The
Los Angeles Lakers lost 49 games last season, finished 11th in the Western Conference and made no off season upgrades to their roster, so why is anyone surprised they have been so bad to start this season? This is just who the Lakers are now.
The only one who should be surprised is Jeanie Buss, who gave GM
Rob Pelinka a contract extension in the midst of this precipitous fall from grace.
The Lakers did not own a first-round draft pick in June, because they traded a decade's worth for Anthony Davis, who delivered them a championship in 2020. Since then, they have butchered the roster so badly that the
New Orleans Pelicans are licking their chops at the thought of receiving three consecutive top-10 picks from L.A., including the possibility of swapping into
the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes in 2023.
Without picks to retool around Davis and
LeBron, who also just received an extension that will take him through his 40th birthday, the Lakers turned to free agency, where the $6.5 million taxpayer mid level exception was their best chance to add talent. They used it to sign Lonnie Walker IV, a 3-and-D player who neither makes threes nor plays D, and to whom the
San Antonio Spurs would not even tender a qualifying offer.
After swapping one misfit collection of role players for another in free agency, the Lakers used their only mid-tier contract to acquire 34-year-old guard
Patrick Beverley, whose beef with Westbrook has been one of the league's juiciest for almost 10 years.
They have publicly mocked each other's accomplishments.
Oh, and the Lakers also re-signed Dennis Schroder, who said after his 2020-21 stint with the Lakers, "
I don't think I fit in 100%," and has struggled to find NBA work ever since.
Not only did the Lakers retain a player who subverted their chances of making the playoffs last season, they traded for the one player he might dislike most in the NBA and signed another who may do his job even worse.
After an offseason in which the franchise did nothing right, the Lakers find themselves mired in a mess.
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