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Los Angeles Lakers: 10 most disappointing seasons in franchise history

By Cameron Salce

Jun 3, 2021; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward Anthony Davis (3), forward LeBron James (23) and coach Frank Vogel react in the second half during game six in the first round of the 2021 NBA Playoffs against the Phoenix Suns at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 3, 2021; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward Anthony Davis (3), forward LeBron James (23) and coach Frank Vogel react in the second half during game six in the first round of the 2021 NBA Playoffs against the Phoenix Suns at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports /
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(Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images) – Los Angeles Lakers
(Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images) – Los Angeles Lakers /

5. The 1980-1981 Los Angeles Lakers being bounced in the first round by the Rockets

After the Lakers drafted Magic Johnson and paired him with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar they were set up for success for a long time. When Johnson won Finals MVP in his rookie season, the rest of the NBA probably thought the Lakers would win the next five championships.

However, his second season with the team did not play out as successfully as his first, and that team probably had more expectations to win the title than the team that won the year prior. With Kareem coming off another MVP award in the regular season and Magic’s memorable Finals performance in which he played all five positions the year before, the Lakers were the team to beat going into the 1980-81 season.

Similar to this past season, the Lakers had a disappointing postseason performance in their repeat effort and lost in the first round of the playoffs against a Houston Rockets team led by Moses Malone. To make things worse that Rockets team went to the Finals and lost to the Lakers’ bitter rival Boston Celtics in six games.

One of the reasons they might have been ousted early from those playoffs was because the first round of the playoffs back then was a best of three series, and the best team does not always win those short series. The Lakers might have come back and won a traditional best of seven series because they already won one game in that best of three.

What made this season so disappointing was that the Lakers had a great regular season leading into that series with the Rockets. They entered that series with the fifth-best net rating and fifth-best regular-season record in the league and the Rockets on the other hand finished that season under .500 at 40-42.

No one thought the defending champions would lose to a team that could not even win more games than they lost in the regular season. Maybe taking their opponent lightly led to the loss and one of the more disappointing seasons in Lakers’ history.

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