If there is only one word to describe the Los Angeles Lakers season thus far it would be disappointing. This was a team that had title aspirations before the season and with the way they are playing, who knows if they can even make the Play-In Tournament, let alone advance to the NBA Playoffs.
But what if we used the same one-word exercise for each player on the Los Angeles Lakers? While the year has been disappointing, each player on the team has had a different narrative this season. Some good, some bad, some in-between.
In the following pages, we will break down one word to describe each player’s season on the Lakers. The cut-off for this article is 500 minutes played and they still have to be on the team, so you won’t see Trevor Ariza, DeAndre Jordan, or Rajon Rondo on this list.
One word to describe each player on the Los Angeles Lakers:
Russell Westbrook: Desperation
We called the Russell Westbrook trade a desperation move by the Los Angeles Lakers when it first happened in the offseason and it has been a disaster. All of the team’s problems, whether it is the fit with the superstars or the inability to fill out depth, has been because of Westbrook.
The Lakers are desperate to somehow get Westbrook off the books for next season; Westbrook is desperate to play better and prove that he is a real star; Laker fans are desperate to see Westbrook stop turning the ball over so much.
We see desperation moves from NBA GMs time and time again. The Washington Wizards were more than happy to trade a former MVP for three role players and a non-lottery first-round pick and that tells you all you need to know.
LeBron James: Guilty
LeBron James is playing great basketball and there is no denying that he is one of the greatest basketball players of all time. There is also no denying that he and Klutch Sports and partially responsible for this terribly-built basketball team and that he is guilty for the Russell Westbrook trade.
Despite what LeBron says about not making the decisions in the organization, we all know that is not true. It has been reported multiple times that the team traded for Westbrook because of influence from LeBron and Anthony Davis. They wanted Westbrook.
Now that it has gone horribly, LeBron is pushing for Westbrook to be traded, so much so that the team not trading him and a first-round pick for John Wall was a source for reported tension. LeBron is just as guilty for this team being as bad as it is as Rob Pelinka and the front office is.
It has been well-documented that LeBron often leaves teams in a rough spot when he decides that the grass is greener somewhere else. With no future assets and AD being a Klutch client as well, there is the concern that LeBron could be fed up, leave and Davis won’t be the future face of the franchise that he was meant to be.
The Lakers will be back to the dark ages. And while LeBron absolutely deserves credit for bringing the team a championship, he will also be responsible for the way he leaves the roster.
Anthony Davis: Injured
This one is a lay-up.
Anthony Davis has dealt with two separate injuries this season and as a result, he has only played in 37 games. This is extra concerning considering the big man suffered two separate injuries the last season that saw him miss similar time in the regular season and then in the playoffs.
There are definitely Laker fans who do not want Davis to be the future franchise player of the team because of this reason and quite frankly, I cannot blame any fan that has that logic. The dude cannot stay healthy and it has been the case even before he was with the Lakers.
Davis played the absolute best basketball of his career in the NBA bubble to lead the Lakers to the NBA Championship. I do not think it is necessarily a coincidence that Davis’s best overall season also came in one where there was a four-month break because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fact of the matter is that over the last two years Davis has been hurt more than he has been healthy and when he has played he has not been the same guy. I am still confident that when he turns it on he can be a top-10 player but there have been several players who have overtaken him over the last two years.
Carmelo Anthony: Consistent
Carmelo Anthony has been one of the very few consistent elements of the Los Angeles Lakers this season. The future Hall of Famer has played in 54 of the 62 games this season and for the most part, the Lakers know exactly what they are going to get out of Carmelo on any given night.
The Lakers are going to get around 28 minutes where Carmelo will be one of the best catch-and-shoot three-point shooters in the league. They also know that they will get less-than-ideal defense, as Melo has been a below-average defender for quite some time now.
Overall, the Lakers know that they are going to get consistent, positive play. Carmelo has the third-best on/off net rating on the entire roster this season and while he is an example of the Lakers signing old veterans, this is an old veteran that has worked out.
Melo is averaging 13.6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.0 assists per game while shooting 38.9% from three and 44.3% from the field. He has scored at least 10 points in 37 of his 54 games this season and has hit at least one three in 44 of the 54 games.
He may not be playing at a very high level, but he has been fine as a consistent role player.
