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    Kevin Durant and Westbrook Are Finding Their Way Without Each Other

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    Durant’s Suns bested Westbrook’s Clippers in the first round of the playoffs, but the former teammates held their own.PHOENIX — Russell Westbrook sprinted to steal the ball from Kevin Durant, sending Durant flying to the floor on his backside.Durant winced in pain for a few moments before heading to the free-throw line at Phoenix’s Footprint Center as thousands of Suns fans in orange T-shirts held their breath. Westbrook quickly walked away from the scene, seemingly unconcerned, and waited for Durant to begin shooting.The sequence played out like two ardent foes battling in an elimination game — which, technically, it was. Westbrook’s Clippers were on their last chance to stay alive in the first-round playoff series. But it was also a matchup between two men who had spent nearly a decade together as teammates, making the N.B.A. finals in 2012 with Oklahoma City as fledgling 23-year-olds tasked with carrying a new franchise in a small city.“You know Russ is a fierce competitor, so when he sees K, it’s always about trying to play super hard,” said Suns guard Cameron Payne, who played with Westbrook and Durant on the Thunder.Payne added: “Maybe in the regular season, he’ll go help him up, but you never know with Russ. Like playing with him in OKC, he was big on how it’s 15 guys on a team, and I’m with my 15 guys, so that’s just that competing stuff I was talking about.”It was another puzzling moment in a jagged relationship.Durant and Westbrook made a thrilling run to the N.B.A. finals in 2012 but lost to LeBron James and the Miami Heat.Paul Buck/European Pressphoto AgencyDurant’s Suns won the decisive Game 5 on Tuesday, 136-130, holding off a late comeback attempt from the Clippers and advancing to the second round. Phoenix will play the top-seeded Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference semifinals beginning Saturday. Suns guard Devin Booker led all scorers with 47 points; Durant added 31, and Westbrook had 14.Eleven years ago, Durant and Westbrook led Oklahoma City past playoff teams fronted by the future Hall of Famers Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan and headed into an N.B.A. finals matchup with LeBron James and the Miami Heat. The Heat beat the Thunder easily in five games, with Miami’s experience and star power proving too much for the upstart Thunder.As swift as the loss was, it seemed to indicate that Durant and Westbrook would be back and would win championships together; they appeared too talented not to.But they didn’t. Durant and Westbrook picked up individual accolades: Each has won a Most Valuable Player Award and many All-N.B.A. honors, but they never got to another finals together. Durant left for the Warriors in 2016 after the Thunder blew a three-games-to-one lead in the Western Conference finals against Golden State.In their second matchup against each other after Durant’s departure, Westbrook yelled at his teammates and instructed them not to talk to Durant. They avoided questions about each other. Even former teammates like James Harden, who played with them in Oklahoma City, said they were “grown men” who had to “figure it out themselves.”Since then, each has been on several teams. Durant won two championships with the Warriors and then headed to the Nets and now Phoenix. Westbrook has played on several teams that were supposed to have been title contenders — Rockets, Lakers, Clippers — but none has panned out. As Durant thrived, Westbrook began to be viewed as past his prime, no longer the player who could will teams to wins and average triple-doubles, and he has become the butt of jokes from fans when he struggles.But in this playoff series against the Suns, Westbrook proved he could still be a difference maker. Westbrook signed with the Clippers in February as a free agent after the Lakers had traded him to Utah, where he was released to, at best, be the third option for the Clippers behind the stars Paul George and Kawhi Leonard. But injuries to George and Leonard made Westbrook the first scoring option against the Suns, and he often served as the team’s best rebounder and defender.He finished the series averaging 23.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 7.4 assists per game, looking like a version of his old self, and he had the game-sealing block on Booker in the Clippers’ Game 1 win.Westbrook proved he could still be a valuable contributor in the N.B.A. He had 37 points in Game 4.Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press“When he’s retired, people are going to really tell the truth about how they feel about his game,” Durant said after Game 4, when Westbrook had 37 points. “Right now, the fun thing to do is to make a joke out of Russ. But the way he’s been playing since he got with the Clippers is showing everybody who he really is.”After Game 5, Westbrook reflected on Durant’s comments, with an introspective answer that sounded as if it could also serve as a pitch to teams to sign him this summer.“I just think that I am a player that makes mistakes like anybody else,” Westbrook said. “I miss shots like anybody else. I turn the ball over like anybody else. But I also do a lot of things that a lot of people can’t do, and I’ve done a lot of things people haven’t done in this league.”For Durant, this series, and these playoffs, have a different meaning in some basketball fans’ eyes: proving that he can win a title without Golden State’s Stephen Curry and as a team’s best player. Durant, however, has said that he doesn’t feel that pressure because he has “nothing to prove.”The Boston Celtics embarrassed Durant and the Nets last season in the first round of the playoffs, sweeping them without much trouble. Boston’s star forward Jayson Tatum outplayed Durant, scoring a lot while also defending Durant.And then, in the N.B.A. finals, Curry and the Warriors beat that Boston team that had easily conquered Durant’s earlier in the postseason.In Tuesday’s win, Durant disappeared for much of the fourth quarter, going scoreless for nearly 10 minutes as Booker dominated the ball and the Clippers inched closer. As the postseason continues, how the Suns win — with Durant leading the way or with Booker, or someone else — will add fodder to the discussion about Durant’s place as one of the best players ever.That was clear on Tuesday, as Suns Coach Monty Williams made sure to acknowledge in his postgame news conference. But Williams also said that he was at fault for Durant’s lack of touches at the end of the game.“I’ve got to figure out ways to get him in space so he can catch the ball freely and be able to go,” Williams said.As the game ended, Westbrook had many long embraces with Suns players and coaches on the court, but he never made it to Durant. Instead, Westbrook left the floor alone, with one hand raised to fans as he exited, while Durant did a television interview on the other end of the court. More

