Los Angeles Lakers: 10 most disappointing seasons in franchise history

6. The 1975-1976 Los Angeles Lakers missing the playoffs in Kareem’s first season in LA

When the Lakers signed Kareem in free agency before the 1975-76 season, he was arguably the best player in the league and easily the most dominant offensive weapon in the game. He was coming off a trip to the NBA Finals two seasons prior and had won the MVP in three of the previous five seasons before leaving Milwaukee for the bright lights in Los Angeles.

He was able to have a great enough season to win the MVP in his first season with the Lakers, but what made that season disappointing for the Lakers is that he is one of five MVPs to get bounced in the first round or miss the playoffs completely.  The Lakers went 40-42 and missed the playoffs this season and that was Kareem’s second-worst regular-season record of his career and worst as a Laker.

When a franchise like the Lakers lands an MVP caliber player, they do not expect to miss the playoffs the following season.

Scoring was not a problem for this team because they were third in the league in points per game due in part to Kareem’s impressive 27.7 average points per game. But they were also second to last in points allowed per game, thus the reason for their struggles.

Another reason for their misfortunes was because they only had three players average double figures in scoring that season, and Kareem lacked much help beyond Hall of Famer Gail Goodrich who was already 32 during this season. With two stars like that on the roster, fans probably assumed the Lakers would have been good enough to reach the postseason, but they were wrong.