The early championship favorites, the Los Angeles Lakers, have officially been eliminated for a chance at even playing in the play-in tournament to enter the playoffs.
The Lakers are now locked into the 11th seed in the Western Conference. They had the opportunity to make a push post all-star break, but they managed to finish with a league-worst 4-17 record heading into the end of the season.
I’m not sure if this has ever happened.
To go from being the pre-season NBA title favorite to not even making the playoffs…
This may come as a shocker to most, but to be quite honest I could see this coming the moment the Lakers made the Westbrook trade.
Okay, maybe I didn’t see them missing the playoffs… I don’t think anyone predicted that. But I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy peasy for them to just strut right into an NBA title this season.
What happened to the Lakers
Well, there were tons of issues with the Lakers this season.
- The Russell Westbrook fit
- No Defense
- Injuries (never able to build chemistry)
- No bench depth
- Old
- No identity (something different every game)
This list is not the recipe for an NBA championship, it’s the recipe for disaster. How did they not see this coming? The Lakers weren’t able to adjust and improve their formula after 75 games and they ended up just getting worse.
The Laker’s best bet for the future will be to figure out what they can do in the off-season to ship out Russ (not sure why they didn’t trade him at the deadline). I had a great deal in mind, but the Lakers didn’t end up giving me a call for my thoughts and they missed out.
Former Laker Legend Magic Johnson just dropped some insider info on ESPN saying that LeBron was part of the reason the Lakers passed on signing Demar Derozan… man oh man… with how DeMar has played this season there is no doubt the Lakers would have been in the WCF with that trio.
I don’t know if I agree with what Magic is saying here. Most people consider LeBron James (or LeGM) to be the General Manager of whatever organization he plays for. I understand that superstars have some say so in decisions, but ultimately it is the organization’s decision on the players they sign and trade for. I would say it was a mix of the two sides on that one, but with LeBron’s playstyle, I don’t see why he wouldn’t be more pulling of a player like DeMar DeRozan over Russell Westbrook.
I also disagree with Magic in him saying the Lakers should keep the entire core of Westbrook, LeBron, and AD together and run it back next season. No. If you are the Lakers you have to get rid of Russell Westbrook, even if you have to throw some picks in there. I don’t know what more people need to see to understand that is the #1 issue here.
Obviously, the Lakers made a huge blunder in signing Westbrook rather than going with some role players like Buddy Hield, Alex Caruso, KCP, etc. At this point, they are going to have to figure out what they can do to move on from Russ and try and win a title with LeBron/AD within the next two seasons.
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