The Lakers have made plenty of mistakes over the first half of the season, but these are the five most egregious
Over the past few months the Los Angeles Lakers have compiled an embarrassing 9-31 record and, before this year is over, are likely to set yet another franchise record for most losses in a season. Their play has been so bad that at times they hardly resemble an NBA team. The squad has been dogged all season by poor play, poor coaching, and poor leadership.
It is not a surprise that the Lakers have a losing record, but no one predicted it would be this bad. Management assembled a mismatched roster that is too heavy on guards and power forwards and light at every other position. Who would have predicted that at the midway point of the season, unheralded Anthony Brown and Larry Nance, Jr. would be starters while the faces of the franchise and the team’s highest draft choices in over 30 years, D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle, would be languishing on the bench.
There have been many mistakes made so far by the coaching staff and front office that contributed to the team’s current plight. They cannot turn things around until they acknowledge these mistakes and vow to correct them. There is half a season to be played and, if they use the time wisely, they can still complete what should be the primary mission of fully evaluating their young talent and building some positive momentum going into free agency this summer and next season.
Here are the five biggest mistakes made by the franchise so far this season, in order. Hopefully some of these errors will be corrected soon.
Next: No. 5 Filling the Roster With Unusable Pieces
No. 5 Including Robert Sacre, Ryan Kelly, Nick Young on the Roster
Almost no one expected Sacre, Kelly, or Young to make the squad this season. There were unsubstantiated reports that the front office explored trade options for all three over the summer, but no move was made in the end.
Sacre and Kelly were destined to play little, but took spots from younger players the team could have picked up either from the D-League, the pool of undrafted players, or from players who were cut by their teams at the end of the preseason. There is no guarantee such players would have made a difference, but better to give someone whose potential is unknown a chance than wasting time and space on someone who is clearly not going to be a part of the team’s future.
Young wore out his welcome last year and it was very surprising to everyone that he was still around this season. The biggest reason is that the front office failed to address the huge gap at small forward during the offseason and, with Kobe Bryant’s availability from night to night uncertain, Young was the only experienced player on the roster who was capable of playing the three. For this reason, it was inevitable that, not only would Young make the squad, but he was going to play.
If the team was smart, they would have added young talent instead of wasting valuable roster spots while playing Sacre instead of Tarik Black and Young instead of Anthony Brown.
Next: No. 4 The Handling of Kobe's Workload
No. 4 Mismanaging Kobe Bryant’s Minutes.
It was a year ago this month that an exhausted and beat up Bryant suffered a season-ending injury. Byron Scott admitted he made a mistake playing Bryant 35 minutes a game last season. Unfortunately, he did not learn from the mistake.
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This year, Bryant should be playing 20-25 minutes per game at the most. His contemporaries, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, have averaged 15 and 17 minutes per game this year, respectively. Even Tim Duncan is averaging only 26 minutes and when he plays, he is not asked to carry the team. Moreover his team has something to play for. In contrast, until his body started to break down recently, Bryant was regularly playing a grueling 30-35 minutes per game while trying to be the focal point of the gameplan.
Bryant is suffering from shoulder and Achilles ailments. It is January again and, like last year, he is missing games, creating havoc for the rest of the squad. One must seriously question how much longer he will continue to play until he just can’t go anymore. If the team does not shut him down for a while to let him heal, that time may be sooner than we all imagine.
Scott has again mismanaged Bryant’s minutes and the team has been hurt by it. Some argue that he has no control over Bryant, with No. 24 calling the shots. If that is true, it doesn’t say much for Scott as a coach. But assuming it is true, where is the front office?
Next: No. 3 No Brown and Black
No. 3 Failing to Play Anthony Brown Sooner or Tarik Black At All
Until January, all of the minutes at the small forward position went to Bryant and Young. For most of the season Brown, did not even dress for games. He should have been getting the same minutes that fellow rookies Russell and Nance have gotten. If he had, he would be much farther along and would not be really starting his NBA career midseason.
During the preseason, Scott declared that Brown was already the best on-ball defender on the team. His fellow rookies had voted him one of the top defensive players in the draft. Furthermore, from the very beginning of the year, the squad was in desperate need of outside shooting and Brown excelled at making three-pointers in college.
