Category: Latest Lakers News

Tim Bontemps feels the Lakers have been terribly run, poorly built around LeBron James and Anthony Davis

NBA reporter Tim Bontemps had some harsh but at least partially true words about the Lakers’ inability to maximize their superstar duo.

For the last five seasons, the Los Angeles Lakers have had arguably the best and most talented superstar duo in the NBA in LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Yet during that time, the results have been somewhat disappointing.

While they won a world championship in 2020, they have also missed the playoffs once and had to go through the play-in tournament in each of the other three seasons they have had the two future Hall of Famers.

For a franchise that consistently contended with other Hall of Fame duos such as Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant and Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol, it seems rather weak.

NBA reporter Tim Bontemps, upon seeing how well James and Davis played in helping Team USA win an Olympic gold medal, said the Lakers have done a very poor job in maximizing the two. He made his comments while on “Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective” recently (h/t Sports Illustrated).

“Maybe the single biggest takeaway for me from this whole tournament is that it showed to me how terribly the Lakers have been run for most of the past several years…The fact that the team has been built so poorly around him and Anthony Davis that they have been an afterthought the vast majority of the run and especially the past few years… With him and AD it remains unfathomable that this team is irrelevant and that’s what they are. Is irrelevant.”

James averaged 25.7 points, 8.3 assists and 7.3 rebounds a game while Davis put up 24.7 points, 12.6 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 2.3 blocked shots a game this past season. Yet the Lakers won a modest 47 games, giving them the eighth-best record in the Western Conference.

This offseason, they hired James’ good friend and podcast co-host JJ Redick to be their head coach while drafting James’ son Bronny with the No. 55 pick. While some feel the moves could pay off, others feel the moves are a sign that it is amateur hour in the team’s front office and that it has bent over to all of the elder James’ whims.

It remains to be seen if L.A. will make one final push to win it all again in James’ remaining time with the team.

The one thing Lakers head coach JJ Redick wants the NBA to get rid of

The NBA introduced a new practice a handful of years ago that new Lakers head coach JJ Redick seems to be a critic of.

Many fans have complained about the officiating in the NBA for decades. These complaints have turned into outright accusations and even conspiracy theories.

A few years ago, perhaps in an attempt to quell that criticism and skepticism, the league started issuing a “Last 2-Minute” (L2M) report after each game which lists calls that referees got wrong. At the very least, it has brought some transparency to NBA officiating.

There are critics of these reports, however, and such people say these reports do nothing to help improve the way games are called. New Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick seems to be one of those critics. During an interview with Hasan Minhaj, he said the league should get rid of its L2M reports (h/t Lakers Nation).

“There’s always been a human element to the sport. Referees are a big part of our sport and they’re graded just like all of us, they’re scrutinized internally I’m saying. If I have a good game or a bad game, I’ve got to then go watch the film the next day with the team and we’ve got to talk about it and we’ve got to fix the problems, they’re getting that within the referee’s association. So there’s always been that human element. Technology has made it where the eyeballs and the magnifying glass on them has I think made it harder. As far as the Last 2-Minute report, I hate it. I don’t think we should do it. There’s some times where the league will come out and they’ll be like that was the correct call and we’re like no we all watched the replay 17 times, it was not the correct call. What does the Last 2-Minute report do? We can all see what happened. The [Tyrese] Maxey, you brought up the travel, but what about Game 2 when his jersey gets held on the inbounds play? That should’ve been a foul. And then they come out with a Last 2-Minute report like, Josh Hart fouled Maxey, well no [expletive]. I don’t need you to do that. The intent there is for transparency, I think the intent is correct. But does it solve any problem? No. Does it make anybody feel any better? You think 76ers fans woke up the next day and were like, league got it right this time? … I know it slows the game down at times, but I like replays within the game. I think it’s fair to have replays. I think there’s some stuff, and again I have nothing to do with the rules committee, but there’s some stuff where we see something happening in a replay and they’re reviewing the replay for something else and its blatantly obvious that this one thing happened, but it’s not reviewable. Can we tweak some of that stuff, I don’t know.”

