Magic Johnson Slams Classless and Soft LA Lakers, Are Critics Right?
There has been an awful lot of Laker bashing over the last couple days, and leading the charge is none other than Magic Johnson. The Laker legend has made waves by saying team owner Jerry Buss needs to "blow up" the team, and he did not shy away from calling Andrew Bynum "classless."
Comments such as these may seem to be a little on the extreme side, but talk such as this is actually pretty general when it comes to the Lakers. That's what happens when a two-time defending champion team goes down in flames.
With so many people offering up their two cents, things can get a little messy. So for the sake of putting the Laker fiasco in proper perspective, let's go ahead and take a look at what the notable critics are saying about them.
Magic Johnson
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When Magic Johnson has something to say about the Lakers, people tend to listen. He won five championships for the franchise back in the 1980s, and has long since established himself as one of basketball's true living legends.
Magic works as an analyst for ESPN these days, and he offered up some advice for Jerry Buss on Saturday.
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times:
"Dr. Buss has a lot of work to do. He's probably going to have to blow this team up after the season if the Lakers lose this series because you have to come back with some fresh faces. You have to pick between the two big men with which one you keep and then you trade the other one.
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The "two big men" Magic is referring to are Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol. Both had their struggles in the series against the Mavericks, and Bynum put a fitting cap on things when he was ejected at the end of Game 4 for hitting J.J. Barea with a cheap elbow as he was driving through the lane. Either Bynum or Gasol could be used as trade chips, possibly for Dwight Howard.
Of course, Johnson didn't stop there.
"The Lakers have two problems," he said, "They're too slow and they have no athletes. This is an athletic league now. When you think about all the teams that are in the playoffs right now, they all can run fast and jump high."
He also thinks there is a chemistry problem on the Lakers: "Sometimes you can be together too long. This group has been probably together too long."
Jerry West
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Magic isn't the only Lakers legend whose words travel far. Jerry West has been known to speak up about his former team on occasion, and he didn't hold anything back in a Monday interview on the Dan Patrick Show.
About the Lakers' performance against the Mavericks, West said he was a "little bit embarrassed." He also said they did some things that he says were “not something a person in a Lakers uniform should do.”
However, West was not surprised that the Lakers failed to win a third straight championship this season.
”I did not like this team from the start of the year,” he said. “I did not think it was well-equipped to win a championship.”
In response to Magic's belief that the Lakers need to be blown up, West doesn't think it's even going to be possible.
”You can’t blow this team up,” he said. “Nobody wants very many of their players to be honest.”
As for what it will take for the Lakers to sustain their recent success, West says it's still all about Kobe Bryant:
"This is still a very good team with four very good players. But they need players around them. … Kobe Bryant needs more help. Even though he’s young in age, he’s put a lot of wear and tear on that body. They need help.
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Bill Plaschke
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When it comes to Los Angeles teams, you're going to have a hard time finding a more notable authority than LA Times columnist Bill Plaschke. He is typically pretty honest about the Lakers, and this was certainly the case in the post-mortem he published on Sunday.
"The expectations were too heavy. The distractions were too large. The bodies were too weary. The heart was too faint," wrote Plaschke.
To add insult to injury, Plaschke wrote that the Lakers were beaten by a Mavericks team that he called "the NBA's softest playoff team."
Now that the Lakers are out of the playoffs, Plaschke did not shy away from commenting on the apocaylptic nature of their future:
"The Mavericks put a broom to so much more than one team and one season here, clearing the NBA postseason not only of its marquee franchise, but perhaps removing all traces of them for the foreseeable future. They have no coach. They have no bench. They have little money to get better quick.
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In Plaschke's mind, one of the biggest lessons of the Mavericks series is that Kobe Bryant is no longer able to shoulder the load:
"Swept away was the idea that Kobe Bryant has enough left in his aching legs to personally spring a team to a title. Bryant failed in two final possessions that could have won the series opener, then averaged only 19 points in the final three games, an aging star who clearly needs more help.
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In the end, Plaschke thinks there is really only one party that deserves blame for the Lakers defeat:
"The two-time defending champion Lakers were dethroned by their toughest opponent, that dysfunctional group known as the two-time defending champion Lakers.