Malik Monk: Goodbye
Malik Monk has been perhaps the best part of the 2021-22 season for the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers signed the young, former lottery pick to a minimum contract this offseason and he has proven that every other team was foolish for not being interested in him.
He is someone who I really liked heading into the season and while I have been wrong about a lot of things when it comes to the Lakers, Monk’s breakout season as one of the best microwave scorers off the bench in the league has been spot on.
The problem is that he is going to play himself out of LA. Monk’s agent did say that he hopes he can be a Laker forever but unless Monk is not interested in making money, then he is likely going to be saying goodbye to the Lakers this offseason.
Assuming Westbrook is still under contract next season, the most the Lakers are going to be able to offer Monk is the Taxpayer’s Mid Level Exception, which was worth $5.9 million this season. Chances are that Monk will get at least offers for the Non-Taxpayer’s MLE, which is worth nearly twice as much per year.
Is Monk really going to give the Lakers a huge hometown discount, signing a two-year deal worth just under $12 million when he can sign a four-year deal worth over $40 million? Probably not.
Talen Horton-Tucker: Raptors
Talen Horton-Tucker should have been traded to the Toronto Raptors last season, period. There have been multiple reports that the Lakers rejected the Raptors’ offer for Kyle Lowry because they did not want to include THT in the trade package (as well as knowing that Lowry would sign a thre-year, $90 million contract in the offseason).
The trade would have been Dennis Schroder, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, THT and some draft capital (probably the 22nd pick in the 2021 NBA Draft). The Lakers could have traded two guys who are no longer on the team, a pick they already traded and THT for Lowry.
Instead, the Lakers held onto Horton-Tucker and backed themselves into a corner. The team had to re-sign him in the offseason because if they refused to trade him and then let him walk it would have been a horrible look.
That resulted in the Lakers overpaying for a 21-year-old who has potential but does not have more potential than any other 21-year-old in the league. That also resulted in the team letting Alex Caruso walk, who was one of the best defenders in the league.
Better yet, if the Lakers traded for Lowry last season they probably would have extended him and would have never had Westbrook. Do you know what would be better than having Westbrook? Having Lowry, Caruso and Kyle Kuzma.
Meanwhile, THT has been one of the worst players in the league this season and had virtually no value at the trade deadline.
Avery Bradley: Overrated
I do not think that fans of the Los Angeles Lakers are overrating Avery Bradley, I think that the coaching staff is. Frank Vogel really seems to like Bradley so much to the point that he is playing a big role on this team and is seventh on the team in total minutes played.
Let’s not forget that this is the same player who the Golden State Warriors outright released right before the season began. The Warriors were a contending team that was looking for any depth possible and they did not think Bradley was good enough.
Heck, when the Lakers signed Bradley they signed him to a non-guaranteed contract. The logic then was that Bradley was simply a placeholder for the 15th roster spot and that when the team could release him to sign someone else, they would.
Instead, he has become a big role player despite being so negative on the offensive end. I will give him credit, he is still playing decently on the defensive side of the floor and on a team with really bad defenders, he stands out.
Offensively he is a complete zero. His 38.1% three-point shooting rate might seem good but that is all he offers. He cannot create for himself, for others, and is undersized. His -3.7 Offensive Box Plus/Minus is the worst of anyone on this list and ranks 219th out of 222nd players in the NBA with at least 1,000 minutes played.
Austin Reaves: Potential
Austin Reaves actually leads the team in on/off net rating this season. His overall play has been fine this season as he has shown moments of legitimate promise with the Lakers while also taking some of the bumps and bruises of being a rookie in this league.
If there is one thing the Lakers have been really good at over the last few years it is finding talent like Reaves and turning them into valuable rotation players. Reaves seems to have all the makings of being that next diamond in the rough for the team.
This might be a controversial take (maybe it isn’t, who knows) but Reaves may already have more promise than Horton-Tucker. THT has more physical tools and potentially has a higher ceiling, but when it comes to true potential, Reaves is the player that fans should be excited about.
Heck, he already is playing better than THT, that is hard to refute.
Is Reaves someone who the Lakers can build around as a foundational young piece of the franchise? Probably not. Is he someone who can be a really good role player on a future title-contending team? Absolutely.
