What We Learned From the Pre-Season

The results of pre-season games may be meaningless, but that doesn’t mean that what occurs during the games is totally without value.  With the pre-season now over and the regular season right around the corner, let’s take a quick look back at the Lakers’ pre-season and what lessons we learned from it:

• Complacency won’t be an issue – Everyone says complacency is the biggest threat to a team’s desire to repeat as champions.  That doesn’t look like it will be the case for the Lakers who are already so focused on defending the title that they held a players only meeting after a poor pre-season showing to get everyone’s head in the game.  Any team taking things that seriously that early won’t have focus issues.
• Frontcourt depth might be an issue – The Lakers have a very deep roster, but not at every single spot.  Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom all suffered minor injuries during the pre-season which highlighted just how little depth they have behind their three big men.  Gasol is still nursing a sore hamstring, Odom’s back isn’t 100% and Bynum is a blownout knee waiting to happen.  That just isn’t a good way to start the year.  The prospect of Josh Powell and/or DJ Mbenga playing heavy minutes looms large right now, so the Laker training staff better get on their game to keep the big fellas healthy.



Don’t act like more frontcourt injuries can’t happen.

• Nothing is settled in the battle for the back-up point guard – Neither Shannon Brown nor Jordan Farmar were able to lay claim to the back-up point guard job in the pre-season, though both did perform well in their own way.  Still it seems that the back-up minutes will be allocated based on match-ups.  With the Lakers searching for a point guard of the future, that is a step backwards, but for the present it is a step forward as it will keep Brown and Farmar on top of their game as they try and one up each all season long.
• Ron Artest has a big learning curve in front of him – The biggest concern I have always had with Artest was how he would fit in with the offense and those concerns were exposed all pre-season long as Ron-Ron looked either lost or confused on the offensive end in almost every game.  I know the Lakers don’t need him to be a dominant offensive player, but they need him to at least be a threat and he just isn’t that right now.  He should be able to get their at some point during the season, but it looks like it could take awhile, so don’t be surprised if the Lakers struggle a little bit to start the year.



Artest may look good in the uniform but doesn’t look good in the offense yet.


• Money talks – The luxury tax is going to be a real pain in the ass for the Lakers this year, especially if they find themselves in need of making a major personnel move at the trade deadline.  They are well into luxury tax territory and it is painfully clear the team is scared to spend so much as another cent.  Take for example Tony Gaffney.  Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant raved about the kid and how much they would like to keep him.  For a team that always is at the end of the draft, finding a good, young, athletic player to add to the roster is easier said than done, but still they ended up cutting Gaffney all because the Buss family didn’t want to fork over the roughly million dollars it would cost to keep him on the roster.  Now imagine what their response will be if Mitch Kupchak comes Jerry Buss at the deadline asking for approval to make a deal that will add several million dollars to the payroll over the next few years.  I don’t think Buss will be able to say no fast enough.
• It is going to be rough – Don’t think that just because the Lakers overcame the physicality of the Rockets and the thuggery of the Nuggets that team are going to stop trying to rough up the Lakers.  We even saw things get chippy again with Denver in the final pre-season game.  Ron Artest should give the Lakers that toughness they’ve been looking for but the rest of the crew is going to have to prove they won’t back down from physical play before opponents ease of the rough stuff.



Guys, it is the pre-season tone it down a bit, huh?

Tags: Analysis, Andrew Bynum, DJ Mbenga, injuries, Josh Powell, Lamar Odom, luxury tax, Pau Gasol, pre-season, Ron Artest, Tony Gaffney