Los Angeles Lakers basketball is back and while it officially does not count yet it has been nice to see the new-look Lakers in action after an extremely busy offseason. While it has been nice to see the Lakers back in action, the results have not been as desired thus far in the preseason.
As it currently stands, the Lakers own an 0-5 record in the preseason with two losses to the Golden State Warriors, two losses to the Phoenix Suns and a loss to the Brooklyn Nets.
These losses have not been pretty, either. These have not been close games that were lost at the last minute. These have been blowouts, and quite frankly, the Lakers have been getting outplayed at every turn.
That might be concerning as the 2021-22 season is right around the corner. However, as we need to remind fans every single year… the preseason does not matter!
Don’t worry at all about the Los Angeles Lakers preseason woes
It is really easy to get wrapped up in the results and expect these results to translate to the regular season. It is even easier to do that when the Lakers had all three members of the big three playing on Tuesday against a Warriors team that was without its stars.
The Lakers do have some issues, that cannot go without saying, but there is no need to panic. This is a brand-new team that is learning to play together and is playing in games that do not matter. The stars are not playing as much nor as hard as they would be in the regular season. The team is playing guys on its preseason roster that are going to be in the G League during the season.
It is impossible to predict how a season is going to transpire from preseason results. Heck, the Minnesota Timberwolves are undefeated in the preseason. Are we going to look into that as much as we are looking into the Lakers’ 0-5 preseason record?
There is no better example of why these games matter than the play-in games during the Orlando bubble. Yes, that was over a year ago with a completely different team in a completely different situation. However, those were eight games that did not really matter for anything after a long lay-off, just like these preseason games.
The Lakers played horribly in those games and some (myself included) looked way too far into and thought the sky was falling. Thought that the Lakers had no chance of winning the title; that the defense was too shoddy and that the eighth-seed Trail Blazers would shock them in the first round.
None of that happened. When things started to count the Los Angeles Lakers kicked it into gear and played great basketball, costing through the playoffs while only losing five games in total.
Could this preseason record result in a slow start for the Los Angeles Lakers in the regular season? Absolutely. Is it telling of what the team is going to do throughout the entire 2021-22 season? Not at all.