When I made my prediction, 20 games was if we were hammered by injury again, 30 wins was if we were relatively healthy, somewhere in the middle with a key injury or two. That we are closer to the 20 side when we have had one of our most injury free seasons in years, is not what I predicted, and it's pretty damn embarrassing. There's no reason this team shouldn't have been able to get closer to 30 wins, or should be losing games in blowouts. The only thing that makes it a tiny bit more acceptable is that we have been clearly tanking for at least as long as Magic has been on board, but at the same time tanking has meant sitting Deng and Mozgov and giving our supposed future core lots of minutes, so again, not a good look.
Starting 10-10 and finishing with like 20 wins is pretty damn embarassing...no matter what the tanking is a direct result of sucking so thats not an excuse. Also in the first 20 games, I felt like we competed in every game and were always in striking distance in the 4th, some just didn't go our way...after the first 20 we have seen so many blow out losses and 30-40 point losses...it was really exactly what we were used to from the Scott era.
With 55 losses, a ton of people have been eliminated. With 5 games remaining, two people need a perfect finish. KobeAnd8 needs them to lose all the rest of their games. Looks like it's going to be Weezy - a filthy cheater who chose a ten-game span. scnottaken >9000 Lakers2015 66 kareemthegreat33 47 tada 45 LTLakersFan 44 ThizGuy83 41 rasalgethi 40 Doc Brown 37 Revgen 35 Sirronstuff 35 ninjamonkey 35 KobeAnd8 35** karacha 34 raviator 34 John3:16 33 gclaker 30-35 (33) alam1108 33 purp n gold 33 lakerfan2 28-36 (32) Time 32 lakerjones 32 battletested20 32 randlerofy 32 Cookie 32 kobecory8 31 savory griddles 31 kenzo 31 wcsoldier81 30 jbiggs 30 punk-101 30 Kou 28-32 (30) barnstable 30 kb24 30 trodgers 29 johnnyboy 29 abeer 28.5 pound4pound 27 Alcindor 24-30 (27) Weezy 20-30 (25.5) KobeAnd8 20-25 (22.5)*
Has there ever been a squad that started 10-10 and then ended up with a bottom 3 record in the entire league? It still baffles me how we started off so well and then collapsed literally over night. Was it the D-Lo injury that derailed us? I know he missed like 18 games (which a lot of ppl forget)...I think our record was like 3-15 or something without him. someone look this up i'm too lazy. Either way....it really really sucks to see us potentially end up with only like 6 more wins than last year and still going to be one of the worst teams in the league again.
We're worse than any of the doomsday whiny naysayers on this message board thought we'd be. Think that over for a second. That is what you call an underwhelming performance!
That and Nick Young missing time afterwards. Then Nance and Black followed with theirs. Young players, no go-to established player to lean on...all mitigating factors that disrupted the chemistry and continuity.
I def think the DLO injury was the beginning (and end) of it all. Before that we looked real solid. Never looked that good again
Nick was really good at defense early in the year too. And like you said, the DLO injury and tough road schedule and before we knew it, the season was over.
^^ you're right, nick's D was an underrated part of our early success. For a while I thought it was maybe that teams had figured us out, but looking back I think it was more because of the factors we and others have mentioned
I forgot how good Nick's d was at the beginning of the season. He really became our 3 and d player. Then the train got derailed when Russell got hurt, and I think Nick went down also.
