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Lakers: 76ers Matchup Will Determine Worst Team in NBA

By Hannah Kulik

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The Lakers and 76ers, with two wins between them, will meet on Tuesday to decide who the NBA’s worst really is

The worst teams in the NBA, the two-win Los Angeles Lakers and the winless Philadelphia 76ers, square off tonight in the first game of an eight game road trip for the Lakers. At stake is the distinction of being anointed the worst team in the league for the 2015-16 season.

It is easy to see why the 76ers are competing for this dubious title. Outside of Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel, the rest of the team consists of D-League caliber players in the opinion of most observers. Even Okafor and Noel don’t fit particularly well together in the frontcourt, and it should get even worse if and when Joel Embiid, another center, returns from injury.

If the Lakers prevail in what is sure to be an ugly contest, the 76ers will set an all-time record for most consecutive losses to start a season. So far they have lost 18-straight times. The Lakers were the victim this season when the Golden State Warriors clinched the record for most consecutive victories to start a season. If they can beat the 76ers, they will have played a role in both records.

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The Lakers’ personnel is, on paper, much better than their Philadelphia counterparts. But whether it is the coaching, the schemes, or the players themselves, their results have been equally unimpressive.  In fact, on paper, this team should be much better than last year’s squad which included players like Ronnie Price, Wayne Ellington, Jeremy Lin, and Carlos Boozer, and had Robert Sacre and Ryan Kelly playing prominent roles.  Yet this year’s squad is making last year’s roster look like the Harlem Globetrotters.

While it is easy to dismiss the 76ers’ chances against the Lakers, it should be noted that most of Philadelphia’s games have been close and, in their last five tries, they have lost by seven points or fewer in all of them. In recent games, the Lakers had a lot of trouble hitting any shots, especially in the early going.  In the last two contests, they scored 11 and 12 points, respectively, in the first quarter. It is hard to do that on the road and win, no matter who you are playing.

Of course, there are other interesting subplots to the game. Chiefly, this will be Kobe Bryant’s final game in Philadelphia, where he spent his high school years. Everywhere Bryant goes for the rest of the season, his impending retirement will dominate the discussion and overshadow everything else.

The more compelling storyline, however, is the fact that this is the first time D’Angelo Russell and Okafor, the second and third picks in last summer’s draft, have competed against one another in the NBA. Many Laker fans were angry when the team passed on Okafor to take Russell, and while the latter has made some strides recently, he has done nothing to prove that the team made the right move. 

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It is hard to fully evaluate Okafor’s potential given the horrible circumstances in which he finds himself.   Thus far, on a winless team, he is playing 33 minutes per contest while averaging 18.5 points and 8.2 rebounds per game, hitting 46 percent of his shots from the floor. These are solid numbers and he dominated the first pick Karl-Anthony Towns in their one meeting to date. In contrast, Russell is playing 27 minutes per night and averaging 10.3 points per game on 40 percent shooting while handing out three assists.

As bad as things are for the Lakers, Okafor would no doubt change places with Russell in a heartbeat if given the chance. Thus, he will go all out to prove the Lakers made a mistake in failing to draft him.  Russell should be similarly motivated to show that the team made the right decision.

The silver lining for both teams is that they are clearly, and by a wide margin, the two worst teams in the league, so their position in the 2016 NBA Draft should be secure no matter who wins the game tonight.

Of course, the Lakers have to secure a top-three pick in the draft or they will forfeit their pick to these very same 76ers. Right now that does not appear to be a problem, as there is a huge gulf between the 76ers, the Lakers, and the Brooklyn Nets and the rest of the league. Brooklyn will probably end up with the best record of the bottom-three, which is where things stand at the moment.

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For their sanity and to stop the declining morale of the team, this is a game the Lakers must win as they start their long road trip. If they don’t, they could very well return to the STAPLES Center mid-month with a record of 2-22. They should win on Tuesday as they are the more talented team; yet things don’t always turn out the way they should. Let’s hope the team can avoid the further indignity of another loss and play a good all-around game.

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