The Los Angeles Lakers may have acquired LeBron James over the offseason, but their NBA season has certainly not gotten off to an ideal start.
The Lakers recently acquired veteran big man Tyson Chandler from the Suns, and they’re hoping he can bring them some much-needed defensive effort. But, what’s surprising is how excited Chandler seems to be joining this mediocre team.
Tyson Chandler on leaving the Suns to join the Lakers: “I honestly can’t describe the feeling. My adrenaline gets running just through shootaround, because you see guys, and you feel the buzz”
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) November 7, 2018
Well, we can understand that the 2-8 Phoenix Suns might not feel like the best place to play right now, but the 4-6 Lakers aren’t doing all that much better.
The Lakers have been underwhelming so far this season, especially on defense. They play lazily and sloppily, and have some of the worst defensive ratings of any team so far this season. Chandler is excited to join them, but he surely has his work cut out for him.
OFFICIAL: Lakers Sign Tyson Chandlerhttps://t.co/uy7dAgTZIt
— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) November 6, 2018
We can understand that Chandler wants to play with the best player in the world, that makes sense. But we hope his expectations aren’t too high.
This Lakers team is clearly still trying to figure themselves out. They need changes to their system. They need changes to their rotation. They need to put in more effort on defense.
If they can start to figure these things out, they can potentially be the team we all expect them to be. But for now, Chandler should be checking his expectations on this mediocre team.
This article first appeared on 12up.