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      NBA Trade Deadline 2023: Suns Get Durant as Power Shifts to the West

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      No move was bigger than Phoenix Suns’ agreement to trade for Kevin Durant. But the Lakers and Mavericks look stronger after deals of their own.It was supposed to be a quiet dinner with friends and family, who were there to celebrate Mat Ishbia’s big win — officially taking over as the controlling owner of the Phoenix Suns and Mercury.But Ishbia had his sights set on another win.An energetic 43-year-old billionaire in the mortgage industry, Ishbia kept ducking out of the room to take phone calls Wednesday evening as he and James Jones, the Suns’ president of basketball operations and general manager, worked together to make a deal for one of the greatest scorers in N.B.A. history: Kevin Durant.On his first full day on the job, Ishbia agreed to trade with the Nets for Durant, adding him to a competitive Suns lineup that already has the star guards Devin Booker and Chris Paul.In doing so, he had delivered the biggest splash in a season full of them, and he’d done so during a critical moment: the frenzied days before the N.B.A.’s trading deadline, which may have shifted the power in the league to the Western Conference.The Lakers got rid of their ill-fitting and expensive guard, Russell Westbrook. The Dallas Mavericks acquired the disgruntled but dynamic Kyrie Irving from the Nets to pair him with Luka Doncic, the star 23-year-old guard. Around the league, smaller deals tinkered with rosters and reset timelines, but no team changed as much as the Suns. Now, they are a championship contender and a potent threat to everyone else, including elite teams like the Boston Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks, Memphis Grizzlies and Denver Nuggets.It had been difficult to know what to make of the West for much of this season. While the East has two teams at the top that have proved that they can win in the playoffs — Boston and Milwaukee — the West has been a jumble of aging stars and unproven youth.Heading into Thursday, only three games separated fourth-place Dallas from 11th-place Utah. No team is dominating, not even the Nuggets, who have led the conference since Dec. 20 but have developed a reputation for stumbling in the playoffs.The Grizzlies have been firmly in second place since Jan. 1, but they are also an unproven team in the postseason. They earned the No. 2 seed in the West last year, but were challenged by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round before losing to the Golden State Warriors, the eventual champion, in the second round.A few days before Christmas, the Grizzlies’ star guard Ja Morant was interviewed by ESPN’s Malika Andrews. She asked him what teams he would have to go through to win a championship.“Celtics,” Morant said, without hesitation.“No one in the West?” Andrews said.“Nah,” Morant said, shaking his head and smiling mischievously. “I’m fine in the West.”On Christmas, the Grizzlies faced Golden State, then struggling in 11th place. Golden State didn’t have its best player, Stephen Curry, but taunted the young and braggadocious Grizzlies team on the way to a 123-109 victory.The Warriors have had a confusing season as well. Their stars — Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green — are older. The team has had injury issues, most notably to Curry and the starting forward Andrew Wiggins. But every once in a while Golden State notches a signature win, like its Christmas game, that reminds everyone why this team has won four championships in the past 10 years.And now Morant’s team has more competition to worry about.After news of the Durant trade broke Thursday, New Orleans Pelicans shooting guard CJ McCollum recalled Morant’s oft-memed words.“This all because @JaMorant said he was good in the West,” McCollum posted on Twitter, adding at the end three emojis of laughter with tears.The Los Angeles Lakers traded Russell Westbrook to the Utah Jazz as part of a three-team deal on Thursday.Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressHours before the Durant trade surfaced, the Lakers agreed to trade Westbrook to the Jazz in a three-team trade that included a package of draft picks and players headlined by Minnesota’s D’Angelo Russell. The Lakers are in 13th place in the West but just four games away from a secure spot in the playoffs above the play-in tournament positions.With LeBron James and Anthony Davis on the Lakers’ roster, it stood to reason that a few tweaks could dramatically change their fortunes. Russell, whom the Lakers drafted No. 2 overall in 2015 but traded two seasons later, is a much better 3-point shooter than Westbrook and should help on offense. Two other players the Lakers received in the Westbrook trade — Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt — should help the team, too.The addition of Durant, one of the best to ever to play the game, could make the West a lot less open.On Wednesday, Ishbia woke up at 5 a.m. in his Detroit-area home and flew to Phoenix with his wife, three children, parents and some close friends.After meeting with some team employees, he walked onto a stage at the Suns’ arena, the Footprint Center, for his introductory news conference. He eschewed the lectern, using it only to hold a bottle of water he sipped from during questions. He paced the stage with the energy of a start-up founder giving a keynote address, using his hands to emphasize his rapidly delivered words.“I’m not going to be sitting here counting the dollars,” Ishbia said when asked if he would be willing to pay the league’s luxury tax penalties to exceed the salary cap, adding, “Money follows success, not the other way around.”He spent the afternoon at the team’s practice facility strategizing with Jones. Later, after the dinner with his family and friends, Ishbia stayed up all night working on the details of the Durant deal.Durant, 34, improves the team immediately, and dramatically. He has been out with a knee injury since Jan. 12, but his health is the only thing that has slowed him lately.He comes to a Phoenix team searching for a steady postseason identity.The past two seasons have ended with different kinds of heartbreak for the Suns. They lost to the Bucks in the finals two years ago, with Paul working through injuries. Then last year, despite setting a franchise regular-season wins record, they ended their season with an embarrassing blowout loss to the Mavericks in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals.If all goes as planned, the West will now go through Phoenix. More

