' hands on the offensive end. And it's not just on Kobe Bryant.
According to NBA.com, the Lakers accrue the second-fewest frontcourt touches per game, yet they are tied for third in the league in time of possession.
So whenever someone does touch the ball, they tend to hang on to it for as long as possible.
The hallmark of great ball movement is a large number of secondary—or "hockey"—assists. Only the New Orleans Pelicans average fewer of those per game than the Lakers do, per NBA.com.
Just two teams attempt fewer passes a night than the Lakers, and only five generate fewer points off of assists than Los Angeles.
There is a lot of overlap between the top teams in terms of ball movement and the top teams in terms of offensive output.
The Lakers are currently in the middle of the pack in offensive efficiency. If they want to climb that ladder, they have to start valuing the pass more.
Nick Young Must Improve His Shot Selection
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Kobe Bryant's struggles shooting the ball this year have been well documented.
Nick Young's inefficiency has flown under the radar a little bit.
A team can't survive its top two offensive options shooting so poorly. Young can change his fortunes just by tweaking his shot selection.
Young's confidence is sky-high. He believes he can make any shot, and he's a good enough shooter for that belief to be justified.
But he doesn't make it any easier on himself by continuing to take tough, low-percentage, contested jump shots.
According to NBA Savant, of all the guards who have attempted at least 300 field goals this season, Young's shots have been the fifth-most closely contested, in terms of how close the nearest defender was at the time of the shot.
And Young's tries have come from a further distance, on average, than any other player in the top 15 of that list. In fact, only three guys overall shoot from further out on average than Young does.
More than one-third of the shots Young is hoisting are closely guarded mid-range attempts—the worst shot in basketball. Not surprisingly, he's bricking almost two-thirds of those heaves, per NBA Savant.
Young has been one of the league's top three-point marksmen this season, knocking down 42 percent of his 5.3 treys a game, but he's shooting a dreadful 36.2 percent on two-pointers.
If he can improve upon his shot selection, Young's shooting—and the Lakers' offense—will get better along with it.
The Lakers Need to Enter the 21st Century Offensively
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The new motto of NBA offenses is "Pace and Space."
Teams try to conjure up man and ball movement at hyper speed while dotting the court with long-range bombers to maximize the expected value of every shot.
What the Lakers do offensively flies in the face of that rhetoric.
No team attempts more mid-range shots than the Lakers do, per NBA.com. That can be viable if you are especially good from that range, but the Lakers are not.
In fact, only four teams shoot a worse percentage from the mid-range than Los Angeles.
Additionally, the Lakers have yet to embrace the three-pointer—specifically, the ultra-valuable corner three.
They are in the bottom third of the league in three-point tries, and no team takes fewer corner treys than the Lakers.
It's not like Los Angeles doesn't have the personnel to hoist more triples.
As mentioned earlier, Nick Young has been lights-out from deep this season. Wayne Ellington is a 40 percent shooter from the outside. Wes Johnson has been very solid this year at 38 percent, and Jeremy Lin is a decent threat as well at 36 percent. Even Ryan Kelly can stretch the floor.
We've already discussed the Lakers' lack of ball movement on the offensive end holding them back. Their refusal to launch more threes at the expense of bricking more mid-range jumpers puts an even bigger cap on their offensive potential.
Carlos Boozer Must Defend the Interior
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One of the Lakers' biggest issues has been an inability to defend the paint. Someone who needs to get better in that department is Carlos Boozer.
Boozer has never been a rim protector, but he learned how to be a cog in a suffocating defensive unit during his time with the Chicago Bulls.
He needs to employ some of those principles here.
Right now, Boozer is getting toasted down low. According to NBA.com's player tracking, the veteran big man is allowing opponents to shoot a blistering 67 percent from the field on attempts coming within six feet of the hoop—a 7.2 percent increase on those players' normal conversion rate from that range.
Just seeing Boozer in front of them inspires more confidence.
Boozer is playing well on offense, and the Lakers need him on the court to provide that scoring threat. But he's been such a liability on the other end that Byron Scott is forced to limit his minutes.
Solid interior defense consists of more than just pushing people in the back to get rebounds. Boozer knows that. He needs to be a leader and get the job done.
The Lakers Need to Prevent Offenses from Doing Whatever They Want
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We touched earlier on the NBA's current offensive philosophy. It's all about getting layups, threes and free throws.
The Lakers don't do a good job of taking any of those away.
Just three teams give up more baskets in the restricted area or from behind the arc, and only two teams allow opponents to get to the line more often, per NBA.com.
As a defense, your goal is to stop the offense from doing what it wants to do. It sounds overly simple, but Los Angeles can't do it.
Rotations are either late or non-existent. Players aren't hustling back on defense. Guys get caught ball-watching and let their man slide right past them into open space.
These problems were what Byron Scott was hired to fix. Instead, the Lakers sport a worse defensive rating now than in any season under Mike D'Antoni.
Effort and communication make up for a lot of flaws in a defense. And having a tough defense can make up for a lack of raw talent to keep games competitive.
The Lakers need to go back to the basics and simply prevent offenses from having their way with them if they want to avoid embarrassments like their recent annihilation at the hands of their Staples Center co-tenants.
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