Things seemed to have hit a new low for the Los Angeles Lakers after their 118-109 loss on Saturday to the hapless Phoenix Suns and to the Los Angeles Clippers yesterday (113-105).
While the Clippers look destined to make the playoffs, the Suns boast the worst record in the NBA, yet the Lakers found a way to lose to them both and are now 5.5 games behind the eighth-seeded San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference.
The Lakers have one of the hardest remaining schedules left in the NBA and their chances to make the playoffs have almost faded completely. The worst part of all this is that not making the playoffs will force the Lakers to rebuild yet again despite their acquisition of LeBron James in the offseason.
Even if they find a way to make the playoffs but fail to advance past the first round Luke Walton is likely to be fired as he has done a poor job for the Lakers as a head coach. Although not all of the Lakers’ problems are his fault, he’s going to become the scapegoat.
The Lakers will try to get a fresh start with a new coach and will most likely look to completely rebuild their roster with a huge trade targeting a player like Anthony Davis or another star player.
The problem for the Lakers is that targeting that kind of player will likely cost them several of their young stars, such as Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma, and Josh Hart among others.
With their depth and youth depleted the Lakers will become a team quite unattractive for potential free agents, especially after such a chaotic campaign this season, thus they will have trouble signing any additional stars for 2019 and perhaps even beyond.
This year more than ever the Lakers have demonstrated how difficult is to play next to James when lacking the right players. LeBron is an outstanding player, but he does need a certain type of players around him.
A lot of players have tried to adjust their games to play next to James and failed so perhaps not many players may want to join the Lakers.
Even if the Lakers get Anthony Davis to play next to LeBron their long-term future would be highly in doubt. Although they may make the playoffs next year, they’re not likely to have a deep and talented team surrounding those two.
With James in decline, the Lakers need a lot more as he’s been exposed defensively and can’t just pull a team to the playoffs all by himself. The Lakers may get one or two good years from this duo, but after that their future will be a huge question mark, forcing them to start all over again.
And after James retires the Lakers could still have Davis in his prime, but they won’t have much else to build a championship team around him.