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      Lakers Agree to Trade Russell Westbrook in a Three-Team Deal

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      Westbrook, a nine-time All-Star, would head to Utah after not fitting smoothly with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Minnesota’s D’Angelo Russell will return to the Lakers, who drafted him in 2015.The Los Angeles Lakers have agreed to trade guard Russell Westbrook to the Utah Jazz as part of a three-team deal, according to three people familiar with the trade who were not authorized to speak about it publicly.As part of the exchange, the Lakers will receive Minnesota Timberwolves guard D’Angelo Russell, whom they drafted No. 2 overall in 2015 then traded away after just two seasons.The agreement was first reported by ESPN.The deal will end Westbrook’s tumultuous, and brief, tenure with the Lakers. The Washington Wizards traded Westbrook to the Lakers before the 2021-22 season, giving the Lakers high hopes that he would be part of a so-called superteam with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. To acquire Westbrook, the Lakers traded multiple players who were crucial to their championship run in 2020. It didn’t pan out.Westbrook, a nine-time All-Star and the 2017 most valuable player, is versatile and athletic at his best, easily able to fill up box scores. But in Los Angeles, Westbrook struggled to adjust to coming off the bench and not being the primary ballhandler. That, along with his below-average perimeter shooting, sunk the chances of him fitting with James and Davis.The Lakers (25-30) are out of the playoff picture in the Western Conference, despite their championship aspirations. Westbrook averaged 16.2 points, 6.1 rebounds and 7.7 assists per game off the bench for the Lakers this season.The Westbrook trade will also send to the Jazz forward Juan Toscano-Anderson, center Damian Jones and a first-round pick in the 2027 draft. The Jazz will mark Westbrook’s fifth team in five years, an unusual level of movement for a former M.V.P. still relatively close to his prime.The Jazz will send Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt to the Lakers, and they will trade Mike Conley and Nickeil Alexander-Walker to Minnesota.Russell, 26, who had been with Minnesota since the 2019-20 season, has had an up-and-down career. The Lakers traded him to the Nets in 2017, before his third season. He earned an All-Star selection with the Nets in 2019 but was sent to Golden State that summer as part of a sign-and-trade deal for Kevin Durant. Only months into the 2019-20 season, Golden State traded him to the Timberwolves, where he played alongside his close friend Karl-Anthony Towns. The potential was high for yet another dynamic star pairing in the N.B.A.But Minnesota, like the Lakers, has languished in the standings — battling for a playoff spot when the expectations were to be near the top of the West, especially after acquiring center Rudy Gobert, one of the best defensive players in the league, in a summer trade with Utah.Even so, Russell averaged 17.9 points and 6.2 assists per game for Minnesota this season, one of the best of his career. Crucially for the Lakers, he will provide another shooter as they attempt to salvage their season: He is shooting 39.1 percent from deep this season. For his career, he’s at 36 percent from 3-point range.The Lakers will add multiple role players as well. Beasley averaged 13.4 points per game for the Jazz this year and shot 35.9 percent from beyond the 3-point arc. Vanderbilt averaged 8.3 points and 7.9 rebounds per game on 55.6 percent shooting from the field, mostly off the bench.Russell’s replacement in Minnesota would be Conley, who started 42 games at point guard for the surprisingly resilient Jazz this season. Conley, a 2021 All-Star, averaged a career-high 7.7 assists for the Jazz, but his scoring numbers have dipped to 10.7 points per game, his lowest output since his second season in the league. He is a more traditional point guard than Russell and may fit better next to Anthony Edwards, the third-year guard who has emerged as a franchise player for the Timberwolves. More

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      This Isn’t Who the Lakers Are Supposed to Be. Right?