Of course, there is always the possibility of mistakes being made on a L2M report. The Lakers have arguably been on the wrong side of that at least once over the last two seasons, at least according to some fans.

But if the NBA uses these reports to hold referees accountable and even discipline them if continued mistakes are made, then it is a necessary, yet imperfect, step forward towards fixing its officiating issues.

The one Lakers great Michael Cooper wishes could be at his jersey retirement

Michael Cooper will have his jersey retired by the Lakers in January, and he wishes that arguably the greatest Laker ever could be there.

In less than two months, former Los Angeles Lakers 3-and-D wing Michael Cooper will be officially inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame after being voted in earlier this year. It will be an amazing honor for the 68-year-old Cooper, who won five NBA championships with the Lakers in the 1980s, and then launched a long and successful coaching career that included back-to-back titles with the Los Angeles Sparks.

He will also get his No. 21 jersey retired by the Lakers organization on Jan. 13 at Crypto.com Arena. Jersey retirements are often an occasion when other all-time greats for a franchise are in attendance, and there is one Lakers legend Cooper wishes could be on hand on Jan. 13.

Unfortunately, he cannot, because he tragically passed away four years ago, along with his daughter and seven others, in a helicopter crash.

On his “Showtime” podcast, Cooper said it would’ve been great if Kobe Bryant could’ve made it to his jersey retirement ceremony.

“Kobe would be another one that I wish could be there because it’s kind of like he’s not here, but it’s the year 2024,” Cooper said. “That’s one of his jersey numbers, 24 and 8. I just think that’s something synonymous with the Lakers that’s happening with the young man who I had the chance to, I worked this kid out and I told everybody, Jerry and them said ‘What you think, Coop?’ I said, ‘He got it.’ So Kobe would be one that I wish that was there, I forget about him.”

Cooper referred to a pre-draft workout in 1996 that the Lakers held, during which they decided to see what Bryant was made of. So they had Cooper, who had retired from the NBA six years prior but was still in great physical shape, guard Bryant as if the 17-year-old were Michael Jordan or Larry Bird.

Bryant passed that stiff test with flying colors, and then-executive Jerry West knew he had to have the Philadelphia-area native.

Weeks later, he traded starting center Vlade Divac to the Charlotte Hornets for the draft rights to Bryant, who went at No. 13 in that year’s draft. The rest, as they say, was history.

Dodgers will celebrate Lakers legends with T-shirt giveaway this weekend

The Dodgers will pay tribute to multiple Lakers champions this weekend at Chavez Ravine.

This has been a fairly exciting season for the Los Angeles Dodgers. It has seen the team debut of two-way star Shohei Ohtani, arguably the best player in baseball, and they have been keeping pace with the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees in the race for Major League Baseball’s best record.

The Dodgers have always shown a strong affinity for the Los Angeles Lakers. This weekend, they will be paying tribute to a number of legends who wore the Purple and Gold.

On Saturday, when they face the Tampa Bay Rays, five members of the Showtime Lakers will be throwing out the first pitch. The Dodgers will also be giving away a T-shirt with depictions of the Showtime Lakers wearing Dodgers jerseys that night.

The following afternoon, they will wrap up their three-game series versus the Rays by giving away a T-shirt honoring late Lakers great Kobe Bryant.

Fans planning on going to either game should be aware that either T-shirt will only be given to the first 40,000 fans in attendance.

Lakers got most votes from ESPN panel to be ‘Team Turmoil’ in 2024-25

ESPN’s panel of experts seem to think there will be plenty of doom and gloom for the Lakers this coming season.

People seem to be divided on how well the Los Angeles Lakers will be capable of performing this coming season. While at least one player has expressed belief that they can be contenders, there are many pundits who feel they’re, at best, a play-in tournament team.

According to an ESPN panel, the Lakers are the team most likely to stumble this coming season, as they got the most votes in the balloting for “Team Turmoil,” which isn’t exactly the type of balloting one wants to win (h/t Lakers Daily).