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J.A. Adande
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Not everyone thinks that the Lakers could be headed for years of doom and gloom. In a column for ESPN.com, J.A. Adande had one word for Laker fans:
"For a franchise that's coming to grips with a season ending on Mother's Day, not closer to Father's Day, with getting swept into the dustpan instead of holding a broom, to losing with classless cheap shots instead of winning with grace, you can add another foreign concept that the denizens of Lakersland will have to swallow: patience.
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Adande refers back to 2003, when the Lakers responded to a disappointing playoff finish by adding Gary Payton and Karl Malone. They were back in the Finals the next season.
However, Adande does not think the turnaround is going to be a one-year thing:
"It won't happen so quickly this time. There are no landscape-changing free agents available this summer; all eyes are on Dwight Howard, Chris Paul and Deron Williams, who can hit free agency in 2012. And before anyone signs anywhere there's the matter of the expiring collective bargaining agreement and the lockout that's presumably coming afterward.
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West thinks that building the team around Kobe Bryant is still the key, but Adande is not so sure:
"The truth is that while Bryant remains the Lakers' best and most consistent player, the team's fortunes aren't directly tied only to him anymore. The Lakers were at their best at the beginning of the season when Pau Gasol was playing like an MVP, and immediately after the All-Star break when Andrew Bynum became a defensive monster.
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As for the Lakers' search for a new coach, Adande pointed out the essential trickiness of replacing Phil Jackson:
"But one thing the next coach will not be able to bring to the same degree as Jackson is stability. Jackson sat in an extra-high padded seat, never a hot seat. With his status (and high salary) it meant losing streaks did not have to be accompanied by speculation that the coach's job was in jeopardy. And players never dreamed of starting a mutiny because they knew it would be them, not Jackson, who would pay the price.
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Sam Amick
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Another person who thinks that Magic Johnson's demolition idea might be a little far-fetched is Sam Amick of Sports Illustrated:
"The Laker Nation would be well advised to forget this not-so-pleasing present and turn to the future, where there will likely be change beyond Jackson's chair and plenty of reason for optimism. But don't buy into Magic Johnson's trade-machine musings just yet.
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While a trade for Dwight Howard would obviously be ideal, Amick thinks it's something of a pipe dream:
"The obvious piece the Magic might pursue should they give up on the notion of retaining Howard is Bynum, the 23-year-old whom Kupchak all but deemed untouchable after holding on to him at the February trade deadline. In resisting the urge to hit the panic button then, Kupchak had given this group the chance to prove it could still be champions.
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Moreover, Amick points out that the Lakers' payroll pretty much makes a major overhaul impossible:
"Yet even with the alarming way in which this once-proud group fell, a major makeover is not guaranteed. The Lakers have the league's highest payroll and a starting lineup that is signed at least through next season, meaning a trade is the only impactful way to shake it up if they choose to do so. And their frontcourt was hardly their only problem in this postseason, as the point guard duo of Derek Fisher and Steve Blake was a complete non-factor.
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So Who's Right?
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As you can tell, there are is all sorts of talk about the Lakers floating around out there. On balance, what it all boils down to is this: the 2010-2011 season was a huge reality check for the two-time defending champs.
Make no mistake, it was obvious during the regular season that this Laker team just was not the same kind of threat that it was in the previous three seasons. Age was a big part of the problem, but they just never seemed to get in sync either. The fact that they are not on their way to the Finals should come as a surprise to nobody.
So what about the future? Well, I think Amick is right. Magic's idea of blowing the team up and Adande's call for patience are both well warranted, but the reality is that actually changing the Lakers at this point is going to be very difficult. Adding players via free agency is something that is not practical in the immediate future, and swinging a deal for Dwight Howard is going to be made even more difficult given the impending lockout. Like it or not, the Lakers may be stuck with the roster they have.
If there is a silver lining in the Lakers' exit from the playoffs, it's that it came so early. This is a team that has played a lot of basketball over the last couple years. Combine that with the team's age, and you get a very weary group.
Because of that, maybe the immediate future should not look so threatening. Coming back next season with fresher legs and a new coach might not be the worst thing for the Lakers. They look like they could use a change of pace, and having the motivation to regain the title could have a very positive effect on their play next season.
So in a way, I guess I agree with Adande. Patience, people.