The traditional thinking is that whoever starts the final preseason game is going to play when the season starts. Not only did Brown start the last five preseason games, he had his best night of the preseason in the final contest. Yet, for no apparent reason, Brown was nowhere to be seen when the regular season started.
While Scott will take credit for deliberately bringing him along slowly, Bryant missing more and more games and Young being the only other small forward on the roster left Scott no choice but to turn to Brown, who has been getting solid playing time the past five games.
Black, however, is still missing in action. No one knows why or when his banishment will end, if at all.
Black is a high energy guy who doesn’t have great form, but always seems to be in the right place at the right time. He is an undersized center, but can still grab more rebounds in his sleep more effectively than Roy Hibbert while also score more points. He doesn’t have Hibbert’s size in the paint, but in combination with Randle, Nance, or both, Black would bring speed and hustle on both sides of the floor.
Black had a solid rookie season last year, thus his unexplained disappearance is especially puzzling. He is a good communicator and leader on the court. In a season full of mistakes, one of the biggest so far has been the team’s failure to find playing time for Black.
Next: No. 2 Focus on Kobe's Farewell Tour
No. 2 Making Kobe Bryant’s Retirement the Primary Focus of the Season
Lakers owner Jeanie Buss frightened fans last summer when she announced that this year would be all about celebrating Bryant’s career. The front office then backpedaled by suggesting the season was really about developing the youth, which is what fans wanted to hear. With such an inconsistent mission statement from the front office, it was hardly surprising that when the season started that no one knew what the team was supposed to be doing. This shows a lack of strong leadership.
It was not until recently that the truth emerged when general manager Mitch Kupchak finally admitted recently that the team could not move on with Bryant on the roster. Kupchak all but called this season a wasted year.
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It has been painful to watch Bryant play so badly on a team that loses games at a record pace. He was barely making 30 percent of his shots and 20 percent of his three-point attempts for most of the season thus far, and, of course, he was not shy about shooting. The media tried to create drama by questioning Bryant daily regarding if he would return next season and Bryant was always coy about it. For anyone who was watching Bryant play, however, it was very obvious he was not coming back. So when he finally made the announcement, it was no surprise at all.
Certainly the young players are getting minutes, but when Bryant is on the court it is still all about Kobe. It is inevitable that his teammates spend a lot of time watching Bryant work for a shot and then covering for him on defense when the opponent grabs the missed shot and starts a fast break in the other direction.
The bigger problem is that, as with last year, Bryant is in and out of the lineup so much that other players do not know game to game whether they will play or what the rotations will be like. The result is it is impossible for anyone to gain consistency or benefit as much from their playing time as they need and deserve.
As Kupchak finally acknowledged, this year is really about Bryant and the true rebuild will only start when he is gone. Sentimentality and public relations aside, it was a bad decision for the franchise and its future.
Next: No. 1 Stunting Development of the Future
No. 1 Benching Julius Randle and D’Angelo Russell.
The team’s biggest mistake so far was benching Randle and Russell, the putative future faces of the franchise. Randle was playing solid ball at the time, but has floundered since—not to mention it has hurt his morale. Likewise, Russell was just starting to look more comfortable when he was demoted.
Whether it is Scott singling Randle or Russell out for harsh criticism in his post-game comments, benching them in the fourth quarter of most games, or giving them inconsistent minutes and unpredictable player combinations on the court, it has all resulted in frustration and impeded their ability to get comfortable in any one role.
The result of this mismanagement has been that Randle and Russell have been wildly inconsistent all season. Randle’s offensive game has taken several steps backwards while Russell looks good one night and bad the next. Midway through the season, the Lakers have no idea what they really have in either player. The biggest goal for the remainder of the season should be to find out. The only way to do that is to start both players and give them quality minutes and a quality role consistently, somewhere around 30 minutes per night.
Next: 5 Players Lakers Should Avoid in 2016 Free Agency
Will it happen? That’s hard to say as Scott is hard to predict. But, if the Lakers don’t make Russell and Randle the focus of the remainder of the season in a year riddled with poor decisions, this will be the biggest mistake by far.