The Lakers Made A HORRIFIC MISTAKE...

The big 3 of Lebron James, Anthony Davis and now Russell Westbrook is a combined weight of 121 million dollars for the next season. Just those 3 players have a bigger combined salary of the complete rosters for 19 teams in the league. But none of that matters since now the Lakers have a superteam and are for sure winning the title right? On the contrary, if you ask me, they made a horrific mistake. Let me explain why. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it. You know what’s Lebron’s style of play right? On every team he’s been on. Overpowers defenders, attacks the basket, and when the help comes, kicks it out to the shooter. That’s literally the recipe with each and every one of his teams. But in order to get Westbrook, who’s a career 30.5% shooter from downtown, which for those of you that don’t know that’s not good, the Lakers gave away probably their best outside shooter in Caldwell Pope. He shot 38.5% when they won the title, and 41.0% last year. Speaking of shooting, this is how the Lakers themselves defended Westbrook in that playoff series against Houston. Look at all of this space. Do you know how Brodie shot it that entire year? An abysmal 25.8%. Threes that were primarily off of the catch and shot from Harden’s kick outs. Which is the exact same way of operating with Lebron. So since LA gave up so much to get Westbrook, now the depth is depleted as well, but of course they are restricted in terms of the salary cap so things will get trickier for them. And the most mind blowing thing for me is that just hours before acquiring Russell, reporters were saying that the team was trying to trade for Buddy Hield, which was actually the perfect guy to trade for. A career 40.6% shooter from 3, playing alongside Lebron and AD on the perimeter? There’s no way you double them 2. And if you do, there would have been a high price to pay. Plus, the roles would have been clear there since Buddy is a shooter. Whereas Westbrook is best when the ball is in his hands, but we know that the Lakers are the best when James has it in his possession. So this will be similar to that hybrid “on the ball, off the ball” that Rockets had him play when Brodie was in Houston alongside Harden. They were great friends too, as is the case now, so I’ve already seen the comments saying: they’ll find a way to make it work. But honestly I got fooled with that the first time around. I honestly thought that Westbrook and Harden will make things work, but we saw how they barely even got out of the first round in 7 games against the OKC Thunder. So look: At the end of the day, Russell is going to do his thing especially during the regular season. He’ll have nights where he’s unstoppable, racking up triple doubles, and providing firepower enough to win games against some teams and for Lebron to be a bit more rested. But I’m viewing this from the standpoint of the playoffs, where teams look to exploit every possible weakness, and where shooting is especially important. And now it’s clear that Schroeder is not going to be coming back and obviously the Lakers are not done making moves yet, but they need to be creative in terms of filling out the roster with good pieces who can contribute under the brightest lights when it matters the most, in the hunt for the championship. Until then, and until I’m proven wrong, my stance is that they made a mistake. I expect a lot of passionate comments, so whether you agree or disagree, let me know down below. Keep it respectable tho. That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.