LOS ANGELES -- In the infancy of the NBA’s merciless 82-game regular-season schedule, certainties are hard to come by, beyond the obvious, i.e., Golden State and Cleveland are very good, as are their respective stars, etc. It’s only after the season has aged maybe 30 games or so that hard truths about many teams become set in stone, and even then, a trade or two could brighten their futures, just as an injury or two could derail them.
But even if the season is still so young, it feels shockingly safe to say, right now, that the Lakers aren’t just one of the NBA’s biggest surprises; they’re talented and well-coached enough to compete and beat any team -- at any time. Such a conclusion could easily be reached, even by skeptics, after Friday, when the Lakers, who had already thrashed Golden State at home this season, fought the always-excellent San Antonio Spurs to the final minutes even without point guard D'Angelo Russell, the Lakers’ leading scorer, who was sidelined with a sore left knee.
Some context is vital here, as the above paragraph is nothing short of surreal when you consider that these Lakers lost the same number of games last season (65) as they won in the past three combined; they entered this season with rock-bottom preseason expectations by virtually every prognosticator; they have a core of promising but ultimately inexperienced young talent; and their head coach, Luke Walton, is, at 36 years old, the NBA’s youngest.
Now look at them.
Through Nov. 18, the Lakers have won as many games (seven) as they achieved by Jan. 1 a season ago. Oh, and Nick Young has out of nowhere become one of the Lakers’ best defenders and most reliable scorers, which is a real thing.
Much credit goes to Walton, of course, and Spurs coach Gregg Popovich was happy to oblige.
“Luke’s done a great job of making them believe and playing aggressively, and you can really see it,” Popovich said after the Spurs held off the Lakers 116-107 at Staples Center. “We got after it and executed better, but I am just so impressed [with] what he has done with this group.”
More than anything, Walton’s Lakers play tremendously hard and don’t give in even when they face a double-digit deficit, as they did Friday.
“We just compete,” said guard Jordan Clarkson, who scored 20 points off the bench.
That wasn’t the case last season, when the Lakers often folded at the first sign of trouble. Then again, last season was the Kobe Bryant farewell tour, a circus of a season in which winning games, developing young talent and competing all took a backseat to honoring a legend.
"It's just a sign of how much we've grown," Clarkson added.
Now, as Popovich said, Walton has his players believing they can and should win every game, and their confidence is evident not only on the court but in their rhetoric, especially when they’ve harshly critiqued some of their wins for being too ugly, too full of mistakes.
Walton and his players easily could have considered Friday’s outcome a moral victory, as they played a great team to the end even though they were short-handed and overmatched. But Walton wasn’t about to accept a moral victory, and his players weren’t ready to do so, either.
“We ain’t OK with any loss,” Clarkson said. “We came in here to compete and to win.”
Friday marked the first of five games against stiff competition for the Lakers, a stretch that should be telling. From here, they’ll face Chicago on Sunday, Oklahoma City on Tuesday, then play Golden State on Wednesday and Friday.
When asked about the upcoming slate of opponents, Clarkson didn’t hesitate, and his answer spoke volumes about how far the Lakers have come when you consider where they were just one season ago.
“We ain’t scared,” he said.
Indeed, that much is certain.