Quote (umade @ Nov 4 2016 11:19am)
Fluke game sim
Come on, Zeb.
Small sample size caveats aside, Lakers currently rank 12th Offensive Rating after ranking 29th(!!) last season. That's a HUGE improvement. This is while they are shooting a league low ~24% on uncontested shots. That rate stands to normalize as teams shot ~51% on those type of shots last season and Lakers have plenty of good shooters.
They are also at 25th in Defensive Rating after ranking 30th(dead last) last season. Obviously a lot of work to do there still, but that partly stems from the fact that they've faced nothing but playoff teams thus far and almost primarily on the road(where every single game has been decided in the last minutes of the 4th quarter).
There's a lot to be excited about here. That fact that the improvement can be directly correlated with a new coaching staff and system helps me believe that it's more than just small sample size noise.