LOS ANGELES – Wow. We have basketball again.
Somehow it feels like four years, not four months, since the NBA suspended play because of the novel coronavirus.
But the Lakers and Clippers play Thursday night at the NBA Complex in Orlando, Florida, where 22 teams and almost 350 NBA players have converged to finish their season.
Even though the Clippers have little chance of wresting away the Western Conference's top spot from the Lakers, I’m still interested to see this match-up because every NBA fan in North America expects them to face each other with much more at stake in the West finals in September.
All eyes will be on Anthony Davis’ eye, with Lakers fans hoping he’s fully recovered from getting poked in a scrimmage against Orlando last Saturday. Davis said he’s ready to go, which is good enough for me.
Of great interest is the Lakers’ starting backcourt. One of the positions is manned by a certain 6-foot-8 three-time NBA champion named LeBron. Not too worried about him.
The other spot, however, became Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s when Avery Bradley decided not to rejoin the Lakers because of personal family reasons.
Pope has not been a study of consistency this season. In fact, he was scoreless way back in October when the Lakers and Clippers played on opening night.
He improved slowly as the season went on, with two key stats standing out: The Lakers are 17-3 when he starts and he makes 43.4% of his three-point shots as a starter.
How will he fare as a starter the rest of the way? We’ll find out soon.
Another key question facing the Lakers: Who’s going to supply their bench firepower?
Kyle Kuzma is a given, along with Dion Waiters and JR Smith?
The latter two were late additions to the Lakers’ roster but showed signs of contributing during the Lakers’ recent scrimmages.
Waiters was more consistent throughout the three exhibition games, showing some outside touch and playmaking skills as well. Smith saved his best for last, drilling six three-pointers a few days ago against Washington.
Waiters has yet to play a real game for the Lakers since being signed a handful of days before the league shut down. Smith is on the team only because Bradley opted out.
It remains to be seen if they can be reliable scoring sparks, but the Lakers will gladly take whatever they can get from the duo.
Mike Bresnahan is the Lakers analyst for Spectrum SportsNet.