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      The Lakers have long been seen as a glamour franchise of big names and big wins. LeBron James is dominating. But the wins have been much harder to come by, for a while.LOS ANGELES — LeBron James fidgeted as he answered questions after a second consecutive frustrating Lakers loss in which he thought the referees had missed a potential game-altering foul call.He was terse and dismissed a question about scoring his 38,000th career point in the N.B.A., something only he and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have done. He was asked if he thought much about what the Lakers’ many losses in recent seasons meant to the franchise.“No,” James said. Then he turned and sped out of the locker room, into a rainy Los Angeles night.The gloom outside reflected the mood in the building.For decades, the Lakers defined themselves as one of the N.B.A.’s glamour franchises — a place the biggest stars went to play, win championships and achieve basketball immortality. Making the playoffs was an expectation, not an accomplishment.Then 10 years ago, two seismic events shook the franchise. On Feb. 18, 2013, Jerry Buss, who bought and revitalized the Lakers in 1979, died at age 80, leaving the franchise to a trust controlled by his six children, some of whom would wrestle for control of the team. Less than two months later, as he tried to drag the Lakers into the playoffs, Kobe Bryant tore an Achilles’ tendon, the first in a string of injuries that would spell the end of his 20-year career.Since then, the Lakers have gone through several discordant phases, from Bryant’s return and retirement to chaos in the executive ranks to a championship in 2020 that seemed proof of purple-and-gold exceptionalism, no matter the obstacles.But new obstacles have the Lakers once again facing the question of whether the excellence they spent decades building can return. For the second year in a row, James, 38, is having to produce herculean efforts to try to pull his injury-plagued team out of the bottom of the Western Conference standings.LeBron James is averaging nearly 30 points a game at the age of 38 as he tries to power the injured and struggling Lakers to the playoffs.Jae C. Hong/Associated Press“We’re going to figure this thing out,” said Lakers Coach Darvin Ham, the team’s fifth in the past 10 years. “We’ll definitely figure this thing out.”‘Kobe realized that he could not win’If success is measured by championships, the Lakers have still been one of the top teams in the N.B.A. during the past decade. They are one of the six teams to have won championships since the 2012-13 season.Broadening the measure to playoff or regular-season success, the Lakers become less impressive. With only two playoff appearances since the 2012-13 season, the Lakers are in the bottom third of the league. Only two teams have been to the playoffs fewer times in that span — the Knicks (once) and the Sacramento Kings (none).By contrast, between 1960-61, the team’s first season in Los Angeles after moving from Minnesota, and 2012-13, the Lakers had missed the playoffs just four times.Frank Vogel coached the Lakers to their only two recent playoff appearances, guiding them to the championship in 2020 then a first-round loss in 2021. The Lakers fired him in April after they missed the playoffs.Even though injuries and roster construction played major roles in the Lakers’ struggles in the 2021-22 season, Vogel became a casualty of heightened expectations with James on board. James’s arrival as a free agent in July 2018 marked the first time since Bryant retired two years earlier that the Lakers had a transcendent star.Bryant had spent his whole career with the Lakers and won five championships. So even after his Achilles’ tendon injury, the Lakers rewarded him with a two-year contract extension worth $48.5 million, giving him the highest salary in the league at the time. They were confident that he deserved it no matter what happened next.To announce Bryant’s return from injury in late 2013, the Lakers created a video with dramatic music and an image of his jersey being battered by weather until a lightning bolt finally tore it. The video closes with the jersey having been mended by unseen means and with the words: “The Legend Continues.”Bryant returned for six games in December, then fractured his knee and missed the rest of the 2013-14 season as the Lakers won just 27 games. He missed most of the next season as the team won only 21 games.“At some point, I think it’s obvious to everyone that Kobe realized that he could not win,” said Gary Vitti, who was the Lakers’ head athletic trainer for decades until Bryant retired. “And once he realized he couldn’t win, then a lot of the stress and the pressure sort of came off him and he really started having fun and being a lot happier around the game and his teammates.”Kobe Bryant, who died in 2020, spent his entire 20-year career with the Lakers, though the final few seasons were rough. He scored 60 points in his final game in April 2016.Harry How/Getty ImagesOpposing fans feted him everywhere he went. They cheered the first shot he made, even if it took him a while to get there. Coach Byron Scott, a former Lakers guard, led the team during Bryant’s loss-filled farewell tour, a franchise-low 17-win season.“Losing — it’s horrible,” Vitti said. “But if you put it all in the context, if you’re Kobe, you know, basically Kobe could do whatever he wanted out there. Byron took over and kind of fell on his sword for the team. He said, let’s send Kobe out the way he wants to go.”Said Metta Sandiford-Artest, who played for the Lakers on their 2010 championship team and again from 2015-17: “At that point, you just wanted to make it comfortable for Kobe. That’s it. Nothing else really matters at that point.” He added: “He deserved it.”