Via ESPN:

“When it comes to the Team Turmoil vote, the focus is on uncertainty on the floor, coaching staff and front office,” ESPN’s staff wrote.

“This season’s ‘winner’ is the Los Angeles Lakers, who have a first-time coach in JJ Reddick, a superstar turning 40 in LeBron James and plenty of questions on the court after a first-round exit in last season’s playoffs.”

Los Angeles won 47 regular-season games last season, even though it didn’t bother to play hard against a number of inferior teams it lost to, this past season. It got past the New Orleans Pelicans in the play-in tourney before falling to the Denver Nuggets in five games in the first round of the playoffs.

While it has as great a superstar duo as any in James and Anthony Davis, plenty seem to feel that James’ level of play will fall off considerably, or that, at the very least, he and Davis will spend an extended stretch on the injured list.

The Lakers have holes such as a lack of a true defensive center or 3-and-D wing, and their starting backcourt of D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves is slow and lackluster defensively.

There are, of course, also questions about Redick, a first-time head coach who has never been even an assistant coach in the NBA or in college. He could very well succeed, but he could also have problems managing egos and personalities due to his lack of coaching experience.

The Lakers haven’t made any additions to their roster this offseason, other than signing Dalton Knecht and Bronny James, their two draft picks. Perhaps Knecht, who was expected to be a top-10 pick but fell to L.A. at No. 17, will play well, but it also may be hard for him to supplant the team’s incumbent wings in the rotation.

Michael Cooper says he would cut Jayson Tatum since he hates the Celtics

More than 30 years after retiring from the Lakers, Hall of Famer Michael Cooper still hates the Celtics.

There are very few rivalries in sports that truly rile people up on a massive scale, even those who would seem perfectly neutral. There are the New York Yankees versus the Boston Red Sox, the Green Bay Packers against the Chicago Bears and the Los Angeles Lakers versus the Boston Celtics.

The Lakers-Celtics rivalry was at its best in the mid-1980s when the two teams met in the NBA Finals three times in a four-year span. Hall of Fame Lakers wing Michael Cooper was a central character back then, as he was tasked with guarding Celtics legend Larry Bird and did so as well as anyone.

On his “Showtime” podcast, Cooper was asked who he would start, bench and cut among Jayson Tatum, Scottie Pippen and James Worthy. He said he would start Pippen, the six-time NBA champion, and bench Worthy, his former Lakers teammate and fellow Hall of Famer.

That leaves Tatum, whom Cooper would bench. Cooper said he would do it because of his hatred for the Celtics, although he admitted Tatum is a very good player.

“I’m starting Scottie Pippen and I’m benching Worthy and I’m cutting Tatum… I’m hating on the Celtics. No, Tatum is a hell of a player, I’ve got to give him that. You know, that’s a tough three. All of them are good players.”

Team loyalties aside, it’s easy to see why one would feel the way Cooper did. Pippen was one of the greatest defensive players in basketball history who also scored a consistent 18-20 points a game and was one of the NBA’s first “point forwards.” Meanwhile, Worthy would often play above his standards in big games, especially in the NBA Finals against the Celtics and Detroit Pistons.

While Tatum is a bona fide star, he has a habit of underperforming on the big stage. When the Celtics won it all in June, he shot just 38.8% from the field in the championship series while Jaylen Brown took home the Finals MVP award.

Report: Rich Paul was adamantly opposed to LeBron James trade to Warriors

The Lakers didn’t like the idea of trading LeBron James to the Warriors in February, and neither did James’ agent.

LeBron James and Stephen Curry just led Team USA men’s basketball to an Olympic gold medal in Paris, and even at their advanced ages, they’re both still playing at almost as high a level as they ever have.

It has stoked the imaginations of some fans who would love to see them play on the same NBA team. James himself said not too long ago that Curry is one superstar he’d love to play with.

There has been a little bit of talk across the web and social media about the possibility of that happening and what it would take. Simply put, it’s extremely unlikely.

