21-4. We've been winning on talent alone, no hustle, no desire, nothing. This team is disinterested and passionless from top to bottom. As a coach, aren't you supposed to motivate your team? Aren't you supposed to help your team gain focus? By no means am I advocating us coming out, playing 110% each and every game (even though that's ideal), because I know with a team this talented, it simply will not happen. But when you play passionless basketball, for, I dunno, an entire month? What does that say about the coaching? Either Phil hasn't been doing his job, or he has completely lost this team. There's too much talent available to be playing like this, especially for an entire one month stretch. That's just unacceptable, from a player's POV, and especially a coach's POV. Again, isn't the coach supposed to motivate his players? Keep them focused? So far, all I've seen from Phil is his smug smile on the bench, and his stupid little "mind-games." Maybe it's time to adjust to this current team and realize, this shit isn't working. YOUR team hasn't played with any sense of direction/passion for an entire month, it is YOUR fault. Do something about it, scream at them, pull them out, do something. Maybe we can lose against Orlando tomorrow, and get blown out by Boston on Christmas? Will that be embarrassing enough to get their heads out of their asses? Or will they continue not to care and try to win games by talent alone, something they have done for the past month, and I'm sick of it. If we didn't have this much talent, we'd be below .500 right now. That's how bad we've been playing. And FYI, I'm not questioning this team's capabilities/talents. I'm questioning the lack of motivation/passion/desire/ect. And I think Phil needs to wake up, do his job, and get this team focused. I don't give a shit about his 9 championships. He hasn't won a championship in 6 years, and he's been 3-8 in the Finals ever since. This is a "what have you done for me now" league, otherwise Shawn Kemp would have made an NBA roster by now.
I think we've seen this coming to the Lakers since they stopped playing defense as passionately. There's just something missing for them, though I simply can't give up on LA this early in the season. I'm just saying I wasn't THAT surprised today; how unfortunate.
I'm not giving up on them. Like I said, I don't question the talent, I question the effort. I don't mind a couple of off games, it happens. But when you play like this for pretty much an entire month, it is unacceptable. Talent alone does not win championships, unfortunately, it seems like this team believes they can win on talent alone, or driving up the score every game. This lies on the coach. Coaches are supposed to get teams motivated, and focused on the game. Phil has to do something different, because whatever mind game he is using obviously has not worked on this team. Coaches who do not prepare their teams, and who cannot keep their teams focused get fired. Obviously I'm not advocating us to fire Phil, he's still one of the best coaches in the league. But it's time for him to adjust and do something.
I dogged Phil in the game thread, but just looking at him on the bench I think the guy is getting old. I mean he's always been a laid back type of person, but looking at his early days in Chicago (and even with the lakers during their 3 peat) you could see him get in a guys face everynow and then...................It just appears that he's gotten to that point of "fuck it, I'm getting old........" lol....
I wish I could root for a passionless 21-4 team. Instead I have to root for a passionless 12-14 team.
Yeah..Phil sucks...We should hire PJ Carlisemo. He will lead us to the promised land. These losses mean nothing more than a slightly worse record with HCA all the way thru. Oh darn...no 72 wins Its December...we'll be fine
We can still get it done obviously, you never know what other teams in the East may slump or peak at the right time either. Part of the reason why some Laker fans are harsh on their own team is because of the Finals last year. They want to hold this team to a higher standard with Bynum and this new defensive attitude from the beginning of the season. We don't just want to get to the Finals and make the exact same mistakes on offense and defense again, so it is troubling to see us revert a bit. I somewhat understand that mentality, even though I don't completely agree.
Seems like it's less PJax getting old than it is his bench coaches. It does come down to defense if the Lakers want the championship, I agree.
