Thoughts on the Lakers SPL team

Posted on LakersGround.net on 7/11/07.

Our roster outside of Farmar and Crittenton is old and low on talent. On a talent basis, we should lose every game. From a talent point of view, the 76ers should have crushed the Lakers. Yet, the team is literally just a second away from a 2-0 start. I watched probably half the game last night and it looked to me that the team's success is due to some players being willing to do the dirty work to make Farmar and Karl look like stars.

Here is the age distribution of the team outside of Farmar and Crittenton :
24 - 5 players
25 - 2 players
26 - 1 player
27 - 1 player
28 - 1 player
30 - 1 player
The only other players drafted are Jabari Smith (45th in 2000 draft) and Rodney White (9th in 2001) and they are the only players with NBA experience.

From what I could tell, the Lakers were playing two platoons - the A team and the B team. The A team had Farmar, Coby Karl, Rodney White, Jeff Graves and Larry Turner. The B team had Critterton, Ebi Ere, Brandon Gay, Andre Patterson and Jabari Smith. The A team played ~25 minutes and the B team played ~15 minutes (with the exception of Graves and Gay, who played 15 and 31 minutes respectively).

OTOH, the 76ers played this like a NBA game, with the starting 5 seeing heavy minutes (30-37 out of 42) and the minutes dropping off significantly as you move down the bench (13, 10, 9, 5, 2). Their starting 5 were:
Louis Williams - averaged 11.3 mpg in his second NBA season last season
Thaddeus Young - #12 pick in 2007 draft
Rodney Carney - #16 pick in 2006 draft
Herbert Hill - #55 pick in 2007 draft
Jason Smith - #20 pick in 2007 draft
With a bench of:
Edin Bavcic - #56 pick in 2006 draft
Derrick Byars - #42 pick in 2007 draft
Bobby Jones - averaged 7.6 mpg in his rookie year last season

As you can see, the 76ers had way more talent than the Lakers and played their best players for far more minutes than the Lakers did. How did the Lakers keep in the game when the 76ers had so much more talent?

What I saw was that on the A team, White, Graves and Turner didn't look for their offense. I didn't see them once post up, take an outside jumper or dribble drive. I am not sure about White, as Dancing Barry called him "a space cadet", but the other two set picks constantly and then cut to the hoop. Farmar was using the picks to drive-and-dish and Karl was using the picks to get open. White, Graves and Turner were getting most of their shots as point blank shots when Farmar dumped off to them. Farmar wound up with 11 assists. Karl was bombing from the outside, scored 23 points on 8-13 shooting including 3-5 on 3 pointers. White, Graves and Turner shot a combined 8-14. The A team shot a scorching 62%.

The B team play was much more ragged. Ere and Gay shot the ball whenever they thought they were open. Critterton couldn't get the team to get into the offense and forced things, shooting 0-5. Smith had some nice plays and I don't remember a thing Patterson did. The only consistent success I can remember the B team having is when Gay sprinted down the court for some fast break points. The B team had as many turnovers (12) in 15 minutes as the A team had in 25 minutes. The B team shot 42%.

The Lakers have a problem in that their 3 best players are all guards. If they platoon, someone has to play on the B team and is going to struggle because that team isn't very good. Last night, it was Critterton and he did struggle. My guess is that his success in the first game came from playing with the rest of the A team.