‘Pieces for the future’All the losing gave the Lakers enviable draft positioning.With picks earned by their records in the final few years of Bryant’s career, the Lakers drafted or acquired several promising young players, like Julius Randle, Jordan Clarkson, D’Angelo Russell, Larry Nance Jr., Brandon Ingram and Ivica Zubac.Randle, Clarkson, Russell and Nance have said they learned from Bryant’s example. But his star power was such that they had to wait until he retired in April 2016 for the franchise to focus on their development.“It felt like a career-beginning training camp because it definitely was not the pieces at the time you needed to win,” Sandiford-Artest said. “There was more, you know, pieces for the future.”Those players would not be part of their future, except as trade chips to build the championship roster.In the gap between Bryant and James, Jeanie Buss, the controlling owner, overhauled the front office and thwarted a coup attempt by her older brothers as the team’s losses — and external criticism — mounted.In the summer of 2017, the Lakers signed Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who is represented by James’s agent and close friend, Rich Paul. That gave Paul an inside look at the organization a year before James became a free agent.Paul knew the situation wasn’t perfect, but few teams are. He advised James that signing with the Lakers could work, in part out of trust in Buss. James chose the Lakers and suddenly the drama of the past few seasons didn’t seem to matter.After missing the playoffs in James’s first season, when he dealt with a groin injury, the Lakers tried again. Magic Johnson, whom Buss had hired to run basketball operations and who had helped to recruit James, abruptly stepped down before the last game of the 2018-19 season. They traded several young players and draft picks to the New Orleans Pelicans for another Paul client: Anthony Davis. Rob Pelinka, the team’s vice president of basketball operations, said he consulted with James and Davis as he built the rest of the roster.The two stars were electrifying together. The rest of the team fit perfectly and charged through the coronavirus pandemic-interrupted season. When Bryant died suddenly in a helicopter crash in January 2020, James became the public face of the organization’s grief.Months later, James led the Lakers to the franchise’s 17th championship. Buss felt vindicated against those who had questioned her leadership.Jeanie Buss, the Lakers’ controlling owner, has faced criticism as the team has struggled. She oversaw the franchise’s 17th championship run, in 2020.Tracy Nguyen for The New York TimesOnstage as the team celebrated the victory, James enveloped Buss in a long embrace. He told her they had accomplished what they set out to do.“I think the hug for that long a time was to really let it soak in,” Buss told the Los Angeles Times at the time. “He’s won several championships now, and he knows that those moments are to be cherished and to be recognized.”But it was only one championship. They would soon tumble from their pedestal.‘Things are going to get right’This season is Ham’s first season with the Lakers, and it began disastrously.The team lost its first five games, and 10 of its first 12. Ham benched Russell Westbrook in October after three starts. Westbrook had struggled in his first season in Los Angeles last year.James has been a bright spot. In his 20th season, he has been playing like he is still in his 20s. He’s had trouble enjoying the chase for Abdul-Jabbar’s career scoring record as losses and injuries have piled up this season.Ham has remained optimistic.“I get disappointed, but I don’t get discouraged or down on myself or the team,” he said in an interview. “Yeah, there’s moments in games we should have won, or different moments we should have played better, but at the end of the day working in the N.B.A. for one of the most, if not the most storied franchise, having a lot of great people I get to work with, great people I’m working for. It’s been fun.”The Lakers lack depth, but there is evidence lately that, with the right additions, they can contend for a championship if they have Davis, who had been playing like a candidate for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award before his foot injury in mid-December. The Lakers went on a five-game winning streak starting Dec. 30 and recently they nearly beat two contenders — the Mavericks and the 76ers.Lakers guard Russell Westbrook, left, has had a rocky tenure in Los Angeles, but has found success coming off the bench this year. Coach Darvin Ham, right, pulled Westbrook from the starting lineup after three games.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressThe trading deadline is Feb. 9, giving the Lakers until then to make a major move to get back on the championship track. But all of the trades of the last few years, particularly those for Davis and Westbrook, have left them with little flexibility and salary-cap space. They can’t trade any of their first-round picks until the 2027 selection, and have been reluctant to lose more draft assets.Ham said he has felt support from Pelinka and Buss, who signed Pelinka to a multiyear extension last year despite the team’s struggles. After a five-game road trip from Christmas to Jan. 2, Ham and Pelinka went to Buss’s office.“She gave me a big hug and told me: ‘Hang in there, you’re doing a phenomenal job and things are going to get right. We’re going to start winning consistently, but Darvin, we’re totally happy with what you’re doing and you and your staff are doing an excellent job,’” Ham said. “It was cool. It was really thoughtful.”Ham said the mood when he sees both Buss and Pelinka is light and full of smiles.“It’s not like a lack of an awareness, but just a gratefulness, a thankfulness to be in this together,” Ham said.He is being afforded patience, at least for now. More

