Los Angeles Lakers: 5 Biggest reasons for the disappointing season
2. The Trade Deadline Fiasco
It was blatantly obvious after the trade deadline, that the Lakers team was not the same mentally and not really all there. They had a stretch right after the deadline where they dropped games to lowly opponents like the Pelicans without Anthony Davis and also the Hawks. That’s when it all fell apart for them.
After the rumors from the trade deadline surfaced where pretty much the entire roster was up for grabs for one uni brow, it raised a ton of eyebrows in the Lakers’ own locker room. Hurt feelings turned into losses and then the Lakers’ never mounted that late season run everyone expected, and playoff mode was indeed not activated.
Even this offseason, Lonzo went on the House of Highlights and talked about how much the trade rumors effected the team’s morale negatively. When asked if the team was thinking of the trade rumors the weak leading up to the deadline.
"Ball replied by saying “I think that lead to our downfall a little bit.”"
But he also said that this adversity helped the players bond off of the court and come closer together as well.
The trade deadline was just another example of inexperience from the Lakers front office, the whole Anthony Davis trade saga played out so publicly and ruffled feathers could have been avoided had it been more discrete. Big deals usually happen more behind the scenes like the one the Mavericks did at the trade deadline around the same time that almost no one heard about beforehand, for star center Kristaps Porzingis.
Yet, even after all that hoopla the Lakers only made two minor moves by trading two young players for veteran shooters. Their trade to get rid of Ivica Zubac when he was just coming into his own for Mike Muscala was one of the worst deals engineered by any team this season. Zubac has hardly played in the playoffs for the Los Angeles Clippers, but he played an instrumental role in helping them get there, which he could have done for the Lakers instead.
Had the Lakers just stayed the course and stuck behind their young core and the rest of the roster instead of dangling them as trade bait, maybe they would have played better. Yet, they probably still would have missed the playoffs because of the number one reason on the list.