Beverley: “The problems of the Lakers are not basketball”

The Lakers’ consistency problems have been a constant since the team won the NBA Ring in the 2020 bubble. That team was gradually dismantled and the consistency that the group led by LeBron James and Anthony Davis had achieved He was disappearing between injuries and casualties like those of Caruso, Kuzma, Bradley or the versatile Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. The following two courses, with final victories for Bucks and Warriors, have deteriorated the image of a proven winning project. The players who have passed through there in recent times, such as some of those mentioned before or the controversial Patrick Beverley, have hinted that it is not just a question that concerns what happens within the track of the drop in level.

In his personal podcast, Beverley stoked the Lakers for what he, according to his vision, has proven this 2022/23 season. The point guard came to the Lakers after a positive campaign with the Timberwolves, placing them in playoffsand he has left the Los Angeles team without finishing the season, transferred at the closing of the market, landing in the Magic (who did not want him) and being cut to finally sign for the Bulls (the team from his hometown).

Beverley’s considerations are as follows:

“It has not been for basketball. It hasn’t been. It has been for other shit. But other shit that you can’t really point out or hold accountable. You know, a little from here and a little from there, things that come and go and you see them happen”

“Nothing that happened in the team pointed in the right direction. The sensations were sometimes positive and other times negative. And the inconsistency of those feelings leads to an inconsistent game.”

“We are going to reach the playoffs. And there we are going to load them “

“It is hard to judge me by the things that happen or are seen from the outside. Many people think that I add too much fuel to the fire. But the reality is, when I’m on your team, you are my player and you have a very different impression. I will do my best for everyone”

Leaving aside that the only way that the Bulls they will throw out the Lakers would be if they both reached the Finals, being in opposite conferences, Patrick Beverley He has not reached the levels of defense that he has promised in the last teams he has been in (Clippers, Rockets and the aforementioned Wolves). In 45 games with the Lakers, he contributed with 6’4 points, 3’1 rebounds, 2’6 assists and a good 39% accuracy from the triple since December, since his first month and a half had been full of poor performances. In his first game with Chicago, by contrast, he couldn’t have started better: starting a 44-point win over the Brooklyn Nets.

He also referred in very good terms to Russell Westbrook, also outside the team and widely criticized for his role as leader. He also told that he had a rivalry with Bev from years ago, with an injury involved: “He will be my boy forever. I have seen what he is like on every game day: the first person in the locker room, in all of them, and I am also always on the first bus and LeBron is the same. Because there are some veterans in the League who only get to mount in the third ”he pointed.

In one way or another, the Lakers have improved a lot after the departure of both point guards and are now one step away from sneaking into the play-in (34-36, tenth in the Western Conference) and to be able to reach the playoffs.