But prior to February’s trade deadline, the Golden State Warriors did try to engage the Los Angeles Lakers in a potential trade that would’ve teamed up James and Curry in the Bay Area. The Lakers shot it down, and according to NBA insider Marc Stein, James’ agent Rich Paul was “adamantly opposed” to such a trade — and it was largely for an interesting reason (h/t NBC Sports).

Via Marc Stein’s Substack:

“Sources say Paul implored both teams to scrap the concept — despite some owner-to-owner dialogue between the Warriors’ Joe Lacob and the Lakers’ Jeanie Buss and Green’s determination to lobby James to push for relocation to the Bay Area — largely because he wanted to insulate James from potential backlash over switching teams for the fourth time in his career,” Stein wrote.

Those who don’t want to give James his due criticize his habit of jumping from team to team every few years and teaming up with one or two other stars or superstars in order to stack the deck in his favor. A James-Curry pairing would’ve only given James’ critics that much more ammunition in that regard.

Although the Lakers are merely a playoff team and not a championship contender these days, James, by all accounts, seems content with them. After all, they hired his good friend and podcast co-host JJ Redick to be their head coach and drafted his son Bronny with the No. 55 pick in June’s draft.

D’Angelo Russell talks about playing in Kobe Bryant’s final NBA game

In Kobe Bryant’s final NBA game, everyone wanted him to shoot as much as possible, and D’Angelo Russell talked about that experience.

Kobe Bryant’s last three NBA seasons were difficult to watch. After tearing his Achilles late in the 2012-13 campaign, he didn’t even remotely resemble the player he had been for nearly a decade and a half, and he had trouble staying healthy.

In those last three years, the late Los Angeles Lakers great averaged 18.9 points a game on 36.6% shooting from the field and 28.5% from 3-point range.

But he left everyone with one last indelible memory of his greatness by pouring in 60 points and leading the Lakers to victory after trailing by 10 with 3:20 left in his last game. While he was relatively efficient, he took a whopping 50 shots, as everyone wanted him to shoot the basketball as often as possible.

D’Angelo Russell, who was then a rookie and in his first stint with the team, recalled how everyone always wanted the ball to go to Bryant in that game while on the “Run Your Race” podcast.

“Bro, when you got the ball and they boo you, you know what that means. Get that ball to that man. He was just trying to score. I remember Julius [Randle] was like, ‘Bro, I’m just trying to get on the board. I’m just trying to score. I ain’t trying to have zero.’ So everybody was just trying to get two, like just get two. He’s gonna get all the other ones.

“So that’s what it was. It was really us running around trying to get him the ball because they were trapping him. He was shooting tough twos like one-footed inside the 3-point line twos, like pull-ups. You just see his face he looked young. He just looked like he had it. I don’t know what was getting him through that [expletive]. He didn’t come out of the game. He was prepared, though. You could see it, mentally, he was prepared. Everybody in the world was at the game. Denzel [Washington], Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal), like everybody.”

In that game, only one other Lakers — guard Jordan Clarkson — managed to get into double figures, and no one on the team other than Bryant attempted more than 10 shots. Russell went 4-of-10 and scored nine points with five assists in 36 minutes.

In a purely sentimental sense, it may have been Bryant’s finest moment or at least fans’ favorite memory of his storied career.

Michael Cooper talks about the Lakers retiring his jersey

Michael Cooper talks about what a tremendous honor it will be for him and his family to have his jersey retired by the Lakers.

For years, some fans of the Los Angeles Lakers were calling for Michael Cooper to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Weeks ago, it finally happened, as he got the nod after decades of waiting, and he will officially get inducted about two months from now.

Cooper had played 12 seasons for the Lakers starting in the 1978-79 campaign, and during that time, he was arguably the NBA’s first-ever 3-and-D player. He was named to eight All-Defensive teams and helped Los Angeles win five NBA championships.

This coming season, the team will also retire his No. 21 jersey. While on the “Showtime” podcast, he discussed how much of an honor it will be for him.

