On Tuesday, a new era begins for the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Los Angeles Lakers travel down to the Honda Center in Anaheim to play the Sacramento Kings in their 2016-17 preseason opener, and Kobe Bryant will not be on the roster for the first time in two decades. To usher in a new era, the Lakers have brought in a new coach to go along with an athletic roster stuffed full of lottery picks that makes Los Angeles Lakers an exciting product for the near future and a potential contender in the distant future.
Fans tuning in to see Luke Walton's dynamic offense score 130 points on Tuesday, though, may be a bit disappointed. Thus far, the focus of training camp and entering preseason has been on defense—with good reason.
Defensive rating judges teams by how many points they give up per 100 possessions and is generally considered a better representation of a team's defensive quality, as it takes into account pace of play. The Los Angeles Lakers ranked third from last in the NBA in defensive rating during the 2013-14 season, second to last in the same category during the 2014-15 season and bottom of the barrel during the 2015-16 season. The Lakers had also progressively lost more and more games each successive year, and yes, there was a correlation.
Understandably, the Lakers need to improve dramatically on the defensive end to ensure that the upcoming season doesn't break yet another infamous franchise record. The 2015-16 finished as the worst in the history of the storied franchise, as the purple and gold looked more black and blue with only 17 wins in 82 games.
"Defense is going to be the key, especially early on for us while we're learning to play with each other—while we're learning to become a better team," Walton said on the eve of the Lakers' first preseason game.
And the message from the coach is transferring to his players.
Asked what he was more excited about, offense of defense, in his first NBA preseason game, Lakers rookie Brandon Ingram smiled and said, "For the first time, I think it's defense."
Ingram continued, "That's something that Coach Luke has touched on a lot for me this year, and I think that's going to help me earn minutes on the court."
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Monday's practice, though, offered a chance to insert new offensive sets and immediately put those new strategies into practice. The amount of off-ball movement displayed in drills and full court scrimmages provided hope for the Lakers moving forward, but Tuesday arrives far too early to judge the coach on any level. The Lakers are a work in progress, but Tuesday's preseason game in Anaheim does provide value for the development.
"It'll be nice to get in a preseason game (on Tuesday) to really get a measuring stick for where we're at," Walton explained. "We're not going to play minutes as if we're trying to win the game. It'll just be nice to see how we look against other people."