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      The Lakers Can’t Make a 3-Pointer

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      Russell Westbrook is getting most of the heat, but the Lakers’ problem is its roster.LOS ANGELES — As Lakers guard Russell Westbrook went up for a 3-pointer against the Clippers, his home crowd groaned before the ball even left his hand. The shot clanked off the rim, justifying the fans’ apprehension.Westbrook missed all six of his 3-pointers in the game on Thursday. It was a microcosm of the two biggest issues facing the Lakers this season: Westbrook and shooting. Again and again on Thursday night, the Lakers faithful remained subdued as the team kept shooting. And missing. And shooting. And missing some more. There were enough bricks that the Lakers could offer themselves up as an infrastructure project.Through the first two games of the season, the Lakers have shot an almost unfathomable 19 for 85 from 3-point range (22.4 percent). That was the biggest factor in a blowout loss to Golden State in the season opener on Tuesday and in a 103-97 loss to the Clippers on Thursday night.In a league where deep shots have evolved from being quirky additions to being the driving force of contemporary scoring, the Lakers constructed their roster without enough players equipped to maximize that style of play. This summer, the Lakers let more formidable shooters like Wayne Ellington and Malik Monk walk, and instead opted to bring in the athletic guard Lonnie Walker IV and Dennis Schröder, neither of whom is known for perimeter prowess.It’s not that the Lakers are in a shooting slump. If someone put tap dancing shoes on a flamingo, one would not say the flamingo was struggling to be Fred Astaire. It’s that — as LeBron James factually noted after Tuesday night’s drubbing by Golden State — the Lakers just don’t have many good shooters. They weren’t built for this.LeBron James had 20 points on Thursday, but, like everyone else, he was cold from outside. He was just 2 of 8 from 3.Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press“We’re getting great looks, but it could also be teams giving us great looks,” James said. “To be completely honest, we’re not a team that’s constructed of great shooting. That’s just the truth of the matter. It’s not like we’re sitting here with a lot of lasers on our team.”And yet the Lakers have launched a bevy of 3s. The penetration skills of Anthony Davis and James have generated open looks outside for other Lakers, but both Golden State and the Clippers also continuously dared the Lakers to shoot.“They want to give us those shots?” Lakers Coach Darvin Ham said Thursday. “We will accept it wholeheartedly. That’s the way we want to play. We want to play fast, physical and free.”He added: “We see these guys making shots in practice and shootaround. They’ve got to do it on game floor. It’s as simple as that.”The Lakers climbed back from multiple deficits on Thursday to keep the game close down the stretch. But they weren’t able to sustain their periods of strong play. After the game, James was asked about his “laser” comments.“I love the way we’re playing basketball right now,” James said. “We’re really sharing the ball offensively. We’re moving bodies. And I think we will begin to knock down shots.”James does have good reason for optimism, but it has to do with the other side of the ball. In the loss to Golden State, the Lakers had a defensive rating of 107.0, which would have been good for fourth in the N.B.A. last season, a fact that guard Patrick Beverley pointed out after the Thursday morning shootaround. The Lakers were even better on Thursday with a rating of 100.0. When the Lakers fell into deficits against the Clippers, they turned up the defensive intensity and forced several turnovers to get out in transition to get back in the game.“I’m definitely not going to sit here and harp on what we can’t do every single game,” James said. “That’s not leadership. What I know we can do: We can defend our ass off.”The Clippers turned the ball over 22 times Thursday, contributing to some of the Lakers’ 15 fast-break points. This is where Westbrook’s skills can be useful to the Lakers. He had five steals Thursday, and as he is known to do, immediately focused on pushing the ball down the floor off those forced turnovers.Anthony Davis had a scary fall against the Clippers, but he returned to the game and led all scorers with 25 points. He was 2 of 4 from 3.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressBut Westbrook remains a lightning rod for criticism, at times unfairly. He missed all 11 of his shots against the Clippers, much to the chagrin of the crowd. But through another lens, Westbrook played the exact type of game that the Lakers need from him.“We’ve all had bad shooting nights,” James said. “I’ve had bad shooting nights. Everybody in this league has had bad shooting nights. Who cares? I thought he played a great game. Defensively, he was in tune. He was locked in. He pushed the tempo. He just didn’t make any shots. That’s OK.”A key criticism of Westbrook last season was his penchant for turnovers and for playing out of control. He had only one turnover on Thursday while quarterbacking the offense. Westbrook has also been bashed for his shot selection. He has, so far, focused on taking fewer shots of higher quality. Almost all of his 11 shots on Thursday were strong looks.Westbrook is not the issue for the Lakers; that would be roster construction. But if the 33-year-old Westbrook cannot be at least a passable shooter, defenders won’t have to pay him much attention, leaving James and Davis with less room to operate. And if the Lakers want someone other than Westbrook to be their starting point guard, there aren’t many better options on the bench. (And Westbrook has grumbled about coming off the bench.)The Lakers and Westbrook are, for now, stuck with each other. However, Westbrook’s frenetic energy could be a boost for a team suddenly reliant on fast-break points to counter its bad shootingThe Lakers are a work in progress, and while the team lacks shooters, the 3-point shooting percentage will almost surely increase from the low 20s. That improvement, combined with their defensive effort, left Ham upbeat despite the difficult start to the season.“The way we stepped out there and scrapped, even when we did get down, to be able to get back in the game, make it a game, that’s the definition of identity building,” Ham said.He added: “I’ll sleep well. I won’t be angry or depressed. And we still have 80 games left, but we’re trending in the right direction.” More

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      What to Know About the New NBA Season

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      Much of the conversation around the league the past few months hasn’t been about basketball.The N.B.A. will begin a new season Tuesday under a cloud of scandals and drama that has distracted from the basketball and that has challenged the progressive image the league has long cultivated.“I think right now the best thing that can happen is the season start on the court,” said Chris Mullin, a Hall of Fame former player.Last season’s finals teams — Golden State and Boston — are navigating internal crises. Two teams in top media markets — the Nets and the Los Angeles Lakers — are trying to integrate their stars.And a situation in Phoenix has brought the league’s leaders and image under scrutiny. The majority owner of the Suns and the W.N.B.A.’s Mercury, Robert Sarver, was found to have used racial slurs and engaged in sexist behavior over many years, but the league’s punishment — a $10 million fine and one-year suspension — was immediately criticized by players and fans as being too light. Soon, under public pressure, Sarver said he would sell the teams.Though there are still many things for fans to be excited about, such as a new rule to speed up games and the improved health of some injured stars, several issues are lingering as the season gets underway.Here’s what you need to know:How will Draymond Green’s punch affect Golden State?Suns owner Robert Sarver’s misconduct casts a shadow.Celtics Coach Ime Udoka’s suspension is a mystery.The trade rumors of the summer aren’t over yet.A new rule and stars’ returns could up the excitement.How will Draymond Green’s punch affect Golden State?Golden State’s Jordan Poole, left, and Draymond Green, right, played together Friday for the first time since an altercation during practice this month.Jeff Chiu/Associated PressAfter defeating the Celtics in six games to the win the N.B.A. championship in June, Golden State looked poised for a strong campaign in pursuit of a repeat. Then TMZ posted a video of forward Draymond Green punching his teammate Jordan Poole during a practice this month.“I don’t think anyone could watch that and not say that it’s upsetting,” said Mullin, who spent most of his 16-year career with Golden State and is now a broadcaster for the team. “It’s unacceptable behavior.”After Green was fined and agreed to stay away from the team for about a week, Golden State welcomed him back and publicly put on a “Nothing To See Here” face. Green apologized privately and publicly, and Poole said Sunday that they would coexist professionally.What to Know: Robert Sarver Misconduct CaseCard 1 of 7A suspension and a fine. More