“I’m 68 years old, had a wonderful NBA career, my after basketball career has been fabulous, but I’m experiencing something very fantastic,” said Cooper. “I’ve always played this game, and everybody knows that, for the love of the game. But some magnificent individual accolades have been bestowed upon me. First being named into the Hall of Fame, which would be October 12th and 13th and I thought the dream had ended right there.

“But the Lakers yesterday had bestowed upon me probably one of the most prestigious award any NBA player, any athlete, can get playing for an organization. And I’ve always said the Lakers are a great organization, I’m not saying it now because of what they’ve done for me. And what they’ve done is they’re going to retire my jersey on January 13th. If we weren’t on camera I would start crying, but I did my crying last night. I got a chance to talk about it like an adult. That there is the ultimate award, because what that means is that every time you walk into the arena where the Lakers play, that jersey is going to be up there with some of the best that’s ever played this game.

“You have Wilt Chamberlain, Magic [Johnson], Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal), Kobe [Bryant] twice just to name a few. And now the No. 21. And the thing I like about that is because we would all like to live forever but that’s not going to happen. But my kids, grandkids and my great great grandkids, any time they go to a Lakers event, they’ll see the No. 21 hanging up there with the insignia Cooper on it. That’s who they are and that’s where it all began. So like I said, it’s the year of me.

“I’m going to revel in it a little bit because I do appreciate the Lakers for that. Like I said, I just played for the love of the game and for heart and for winning championships. There was a point where I could have left, but loyalty means something, and yeah you can be a great player. But the first franchise you ever get to be with is where you play your heart and soul. I always tell people I never played in Crypto.com [Arena], but I left a lot of skin and a lot of blood, I left a piece of my hair stuck in a scaffold at the Forum and the greatest memories I ever had were playing this game at the Forum.”

A player needs to make the Hall of Fame in order to get his jersey retired by the Lakers. While Cooper never made an All-Star team, he was integral to those Showtime Lakers teams, and they likely wouldn’t have been as successful as they were without him.

On Jan. 13, 2025, when the Purple and Gold host the San Antonio Spurs, he will join some extremely select company on the wall of Crypto.com Arena.

Lakers guard Gabe Vincent calls head coach JJ Redick a savant

Gabe Vincent is another Lakers player who thinks highly of new head coach JJ Redick’s basketball acumen.

One player who, in a low-key way, could help the Los Angeles Lakers this coming season in a supporting role is guard Gabe Vincent. They signed him to a three-year, $33 million contract last summer, but he missed most of the 2023-24 season with a knee ailment that required surgery.

During his four previous NBA seasons, he showed the ability to be a gritty backcourt defender, handle the ball on occasion and hit outside shots when needed. He played a key role in the Miami Heat’s unexpected run to the 2023 NBA Finals, which likely inflated his market value a bit.

During an interview with Sacramento-based Fox40, Vincent praised new Lakers head coach JJ Redick’s basketball intelligence (at 4:17).

“No, not really,” Vincent said when he was asked if he has a feel for how things will be with Redick. “But, a new coach, know him a little bit off the floor, great person, excited to see how the year goes. I think everyone is looking forward to camp. We’ve had a longer offseason and we’re ready to get back and compete.”

The Lakers already have a very high-IQ player in LeBron James. But if Redick, who has virtually no coaching experience of any kind, has one thing going in his favor, it’s his basketball acumen.

“… Yeah, very, very, very high IQ,” Vincent responded when asked to compare the basketball IQ of James and Redick. “I think LeBron is almost in a league of his own in many ways, but JJ’s IQ is very high. You saw that when he played, you’ve seen it when he’s doing the breakdowns at the media, day in and day out. He’s a savant of basketball as well.”

Over the last several weeks, fellow guard D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves have also made it clear that they think highly of their new bench leader.

Basketball fans got a glimpse of Redick’s basketball knowledge when he and James co-hosted the “Mind the Game” podcast. He may not have a championship-caliber roster in front of him, but he does have plenty of good players who could surprise some people around the league.