What can the Lakers learn from the team build of the Mavericks?

The Mavericks have gotten pretty far with Luka Doncic handling a big chunk of their creativity. Can the Lakers still rely on LeBron James in such a fashion?

The Western Conference finals are now underway with the Warriors dominating game one. They took the series opener by flummoxing Dallas star Luka Dončić all night with multiple coverages and help defenses. Never did they allow Dončić to get comfortable or feel he could hunt the switches he wanted.

The Mavericks struggled to get the same type of offensive separation they did against the Suns. They would only hit 11 of 48 threes and seemed rushed in every offensive possession.

The Warriors would ride a hot hand from Andrew Wiggins to start and fifteen second half points from Klay Thompson into a dominant game 1 win.

On this week’s episode of “I Love Basketball”, Raj Chipalu and Aaron Larsuel went in depth into the Warriors win and what adjustments the Mavericks can make going into game 2.

Then, they discusssed what the Lakers could learn from the team building of the Mavericks, with both teams having a superstar that can dominate in a heliocentric type system. If the Lakers went this route, what kinds of tweaks both to the roster and organizational approach would be necessary to maximize LeBron James’ on-ball creativity?

Finally, they close the show on if the Kristaps Porzingis trade can tell us anything on how the Lakers may be able to find rotation players in a potential Russell Westbrook deal.

You can listen to the full episode below, and to make sure you never miss a show, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts.

And for a short-form recap pod, check out Lakers Lowdown, in which Anthony Irwin recaps the previous day’s news and gets you ready for the day ahead in LakerLand, every weekday morning on the Silver Screen & Roll Podcast feed.