There are a whole lot of people rooting for the Lakers to suck this year after forming their own West Coast superteam with Dwight Howard and Steve Nash.
Mark Cuban is just the most prominent of them. From Mark Medina at the Daily News (hat tip to SLAM):“I don’t care,” Cuban said before the Lakers’ season opener Tuesday against Dallas at Staples Center. “I just hope they suck….
“They’re like any other team,” Cuban said. “Obviously Nash is great. Kobe’s phenomenal. But it takes a team. They have to come together and play as a team. Hopefully they don’t figure it out.”
It’s safe to say they haven’t yet — Cuban’s Mavs outworked and outplayed the Lakers to win the opener 99-91.
Steve Nash deferred a lot, floated around the perimeter off the ball and generally didn’t impact the game as Kobe had the ball in his hands a lot. Dwight Howard couldn’t hit a free throw and looked a little slowed by his back. The Lakers bench and defensive rotations were unimpressive.
It’s one game. Remember the first game of the Heat’s big-three era? They lost by 8 to the Boston Celtics, but it didn’t feel that close at all. LeBron, Wade and Bosh looked confused playing together.
The older Lakers with their shorter contracts don’t have a couple of years to figure it out like the Heat, but it’s not going to happen overnight.
Smart Lakers watchers realized it. Lakers radio play-by-play man John Ireland was doing his local radio show and predicted the Lakers would start the season 13-6 and had caller after caller (not to mention his radio co-host Mychal Thompson) come on and say “no, they are going to be 18-2.” Because that’s how fans view the world.
But they learned a hard lesson Tuesday. You can’t rush chemistry.