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      NBA Season Preview: The Nets and the Lakers Are the Wild Cards

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      Even for a league used to drama and headlines, the N.B.A. had a dizzying off-season.There were trade requests (Kevin Durant) and trade rumors (Russell Westbrook); injuries (Chet Holmgren) and returns (Zion Williamson). The power structure of the Western Conference could be upended by the return of Kawhi Leonard with the Clippers; the power structure of the East is again unclear.And a series of scandals at Boston, Phoenix and Golden State could have lasting implications for the league.In short: A lot is going on.Headline More

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      Not Even LeBron James Could Save the Lakers

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      The team that was built to be unbeatable just kept losing.On Jan. 25, the Los Angeles Lakers went to Brooklyn to face the Nets and displayed a joyfulness that was unusual for them this season.Their top stars LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook were all healthy — one of only 21 times this season that happened. It was Davis’s first game back from a knee injury. It was James’s only appearance in New York City. He had been suspended for the team’s November visit to Madison Square Garden, his favorite place to play.On back-to-back Nets possessions, James stole the ball and raced the other way as the crowd murmured in anticipation. They erupted into cheers each time James dunked.After the second one, James grinned. He laughed with Michael Strahan, the former N.F.L. star, who was sitting courtside, and jogged back to the Lakers’ bench still smiling.“The more minutes that we log, we continue to see how dynamic we can be,” James said after that game.The Lakers were in eighth place in the Western Conference, and the night offered hope. At the time it felt inconceivable that a team built to be an unbeatable superteam might get stuck in the play-in tournament, but the Lakers had plenty of time to rise in the standings. Many assumed they could still be dangerous in any playoff situation.Back then, few expected what would actually happen.The Lakers were eliminated from playoff contention by the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday, even though James had the second-highest point average of his 19-year career this season. On Friday, James was ruled out for the final two games of the season because of a lingering ankle injury that had already kept him out of the three previous games. The Lakers are likely to finish 11th in the Western Conference, a spectacular failure for a team that expected to compete for a championship this season.This season was challenging for many teams, as the N.B.A. attempted a return to normal with the coronavirus pandemic still happening and with high-profile injuries afflicting many teams. But no team in the league will finish the season with as large a chasm between expectations and reality as the Lakers did.“It’s obviously disappointing on many levels,” Westbrook said. “But there ain’t much you can do about it at this point.”Westbrook was introduced with superstar fanfare in August, as Rob Pelinka, the Lakers’ president of basketball operations, declared that he gave them a chance to win the franchise’s 18th championship. But his arrival didn’t come without questions.Russell Westbrook was booed and jeered, both at home and on the road, because of his shooting struggles.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesHow, for example, would a player who needs the ball in his hands to be productive fit with James, one of the best offensive facilitators ever? Was it wise for the Lakers to get older — by signing a slew of over-30 veterans — when they had already been plagued by health issues that often come with age?Preseasons don’t always foretell the regular season, but the Lakers went winless in theirs.When they stumbled at the start of the season, there was an easy way for the team to explain their situation: It happens. Superstars don’t always jell right away.The pandemic offered an excuse — it made continuity nearly impossible for any team in the first few months of the season.Pandemic disruptions reached their apex during the Omicron wave in November and December, during which dozens of players entered the league’s health and safety protocols.The N.B.A.’s testing system wasn’t perfect and James suffered because of it — he flew home from Sacramento on a quarantine plane because of a false-positive coronavirus test result before a game against the Kings. It was the 12th game out of the Lakers’ first 23 that James had missed.A few weeks later, a coronavirus outbreak spread through the team, even sidelining Lakers Coach Frank Vogel for six games.Many teams, though, were hit even harder than the Lakers, including the Chicago Bulls, who had 10 players in health and safety protocols at once in December, and had to postpone two games.Injuries offered another explanation for the Lakers’ stumbles. James and Davis missed more than 60 games combined — not an unexpected outcome, given their recent histories. Davis said he was “disappointed that we haven’t had a chance to have a full team.”“Not sure how good we could have been,” he said. “With myself personally, two unfortunate injuries that kept me out for a while. That just came to be part of the season. As one of the leaders on the team, especially on the defensive end of the floor where guys need me to be out there, sucks for me, sucks for our team, our organization.”But this season, injuries throttled many teams.The Miami Heat lost Jimmy Butler for nearly a month. The Phoenix Suns lost Chris Paul for a month. The Los Angeles Clippers spent all season without Kawhi Leonard and lost their other star, Paul George, for three months.While those teams found ways to adapt and keep themselves in the playoff conversation anyway, the Lakers couldn’t.James and Anthony Davis (3) missed more than 60 games combined because of injuries this season.Gary A. Vasquez/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThis was in part owing to a roster that was thinner than it should have been because of the resources dedicated to Westbrook.To acquire Westbrook, the Lakers traded away young role players in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Kyle Kuzma. They declined to re-sign Alex Caruso, who went on to be an important defensive piece for the Bulls.The Lakers’ defense was among the bottom third in the N.B.A. this season, as they have given up 112.8 points for every 100 possessions. The only team that has given up more fast-break points per game is Houston.The Lakers also struggled to defend inside the paint, a symptom of their complicated big-man rotation.During their championship season two years ago, the Lakers used JaVale McGee and Dwight Howard as their primary centers, occasionally asking Davis and James to fill the role. This season they brought back Howard, two years older and less effective. They signed DeAndre Jordan, 33, who proved past his prime as well.They didn’t have the assets at the trade deadline to make a move that didn’t hamstring them further. Westbrook’s contract will become more attractive to other teams next year when he is on its last year, assuming he picks up his player option for the 2022-23 season.As clear as it was that the Lakers’ roster was not working, it was even more clear that a fix would not come soon.They were losing to the league’s bottom-dwelling teams. The best teams were beating up on them, too. Young playoff teams like the Grizzlies and Timberwolves were mocking them, with Westbrook’s poor shooting a regular target.“This was the season that we just didn’t get it done,” Lakers forward Carmelo Anthony said. “We had the tools. Some things was out of our control. Some things we could control, some things we couldn’t. We didn’t get it done. We can’t make excuses about it. We just didn’t get it done.”In the past nine years, the Lakers have missed the playoffs seven times. It is a previously unthinkable stretch for a franchise that was once used to competing for, if not always winning, championships.This is a franchise that expects adding superstars will save them, and sometimes they do. This season that equation didn’t work. More

