Last night, during his Lakers-Magic postgame presser, Los Angeles head coach Darvin Ham let slip to gathered reporters that his roster doesn’t really make the time to practice all that often.
“We barely get to practice, so shootarounds have become like our practices,” Ham admitted in an aside.
We know what you’re thinking.
“What the heck are they doing? They need to practice so many things, especially three-point shooting!”
Here’s the caveat to this reveal from Ham: the Lakers are hardly alone when it comes to this limited practice schedule. At this point in the season, most teams don’t really have the time to practice a ton, given the frequency of contests in this 82-game sprint to the finish.
Given the advanced age of much of the roster (five of the team’s top seven players are 29 or older), it makes sense to rest the Lakers rather than wear them out in-between contests with superfluous practices. LA can probably use all the rest it can get.
The club is 14-21 and seems likely to be headed nowhere fast, at least for as long as Anthony Davis sits and the Lakers’ roster remains so guard-heavy. It makes sense to not overexert players too much, especially given that 37-year-old LeBron James is averaging 35.8 minutes a night in his 20th season for some insane reason.