If you have been following the Los Angeles Lakers at all this season then you know that it has been a bit of a disappointment. The Lakers have consistently been hovering around .500 basketball and have really struggled to get any kind of momentum going.
The Lakers’ last loss was perhaps their worst of the season as they went into Denver to take on the Nuggets for the first time and were thoroughly outclassed. The Lakers lost to the Nuggets 133-97 in the game.
LeBron James did not talk to the media after the game and he broke his silence on Sunday via Twitter. LeBron’s message was simple: he just wanted to apologize to Laker fans for how poorly the Lakers have played this season.
https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1482893150448349184
Can LeBron James keep his promise? Will the Los Angeles Lakers really be better?
The only thing that Laker fans can point to that would lead them to believe that the team will get better as the year goes along is the return of Anthony Davis, which should happen at the end of January. While AD is a top-10 player in the league when he is at his best, he has not been at his best.
Davis was the worst jump-shooter in the league before getting hurt and he was having his worst season since his rookie year. Yes, Anthony Davis is better than anyone else on the Lakers not named LeBron, but it is not like the team was playing all that well before he got injured.
Russell Westbrook is still a problem. It is a problem that the Lakers are going to have to live with as he simply does not play a winning brand of basketball. His contract is atrocious and unless the team can pull off a massive multi-team trade, chances are Westbrook is not going anywhere.
If the Lakers were struggling against a hard schedule then there could at least be some optimism that things will get better as the year gets easier. However, the Lakers have had a relatively east schedule to this point and simply have not been able to beat good teams.
The Lakers are 5-11 against teams with a .500 record or better this season. The only team in the NBA with fewer wins against .500+ teams is the Houston Rockets (4-23). #LakeShow
— Jason Reed (@EatYourReedies) January 15, 2022
According to Basketball-Reference’s Simple Rating System, which combines net rating with strength of schedule, the Lakers are the 23rd-ranked team. This is not like previous LeBron James teams that struggled early on in the year and turned it around. Outside of his first year in LA, this is the worst team that LeBron has played on since his Cleveland days.
It is a shame too as LeBron has been playing out of this world and the team still cannot win basketball games. The depth just is not there and defensively the Lakers are an absolute mess.
There are several things that make up a true title-contending team and the Lakers simply have none of those things. LeBron James can promise and apologize all he wants but things are likely not going to change.