Let’s just hope they don’t trade him.
Wayne Ellington: Minutes
I know that Wayne Ellington is not the greatest defender in the world and that the Los Angeles Lakers are already having issues with the team defense. That being said, Ellington should absolutely be playing more than he currently is for the Lakers.
It makes no sense that THT and Avery Bradley are getting the playing time that they are getting and Ellington is averaging just 18.6 minutes per game. He is the team’s third-best three-point shooter and Frank Vogel needs to utilize him more.
At this rate, the current plan for the rotation has not been working and Vogel should be experimenting with different options. When Anthony Davis comes back, I want to see a lineup that features LeBron, AD and three shooters.
The team knows it is going to struggle on defense anyway so commit to AD and LeBron running the show with three shooters around them. Those three shooters should be Ellington, Monk and Carmelo.
Ellington should be getting more minutes than he is but alas, the team would rather throw Avery Bradley or THT out there, whose horrible offense is actually worse for the team than Ellington’s defense.
Dwight Howard: Afterthought
Dwight Howard has had moments this season where he has played some solid basketball and it seems like the Lakers are underutilizing him. He has also had moments (like against the Clippers) where he played really poorly and showed by he is not being utilized very much.
When it comes to being a traditional, rim-protecting and rebounding center, Howard is one of the best in the league. I would still take him over the likes of DeAndre Jordan (obviously), JaVale McGee, DeAndre Jordan, Robin Lopez, and others.
The problem is that job has never been less important in the NBA. However, because the Lakers have a superstar who should be a center but doesn’t like playing center, the team was forced to bring in two of these players to play this role and then early in the season played the wrong guy.
Howard was an afterthought behind Jordan then and he is still an afterthought now. It is really hard to play him next to Anthony Davis with the way Davis’s jump shot has been this season and it is borderline impossible to play him with Russell Westbrook because of the floor spacing.
It really is not Howard’s fault, either.
Stanley Johnson: Microcausim
Stanley Johnson was a good pickup for the Los Angeles Lakers as he has brought the team a much-needed defensive presence on the wing. The problem with Johnson, which is the same thing as Avery Bradley and THT, is that he does not do much on the offensive end of the court.
Nearly half of Johnson’s shot attempts are from beyond the arc and he is shooting just 32.8% from the land of three. He is not going to create for himself or for his teammates and he really is just someone who can occasionally drive to the cup or shoot and off-ball three.
His OBPM is near Bradley’s (-3.1) and that has been where he has hovered around for his entire career. He has always been a solid player on the defensive end but it has been hard to justify him having a big role on other teams because of his defense.
And this is a microcausim of the Lakers’ problems and why they were never going to make it far in the playoffs. Because they were so restricted financially, they had to pick from the bottom of the barrel and at the bottom of the barrel are guys who can only contribute one-way.
They have the offensive players who can help as off-ball shooters but cannot play defense and they have guys who can play decent defense but cannot do anything offensively.
These players get hunted on both ends of the court. It is fine to have these players as the seventh and eighth best player in a rotation but when the entire team is comprised of them it is a problem.
Kent Bazemore: Predictable
I do not like to take victory laps often with my takes because it is pretty tacky, but this is a take that I got a lot of flak on before the season. I declared that the Kent Bazemore signing was not a good one and that he would revert to his old ways prior to his breakout season with the Golden State Warriors.
What happened? Bazemore was given a big role early in the season while the Lakers dealt with injuries and it quickly became clear that he should not have a big role in the rotation. It then became clear that he probably should not be in the rotation at all. Now, Bazemore is reserved for garbage time minutes or minutes when the team is hurt.
The Lakers had some better buyout options that they could have pursued and ironically, all of the great ones ended up with the Golden State Warriors. The team was in on Andre Iguodala, who chose to sign with the Warriors. I argued for both Nemanja Bjelica and Otto Porter, who both signed with the Golden State Warriors.
Would the Lakers be a top-two team in the West if they had Iguodala, Bjelica and Porter instead of Bazemore, Jordan and Bradley? Probably not.
But would they be better than the ninth seed with a risk of not even making the Play-In Tournament? Absolutely.
Just like Bazemore’s season was predictable, the Lakers’ season should have been (I was too optimistic) just as predictable after the signings they made.