3. The Los Angeles Lakers effort
We obviously are not inside the Los Angeles Lakers locker room every game and do not know what is going on behind closed doors. That being said, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this is a team full of veterans who have been there and done that and might not be taking these November basketball games all that serious.
It is not an uncommon thing for a veteran team to do, especially a veteran team with so much playoff experience. The only veteran that is truly chasing something is Carmelo Anthony and it probably is not a coincidence that he has been the best of the veteran minimum signings.
Russell Westbrook has not won anything either and he is definitely taking every regular-season game seriously, although sometimes not playing very well as a result.
Dwight Howard all but confirmed these suspicions after the Lakers’ win over the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night. After entering halftime with a deficit, Howard recalled Frank Vogel giving a fired up speech about how the team cannot talk about winning a title without putting in the effort.
Dwight Howard said Frank Vogel's main message of halftime was: "'Stop talking about winning a championship, and not giving a correct effort.' And he's right." Said the Lakers showed way more energy in the second half.
— Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) December 1, 2021
What happened? The Lakers went on to thoroughly outplay the Sacramento Kings in the second half, which is what they should be doing anyways.
There were always going to be some learning curves with this new group of players and those learning curves have not been helped by injury. However, we are now a quarter into the season and that feeling out process can no longer be an excuse.
The Los Angeles Lakers need to start acting like a title-contender and playing like one too or they will never truly be one this season.