Doom and Gloom in Tinsel Town

The Los Angeles Lakers. Everyone seems to have an opinion on them, whether it’s that they are indeed the greatest team in the league and you’d be an absolute idiot to not support them, or that you must be only a bandwagoner or a fair weather fan if you’re a Lakers supporter. Personally, they are my #1 team and I think all the bandwagon fans left to follow the Heat once LeBron took his talents to South Beach, but something that can’t be argued is the fact that this season they’re not doing so well. Ok, they’re absolutely terrible. But, I hear you cry, they’re one of the biggest markets in the league and they still have Kobe, Nash and Gasol! How can they be terrible! Well, that’s what I’m here for, and this week I’ll be taking a look at the good, the bad and the ugly of the Lakers for the 2013/2014 season.

The Good

Some of you may be surprised that there is actually anything about the Lakers season that could be considered ‘good’, and admittedly I did have to dig deep. Perhaps the most important thing to remember for all you naysayers is that this season is very likely to be a one-off dip into mediocrity and that the rebuild will be swift and it will be glorious - unlike franchises like the Sixers or Bucks who have been familiar with the bottom of the league for season after season. You only need to look back to around 2007, when the Lakers starters featured such ‘stars’ as Smush Parker and Kwame Brown and the team was all around pretty dire. What happened the very next season? NBA Finals, after trading for Pau Gasol. There’s a number of reasons why I’m confident about a quick restoration of their former glory, such as having a very high pick in this year’s stacked draft, having little money on the books for the next couple of seasons, and a 2015 free agent pool that is likely to feature guys like Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook – and you better believe that the lure of LA is still strong. Pairing one or two superstars from that pool with whoever they end up getting in the draft will create a very strong team that’ll help the team move into the post-Kobe era, and the Lakers will be right back on top of the league within only a couple of years.

Secondly, even though most of their games are incredibly painful to watch, the Lakers have actually pulled out some wins this season that any team would be proud of. Wins against rivals like the Clippers, Thunder, Rockets, Warriors, Blazers and Celtics are all results that fans can take some solace in, especially with moments like Steve Blake’s game winning three over Dwight Howard and their opening night blowout win against their cross-town rivals. Although this team is somewhat lacking in talent (to put it nicely), when their shots are falling they’re extremely entertaining to watch – you really do have to pinch yourself when Jodie Meeks is dropping 42 against Durant and Westbrook, and Nick “Swaggy P” Young is fantastic when he’s feeling it. So while they won’t make the playoffs and may actually end up at the bottom of the league, this Lakers season still has a fair few highlights.

The Bad

There have been a number of great wins against great teams, but they’re very much in the minority. Losses to mediocre teams and blowouts like the nearly 50 point loss to the Clippers last week have been all too common, and it’s not rare to see teams dropping 60 or 70 points against the Lakers in a half. Defence appears to be a dirty word under Mike D’Antoni’s (with the lack of D they have, he should really be Antoni) leadership, with shooters frequently left wide open and no semblance of anything resembling rim protection, largely due to his ‘system’ of emphasising players who can run and shoot over anyone who can play defence. As entertaining as it is when it comes off and as beneficial as it can be to otherwise average players like Kendall Marshall, it is not a style of coaching that lends itself to success in the post-season as evidenced by D’Antoni’s near complete lack of achievement with his Suns team that featured guys like Nash, Marion and Stoudamire in their primes. If the Lakers do want to return to their championship winning ways, a coaching change may need to be on the cards for someone who is a little fonder of coaching both sides of the game, as when is the last time a run and gun team actually won anything? Great teams have great defensive philosophies, so the embarrassing score lines that feature all too frequently have been a definite low point of the season for the Lakers. Not to sound like I’m placing all the blame on Mikey D (actually who am I kidding, I think he’s an abysmal coach and should be fired ASAP) but he also doesn’t seem to quite grasp how to get the best out of his players. Having one of the best post players abandoning the post in order to shoot 3s (Gasol), not managing to win despite having a starting line-up with 4 future hall of famers in it and having different starting line-ups seemingly every game are all ‘highlights’ of his tenure in LA, and his frequent tanties at Pau through the media aren’t exactly tactful. In short, having Mike D’Antoni as a coach has been an absolute low point for the Lakers franchise and the sooner he’s gone the better.

Some of the blame must also go to the GM though, as a coach can only work with the talent he is given and this roster is certainly not what you would call talented by any stretch of the imagination. If it was full of prospects that could develop into great players then that would be fantastic, but rather it’s a case of throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks as the team has basically been assembled out of discarded spare parts of other teams. Guys like Wesley Johnson and Chris Kaman would barely see the floor on most teams in the West but they’re starting in LA, and worst of all they’re not even young. On the plus side though a couple of guys like Swaggy P and Jodie have developed into pieces that would fit well on the 2nd unit of a title contender, so if they can be retained and paired with the aforementioned superstar free agents/rookies then they could give the bench some real depth. Maybe someone from the roster will emerge as a sneaky superstar, but the way they’ve basically treated the season as a trial to see who might be an OK player for the future is not something that a storied franchise like the Lakers should be doing.

The Ugly

I think I could easily label the entire Lakers season as ugly, but that would be really just going for the low hanging fruit. Instead, I think the thing that makes me shudder the most when thinking about the state of the Lakers in 2013/2014 is the contracts and ‘play’ of Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash. Undoubtedly great players (well, maybe not old man Nash anymore), but between them they were paid $39,735,500 to play 16 games - that’s nearly $2.5 million per game. The rest of the roster combined (14 players...) doesn’t make that much and they’re actually out on the court playing, and if you take out Pau Gasol’s $19 million the figure is even more ugly. Having more than 50% of your salaries tied up in two players who are 35 and 40 isn’t exactly a sound strategy, especially when their bodies are starting to break down. Kobe will probably be back with a vengeance next year, but Nash just can’t stay healthy so even if he doesn’t retire in the off-season (which he should, but probably won’t) he will likely play in only a handful of games next season. The season has been ugly, but nothing has been uglier than paying two aging stars nearly $40 million to not play.

We'll always have this moment to hold on to.

So there you have an overview of the train wreck that is the 2013/2014 season for the Los Angeles Lakers. It may have sounded all doom and gloom – hence the title of this article – but before any of you give up hope and jump on the Heat or Thunder bandwagons, remember that there is always a silver lining. My advice for my fellow Lakers fans is to try and ride out the rest of this season by not focusing too much on the results (because they’ll continue to be ugly) but instead by thinking of the bright times ahead. This year’s team might be complete garbage who probably wouldn’t even crack the rotation of most of the playoff teams, but come 2015 the post-Kobe era will truly start to take hold and if everything goes to plan the Lakers will have not one but two superstars ready to get them their 17th title. Of course, maybe this really is the end of the franchise as a contender and their draft pick will be a complete bust and no superstar would want to delegate to a 37 year old Kobe... but let’s not think about that, shall we?