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      Lakers Eliminated From Playoff Contention

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      The loss to the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday sealed their fate. It’s the second time the Lakers will miss the postseason since LeBron James joined the team in 2018.The Los Angeles Lakers’ last glimmer of hope for this season is gone.With LeBron James watching from the bench, the Lakers lost to the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night, ending their chances of making the playoffs. A win by the San Antonio Spurs over the Denver Nuggets earlier in the evening made the Suns game a mathematical must-win for the Lakers to stay in contention for the postseason.The Lakers lost seven consecutive games beginning in late March, allowing the Spurs to eclipse them for the 10th-best record in the Western Conference and a spot in the N.B.A.’s play-in tournament, which will decide the seventh and eighth seeds in the playoffs that begin April 16.During the Lakers’ seven-game slide, James and Anthony Davis played together only once, highlighting a problem they have faced all season.Davis returned April 1 after missing 18 games because of a right mid-foot sprain. James has been managing soreness in his left ankle, which has caused him to miss five of the team’s last seven games.Since the league’s All-Star break in mid-February, the Lakers have the second-worst record in the West, having won only four games. Only Portland has been worse.This marks the seventh time in the past nine years that the Lakers have missed the playoffs, a once-unthinkable stretch for the organization. Before the 2013-14 season, the Lakers had missed the playoffs only five times since the franchise’s inception in Minnesota in 1948.Anthony Davis had 21 points and 13 rebounds for the Lakers in the loss on Tuesday.Rick Scuteri/Associated PressIt is also the second time James has missed the playoffs since joining the Lakers in 2018, when he came to Los Angeles following eight consecutive appearances in the N.B.A. finals with Miami and Cleveland.During his first season with the Lakers, James joined a young team that featured Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, Alex Caruso and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope — all players who went on to be productive elsewhere.James injured his groin in a Christmas Day game that season and played in just 55 games. The Lakers went 37-45 and finished 10th in the West, which, before the advent of the play-in tournament, gave them no postseason hopes.They traded for Davis that summer and immediately won a championship in 2020, when the league finished its season in a bubble environment at Walt Disney World in Florida because of the pandemic.Last season, which was shortened because of the pandemic, Davis was injured and played in only 36 of the 72 games. The Lakers went 42-30 and lost to the Suns in the first round as the seventh seed.In the off-season, the Lakers looked to make themselves into championship contenders again. They traded young role players to the Washington Wizards for the aging nine-time All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook, whose $44 million salary made him the highest-paid player on the team this season. They hoped Westbrook’s playmaking ability would help the Lakers when they were without James, who typically runs the Lakers’ offense.“I’m coming to a championship-caliber team and my job is to make sure that I’m able to make his game easier for him,” Westbrook said at his introductory news conference when asked about how he would fit with James. “And I’ll find ways to do that throughout the game.”As the season began, very little went according to plan.James missed 11 of the Lakers’ first 19 games because of injuries, the first suspension of his career and a false-positive coronavirus test.Davis has played in only 40 games this season, missing several weeks with two different injuries — first a knee injury then the foot sprain.Westbrook has struggled to find his footing. That led to Lakers Coach Frank Vogel, who has experimented with lineups all season, moving away from Westbrook in the closing minutes of games.Westbrook’s 18.4 points per game are his lowest average since the 2009-10 season, his second year in the N.B.A. His rebounds per game (7.5) and assists per game (7.1) also dropped sharply from last season.Still, with James in contention for the league’s scoring title, the Lakers had the ninth-best record in the West at the All-Star break, and a chance to force their way into the playoffs. But they couldn’t make the necessary late-season push. More