The Los Angeles Lakers have made a lot of history throughout the existence of the franchise. With 16 championships. countless Hall of Famers and some of the greatest coaches of all-time, the Lakers are arguably the most prestigious team in the NBA.
Don’t tell Celtics fans this — as they will argue that they have more rings. The Lakers have more superstars and more championship eras. Checkmate.
The Lakers also have some recent history that they want to forget, as the worst team in franchise history came just four years ago in the 2015-2016 Lakers. That Lakers team went 17-65 and is tied for the 35th lowest winning percentage in NBA history, which is not so bad considering it is the worst year in franchise history.
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This year was also bittersweet as it was Kobe Bryant’s last season in the league. While he did things such as drop 60 points in his final game, it was challenging to imagine a Lakers team without Kobe Bryant lacing his sneakers up.
For obvious reasons, Kobe Bryant is not going to be featured in the lighthearted “where are they now?” section of this article. We encourage every reader to check out the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Academy, which carries on Kobe and Gianna Bryant’s legacies.
This 17-win Lakers team is so unlike the greatness that is supposed to pour out of the purple and gold’s veins. Despite it only being four years ago, that version of the Lakers feels like it was an eternity ago.
With that being said, we decided to take a look at where every member of the 2015-2016 Los Angeles Lakers currently is, and how their career blossomed after that season.
The point guards:
D’Angelo Russell is now on his fourth NBA team in three years as he was traded from the Golden State Warriors to the Minnesota Timberwolves, joining former college teammate Karl-Anthony Towns.
Russell never put it together with the Los Angeles Lakers and was traded to the Brooklyn Nets alongside Timofey Mozgov for Brook Lopez and a late-first round pick, which was solely meant to free up cap space.
Russell finally developed into an all-star guard in his second season, averaging 21.1 points and seven assists per game. He continued his great play with the terrible Golden State Warriors, who added him just to be an asset to flip, and was finally flipped to the Timberwolves in a package for Andrew Wiggins.
Marcelo Huertas was a 32-year-old rookie for these Lakers and played like someone who took 32 years to get to the league. Huertas only played two seasons in the NBA, averaging 14.6 minutes and 3.9 points per game before returning to Spain to play basketball.
Huertas currently plays in the Spanish Liga ACB, where he recently earned MVP of the Round honors in round 17.
The shooting guards:
Nick Young is currently the perfect candidate to play in Ice Cube’s Big3, but has not really been doing much basketball-related recently. He played only four games during the 2018-2019 season and has not been signed to a team at all this season.
Young recently appeared on an episode of Knuckleheads with Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles and has his own fashion line called Most Hated.
Lou Williams is one of the few players on this Lakers team that actually has an important role on a playoff team in 2020. Lou Williams is a bench scorer for the Los Angeles Clippers and is a critical part of the Clippers lineup.
Williams was traded to the Houston Rockets for Corey Brewer and a first-round pick and then was traded to the Clippers in the Chris Paul trade. There, Williams has become a fan-favorite and will be entering the last year of a three-year extension next season.
Jordan Clarkson also has an important role on a playoff team. After being traded in a salary saving move to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Isaiah Thomas in 2017, Clarkson spent another season and a half on an awful Cavaliers team but was saved with a trade to the Utah Jazz this season.
The sample size is small but Clarkson has really proven that he can be an impact bench player on a title-contending team. Clarkson is averaging 15.6 points in 25.3 minutes with the Jazz.
The small forwards:
Metta World Peace had one more year left in him with the Los Angeles Lakers but was not an impact player in the slightest. He averaged 2.3 points and 6.4 minutes in the 25 games he played for the Lakers the following season.
Peace was kept in the Lakers organization, however, as he has been a player development coach for the South Bay Lakers since the 2017 season. We might be getting some more Metta World Peace in the league as his son, Jeron Artest, is a freshman at UC Irvine.
Anthony Brown is not a name that Laker fans are going to remember. He played 29 games for the Lakers that season, starting 11, and didn’t really do much. After finishing the year with the Lakers, he played just nine games for the New Orleans Pelicans and two games for the Orlando Magic. He played one game for the TWolves in the 2018-2019 season.
Brown now also finds himself in the Liga ACB. Two players from this team play in the same Spanish league just four years later.
Julius Randle spurned the Los Angeles Lakers in free agency two years ago after a great second half of the season that could have led to Randle being part of the team’s long-term plans. Instead, he signed a two-year deal with a player option with the Pelicans, opted out of his deal with New Orleans and now finds himself on the New York Knicks.
Randle has not been able to escape mediocrity wherever he goes and hopefully one day the talented power forward can play meaningful minutes for a contending team.
Larry Nance was a part of the trade that sent Jordan Clarkson to Cleveland but unlike Clarkson, Nance still plays for his hometown Cavaliers.
The thunderous dunker is nothing more than a bench forward, averaging 10.1 points in 26.3 minutes per game this season. Nance has continually improved his three-point shooting and is shooting 35.3 percent this season, which could help him land a long-term role with a contending team.
Ryan Kelly saw his role diminish throughout his three years with the Lakers and this was his last year with the team before playing 16 games with the Atlanta Hawks the following year in even smaller of a role.
Kelly, like Huertas and Brown, currently plays in the Liga ACB. Make it three former Lakers in the same Spanish league.
Brandon Bass was a solid NBA player at one point in his career. He was not with the Lakers, as it was his second to last season in the league before spending a season with the Clippers. Bass has been in the Chinese Basketball Association since 2017.
Robert Sacre did not play another game in the NBA after the 2015-2016 season. He did go on to play three years in the Japanese B.League but retired after the 2019 season.
Roy Hibbert is one of those former Lakers that you just try and forget. He started 81 games with the Lakers that season and was not great, being a defensive liability on switches and not producing much offensively.
Hibbert played 48 games the following year. After being away from basketball for almost two years, Hibbert was hired as a player development coach for the Philadelphia 76ers.
Tarik Black played one more season for the Los Angeles Lakers before returning to the Houston Rockets for the 2017-2018 season, where he served a minimal role.
After that season, Black signed with Maccabi Tel Aviv of the EuroLeague, where he has been named an all-star and won the Israeli League Championship.