“I hope LeBron’s other business ventures go well in Los Angeles because the basketball business right now is a mess” – NBA analyst leaves on LA Lakers after a bad loss on opening night

The LeBron James-led LA Lakers opened their 2022-23 NBA season with a loss as they fell 109-123 to the defending champions Golden State Warriors.

LeBron James had 31 points, 15 rebounds and eight assists. Russell Westbrook rallied behind him with his own double-double of 19 points and 11 rebounds. Anthony Davis added 27 points, six rebounds and four steals in the loss.

Defending Finals MVP Stephen Curry scored a game-high 33 points, with Andrew Wiggins and Klay Thompson adding 20 and 18 points respectively in the winning effort.

Colin Cowherd, on “The Herd with Colin Cowherd,” criticized the LA Lakers. He said:

“I hope LeBron’s other businesses go well in LA because his basketball business right now is a mess. I don’t know what he can do about it.

“The Lakers are eaten up by the past. The front office is Kobe’s agent, friends of, and their current team, I don’t understand.

“LeBron is still amazing, but no one on this list outside of maybe AD is cut out to play LeBron.

“LeBron, always, is as good as anyone in the world at giving the ball to a guy to catch and shoot. He’s brilliant at that. This list doesn’t have any of those guys.”

Between the slanders, Cowherd also had a few words of praise for the Dubs:

“You look at the Warriors. They’re a perfectly constructed symphony of basketball shooters, youth, age, wisdom, nervous defenders. They can play a lot of ways. They’ve got a plan A, a plan B, a bench solid, brilliant coach.”

LeBron James and Anthony Davis posted empty stats as LA Lakers fall on opening night

While Colin Cowherd may be exaggerating, he’s not wrong about one thing – there are very few on this list designed to play with LeBron James. And that doesn’t just mean a lack of shooting.

Last night, the LA Lakers, for the most part, seemed bamboozled. Besides the beauty not falling off, the offense looked all over the place, almost as if no play was called on the floor. James and Davis did their best with what they could glean from the defense.

Each of the LA Lakers’ 21 turnovers looked like sloppy, blurry plays. (On this particular turnover, note how Austin Reaves sets a flare screen, walks away, and a lack of awareness on AD’s end results in a bad pass.)

As for the 10-for-40 shot, James admitted the lack of a shot was a downfall for the Lakers. Yesterday could have been a night of rest. Some players with above-average shot counts (Nunn, Beverley) may regress to their respective averages in later games.

The lack of synergy and adjustments were perhaps the biggest takeaways for the LA Lakers last night.

The Warriors looked no worse than any of us might have expected. Besides being a little too easy to trigger when it came to passing. This, however, is something most warriors are used to by this point. Therefore, there weren’t too many fingers to point.

Their shooting numbers weren’t great either, but the sum total of what they produced on the field (second chance points, offensive rebounds, defense) made up for the poor shooting.