What's Wrong With The Los Angeles Lakers?

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The Los Angeles Lakers are on the verge of missing the postseason despite being hailed as offseason winners after signing LeBron James in free agency last summer.

In a season that can only be described as underwhelming for Laker fans and players, there have been several questions directed towards the team from all angles, most of which regard to what they should do moving forward. Some of these questions include (but are not limited to):

 
Did LeBron make the wrong decision?
Should Luke Walton be fired?
Is playing with LeBron too much pressure for the young core to handle?
Who will want to come join the Lakers in free agency after the season they've had?
Is LeBron still the best player in the League?
Why did they sign a bunch of playmakers instead of shooters to put around LeBron?
Was it a mistake to let go of Julius Randle in favor of signing LeBron James to speed up the rebuild?

There's more but I think you get it. Having the tumultuous season that they've had, before getting into all the questions pertaining as what to do from here on out, we have to open with how we got here.

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The 2018 NBA playoffs were memorable for many things: The Thunder and Raptors choking themselves out of contention...again, potentially Dwyane Wade's last playoff appearance, the emergence of two new stars in Victor Oladipo and Donovan Mitchell, the Pelicans destroying the Trail Blazers, the young guns in Boston nearly leading them to an NBA finals appearance, the Houston Rockets almost pulling off one of the biggest upsets in recent memory over the superteam in Golden State, and the declaration of a new dynasty as the Warriors pulled off their third title in four seasons.
There's a lot of things that went down, but what I'll always remember it for was LeBron James producing the greatest individual performance in a postseason in league history, not only taking his team to the finals, but actually being competitive with a team that clearly outmatched them for a little while in the Finals.

Having spent the better part of last Spring watching the best player in the world perform at a level none of us have ever seen from anyone else before, no one could have foreseen him then having a hard time cracking a playoff spot the very next season, even with a new team in the conference opposite of where he was before.

Then we get to the Lakers…

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The 2017-18 season was another rebuilding effort for the storied L.A. Lakers. However, much unlike most teams outside of playoff contention these days, the goal for them wasn't to lose as much as possible for the sake of draft positioning. It was to try to develop the young players and create some chemistry between them all. There was a caveat though. Word had been circulating around the league that Paul George, LeBron James, and potentially a few others were growing interested in joining the team in free agency. With that, the Lakers probably figured it wouldn't be all that smart to just tank it like everyone else but instead go for wins to showcase their young talent for all the impending free agents to see.

To their credit, it was the right decision.
Kyle Kuzma, a late first rounder, took the whole league by storm, posing a dark horse case for Rookie Of The Year. Lonzo Ball, though he didn't perform like the phenom his father advertised him to be, was still able to show flashes of future greatness. And Brandon Ingram, as the season went on, started to look more and more like the great scorer he was once projected to eventually become.

The culture change brought about by the new management team and promise shown by the young players (and the fact that he was probably coming anyway given that he bought a second house, had several engagements set up, and signed his kids up for school all in Los Angeles) was enough to convince LeBron to join the Lakers in free agency.

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With all of this coming together: the best in the world coming off his best postseason performance, and young players looking to get even better as they progress into a new season of their respective careers, expectations were reasonably high for this season. Unfortunately, as the season waned, our expectations dropped lower, and lower...and lower, to the point where just making the playoffs is all we ask, and even that is looking like a near impossible task to ask of these Lakers to accomplish.

So what happened?

Well,
they struggled with shooting all season, the free agency acquisitions haven't looked good, Brandon Ingram had a very slow start to the season, Kyle Kuzma looked like the only person capable of playing well consistently beside LeBron for the most part, Lonzo Ball kept getting hurt, Josh Hart got hurt, LeBron got hurt, and then of course there was the Anthony Davis trade saga. You know, the period where Davis was trying to force his way to LA, and the Lakers made just about everything and everyone available in talks except LeBron, which we assume must have created all types of animosity in the locker room. All of this played a part in what has been a pretty bad season for the Lakers.

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If you were to ask me who's most to blame for the outcome of this Laker season, I would go with three guys: LeBron James, Rob Pelinka, and Earvin “Magic” Johnson.

LeBron would have been better served adjusting his game to better suit his teammates given how a significant portion of them are playmakers and ball handlers much like himself. Taking on more of a scorer's role, which he has all the ability in the world to do even at his age, would have made things easier for everyone else around him. But I get it. He's a three time champion, the best in the world, and an all-time great. The typical way of the law is for you to adjust to him rather than the other way around. Really I wouldn't put so much blame on him if he didn't play a part in the construction of the team, but he did. 

That brings me to Magic and Pelinka. Why? Why sign a bunch of bad shooters to play with a guy who plays best when surrounded by good shooters? I get the whole not wanting to be Cleveland thing, but it worked in Cleveland, and if the system isn't broken, don't try to fix it! This team as it is currently composed was a one year thing anyway, so why not just go with what you know works for the one season?
It would be easy to also put blame at Luke Walton's feet, but he was given a pretty raw deal. He was supposed to help develop the young core of players to lead them into something greater as they aged together. All that was thrown out with Lebron's arrival. Could he have done a better job, obviously, but I feel the coach would have had an easier time if management hadn't put together a roster full of ball-centric players.

Anyway, now that we've talked about the why, and the who, let's finish with the what. As in what do they do moving forward?

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To be honest with you, I don't know what they can do at this moment. Most of the big free agents appear to be headed towards staying where they are or going somewhere other than with the Lakers.

The trade market for stars doesn't seem to be all that promising at the moment seeing as how Anthony Davis is likely to be moved out east, and the Wizards (who are a whole other situation themselves) don't seem to want to move Bradley Beal.
All that doesn't speak too well to what the Lakers are hoping to achieve with LeBron on board, because I seriously doubt they are going to want to bring back this same core of players back next season.

Ultimately, no matter how the season ends, playoffs or not, it’s safe to mark this as a failed season for the Los Angeles Lakers. Hopefully their fortunes change in the offseason. We would hate for all of the effort they put into building a championship caliber team in the last few years to blow up in their faces. Given all the rumors and reports we've heard throughout the year, this summer should be very interesting for them.

Let me know how you feel about this, and if you enjoyed this give us a like. Thanks for reading.