The same issues have been present for the Los Angeles Lakers this entire season, despite an inflated 19-10 record. L.A. simply does not have enough players that have speed and athleticism, and they don’t appear to have enough players with a care factor to try and overcome that. Jarred Vanderbilt has stood out in a positive way as one of the only athletic players who really gives his all each and every night.
This is a similar issue to past Lakers teams. A player who wasn’t in the rotation due to glaring flaws in his game becomes essential on a night-to-night basis simply because he is willing to put in effort when others won’t. Vanderbilt has given the Lakers an energy boost when they desperately needed it, even though it hasn’t been enough to avoid a three-game skid.
Vanderbilt was extremely blunt and honest in his assessment of the Lakers after their Christmas Day loss to the Houston Rockets.
“It’s going to take some reflection,” Vanderbilt said. “I feel that’s something that we can all bring each and every night. You just have to choose to do it. And we need to be the harder playing team. I feel like the last couple games, the harder playing team won, the team that set the tone early and set that physicality from the jump.
“You have to want to make the 50-50 plays like the loose balls, the offensive rebounds, and the dirty plays that ultimately win the game. I feel like I try to come in the game and bring that energy and hoping guys could feed off it, but we need that for 48 minutes and like I said. We just have to dig deep and want to do it.”
Vanderbilt has been around long enough to know that losing streaks are a part of the NBA regular season. His challenge to the Lakers, though, is in the response.
“It’s part of the season. You’re going to win some games, you’re going to go on some win streaks, you go on some losing streaks,” he said. “We just have to find out who we are as a team. We’re going to go through some adversity so it’s about how we respond and we think, we basically, got the answer to the test.
“Just play hard, be physical, get back in transition, we know what we need to do at this point, so we just have to do it. Just take some pride, especially on that end of the floor and not let that the offensive side affect our defensive side and how we play and how we bring the energy.”
Part of the ability to respond is going to revolve around — as head coach JJ Redick put it — some uncomfortable conversations. Vanderbilt spoke about if he feels this team has the chemistry necessary for those types of talks.
“Obviously, for the guys that’s been here, I think personally we have built a relationship where we talk to each other. We still got some new guys, I feel like we’ve had 25 games to get to know each other, but guys haven’t been in the lineup. So just trying to integrate guys and knowing how to talk to people and what they respond well to,” Vanderbilt said.
“But ultimately, certain stuff just needs to be said and certain stuff needs to be done and we need to be able to communicate with each other and be receptive of it, whether it’s criticism or, we need to have them hard conversations. And I think that’s, what, JJ [Redick] alluded to that you need to have these conversations.
“We don’t want this to keep lingering and right now it’s three in a row, but we don’t want it to keep going the wrong direction to go to five in a row, six in a row. We need to nip that in the bud now, and that’s being able to talk to each other and also look at each other in the mirror and see what you could do better. And, yeah, just taking pride.”
The Lakers need to figure out soon if their recent woes are a care issue, a roster issue, or both. The sooner those questions are answered, the sooner changes can be made to alleviate that.
In the meantime, the Lakers have been fortunate to stay in the top four in the Western Conference, but that luck is only a couple losses away from running out.
JJ Redick believes Lakers don’t care enough
Redick was also extremely blunt in his assessment of the Lakers’ Christmas Day effort and their care factor during their three-game losing streak.
“Because we don’t care enough right now,” Redick said when asked why the team wasn’t able to execute their game plan. “That’s the part that bothers you a lot. We don’t care enough to do the things that are necessary. We don’t care enough to be a professional. We have it. I always say this about culture. I always say this about a good team being a functioning organism. It can change like that. We don’t have it right now.”
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