The struggle is real

The Los Angeles Lakers made a sizzling 33-game run during the 1971-1972 season.  Starring HOFers Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Gail Goodrich and coached by Bill Sharman, win number 33 came on January 7, 1972 against the Atlanta Hawks. 

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the NBA’s longest winning streak and up to this moment had never been broken, which also stands as the lengthiest string of wins in all major American sports.  That match was replayed last week by both teams, with the Lakers, thankfully winning the commemorative matchup.

After that win against the Hawks last week, the Lakers were in a regress mode, losing three straight games to Memphis, Sacramento and a humiliating demolition job from Denver.

In the last six years, the Lakers had 9 blowout loses including the 37-point loss from the Nuggets last Sunday.  Their biggest losing margin so far was 49 points, courtesy of the Dallas Mavericks on January 22, 2017.  They had 2 48-point losses against the LA Clippers (Mar 3, 2014) and the Utah Jazz (Mar 28, 2014), a 43-point loss to GSW (Nov 27, 2016), 42-point loss to Indiana (Feb 5, 2019), 2 40-point losses to San Antonio (Jan 12, 2017) and OKC (Dec 15, 2015) and a 39-point loss to Houston (Mar 15,2017).

LeBron James was on his first season with Lakers in that Indiana defeat and that was his career-worst loss.  The recent wipeout they had from the Nuggets was his second worst.   In those blowouts, he had an un-Lebron scoring average of 21.5 points.

Talking about streaks, the Lakers had a 5-game losing run that began on Dec 17 and capped by the Christmas Day game defeat against Brooklyn.  After that, they won one, lost one and then had a four-game winning run which Memphis ended last Jan 9.

As I’m finishing this piece, the Lakers are again struggling against Utah and this could be the deciding factor if major changes are to be made on the current team structure.  You can have all the big names on your team but if you don’t play defense and play mostly small, dammit, it’s a recipe for failure.

Vogel’s current playbook has LeBron playing center that shoots too many threes, so what’s the point in having Dwight Howard and DeAndre Jordan if you’re not letting them man the middle?  At least in the last two games, Howard is starting.  Yes, these two legit centers are past their primes and they play defense, but it’s simply insulting putting them in during garbage time or not at all.  Trevor Ariza?  Stanley Johnson will do better than him.

They traded three defensive and mostly productive players in Montrezll Harrell, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Kyle Kuzma for Russell Westbrook, who is erratic and does not play defense.  Would have been better had the three were still in purple and gold instead of Brody.  Harrell fitted well manning the middle in Vogel’s small ball play.

Anthony Davis could be back in uniform by month’s end but he’s not the team’s savior.  The current guard-heavy roster has a slim chance of making the post season with the way they’re playing.  With all the big names, they’re just not built for the championship.   Jeannie Buss must insist on change and since Rob Pelinka is so fon d of wholesale deals, why won’t he just trade the whole team? 

The team’s struggle is real and Laker Nation is struggling to understand the consistent inconsistencies.