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Without 110% From Julius Randle, The LA Lakers Could Quickly Fall Apart

By Keith Rivas

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The health of Julius Randle has never been more important to the Lakers — and it will never be this important at any time in the foreseeable future.

As a fragile Lakers team will try and move past their not-so-beautiful Summer League visit in 2015, how the coming regular season will play out depends heavily on how healthy, focused, and lethal Julius Randle is able to be from opening night to Game 82.

And hopefully past that.

D’Angelo Russell and Jordan Clarkson have shined a little bit in what we’ve gotten to witness so far, but the struggles they’ve both demonstrated cannot be ignored.

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Or else.

Both Russell and Clarkson have been playing with the tendency to think that they have to score as soon as their hands get the ball, when the focus should be growing as a team.

In order to do that, chemistry needs to be built from the ground up both on and off the hard wood.

LA has made some interesting free agency moves this summer, including throwing Roy Hibbert, Lou Williams, and Brandon Bass to the line up. The only way that players like this are going to have any sort of legitimate impact is if the team chemistry gets off on the right foot.

Which gives us all the more reason to stay focused on Randle’s health like no tomorrow.

The biggest reason Randle’s health is important to the Lakers is because with his age and skill set, he is the kind of player that both Jordan Clarkson and D’Angelo Russell are going to mesh with the most.

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    • Having the same mindset and attitude for a full 48 minutes between those three will ensure that Kobe Bryant gets the chances he’ll be looking for, Hibbert can make his presence known on the rebounding block if necessary, and then a guy like Williams can come in and make sure we seal the deal.

    Of all of that, the most noteworthy thing is that it’s more about the team than it is about the individual player.

    If we were to focus on just the individual play of anybody on the LA Lakers, the chances are that none of us would be too well-pleased with what we see.

    Kobe Bryant has been injury-plagued as of late, Randle couldn’t even last one game last season without getting taken out for the rest of the year, and the Lakers that remained couldn’t even hit 25 wins at the end of the season.

    They only got to 21.

    There’s no reason to think that this year’s LA Lakers will be anywhere close to that sloppy or underwhelming, but there is concern regarding how D’Angelo Russell continues to improve his game and not let the expectations get to him.

    Bottom Line: LA’s future must be handled with care.

    With Randle’s help and Clarkson’s responsiveness, once Russell awakens his inner greatness the rest of the league is going to be in plenty of culture shock.

    But the best part is when that breakthrough finally does come, it’ll be just the beginning.

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