LOS ANGELES, CA – Coming off their annual six-game Grammy road trip, the road weary Los Angeles Lakers ended their trip 2-4 with more questions than answers as they returned to LA.
While one star in Anthony Davis was activated and looked spry, another star went down in LeBron James.
The 37-year-old James, who was playing some of the best basketball of his career, sat out the last three games of the road trip with a sore left knee and likely to keep him out longer.
Just when the Lakers thought they were finally getting healthy and a chance to see if their “Big Three” can get this flawed Lakers team moving in a positive direction, perhaps their most significant player gets hurt.
It’s been that kind of season for the Lakers…yet again. The injuries to their stars doomed them in 2021 with a supporting cast that couldn’t step up. The 2022 Lakers haven’t fared much better and they were supposed to be elite after the acquisition of Russell Westbrook and a bunch of accomplished vets.
However, this team’s problems are beyond injuries. Yes, the James-Davis-Westbrook trio has only played 16 games together this year out of 51 games total, but their record is a pedestrian 9-7, including a recent win over the Brooklyn Nets, so it’s not like they were dominating when healthy anyways.
Many of the league’s best teams have been hit with injuries and COVID-related absences all season, and yet they’ve found ways to maintain winning records, so injuries isn’t a valid excuse for the Lakers.
This road trip re-enforced what we’ve known about the Lakers all season: they can’t play defense, especially when it matters; they don’t finish games well recently surrendering 38 points in the fourth quarter to the Atlanta Hawks; they’re usually banged up; they can’t protect the paint; they can’t rebound; and their offense lacks a true identity.
(Courtesy of The Asylum)
Westbrook’s excessive turnovers and lackluster defense combined with head coach Frank Vogel’s questionable rotations are part of the problem, but neither deserve all of the blame for the Lakers’ woeful season.
Nobody expected the Lakers to be 24-27, a season-high three games below .500, at this juncture of the season. Certainly, nobody expected them to be in ninth place in the West with a worse record than the Minnesota Timberwolves, but here they are.
What Lakers fans need to come to grips with is this team is bound for the Play-In tournament yet again. While they’re five games out from the sixth seed which would guarantee them a spot in the playoffs, the chances of them surging with 31 games left and an injured LeBron are very slim.
Not to mention the Lakers are a sub.500 team while playing a favorable schedule for most of the season, what’s going to happen when they face the better teams of the league minus James for some of it?
The Play-In tournament is the likely scenario. They have to hope they get into the seventh or eighth seed where a win clinches the seventh seed and even a loss gets them another game and chance to get the final seed.
Also, don’t expect a magic savior to come in through the trade deadline or buy-out market and save this Lakers team. At this point, getting healthy and figuring things out internally is their only shot at salvaging this difficult season.
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