The NBA awards voters weren’t kind to their players and coach, but they’re still playing.
“Third team all-NBA, 38 years old, 20 years deep … he should be on the first team off that alone, right?” Lakers coach Darvin Ham cracked before Wednesday night’s Game 5 between the Lakers and Golden State in Chase Center.
Reminder: Awards ballots are submitted after the regular season and before the playoffs. And when you’re a seventh seed, you shouldn’t be expecting much in the way of awards consideration from the writers and broadcasters throughout the league who vote. But it’s better to be going strong in May, rather than peaking in the first 81 games.
Last season was one of those, and it’s fair to say Ham wasn’t impressed by what he saw. That was a roster of mismatched parts, with a good number of older players who were convinced that they were still as good as they’d been when they were younger.“Last year in particular, I saw a lot of nights where guys would just quit and they weren’t competitive,” Ham said. “A five-point would turn into the blink of an eye to 15 or 25.
At times the Lakers have seemed to be doing the rope-a-dope, encouraging – daring? – the Warriors to wear themselves out. Of course, that’s playing with fire when Golden State is draining its 3-point attempts.
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