The Lakers have to hope a healthy roster is a remedy for a bad start
The Los Angeles Lakers have to hope that a healthy roster is a remedy for their mediocre start.
Through 22 games, I’m not sure many expected the Los Angeles Lakers to be 11-11 with the 24th best net rating in the league. Even the most pessimistic of prognosticators didn’t have the Lakers as a fringe playoff team in the Western Conference through the first quarter of the season.
Nevertheless, that’s exactly what the Lakers are right now. And after placing all their eggs in the Russell Westbrook basket, which the team made just before the 2021 NBA Draft, it’s hard to see how the team can drastically improve through an in-season move.
That leaves all the Lakers’ hopes on this team simply improving by getting healthy. And I’m not sure reliable of a plan that is, but there’s not much wiggle room for this team to do anything else.
In fairness to the Lakers, they’ve had to battle multiple injuries this season. LeBron James, Talen-Horton Tucker, Trevor Ariza, and Kendrick Nunn have missed at least half the season for the Lakers. It’s mattered and has taken a toll on this team’s depth.
Whether or not that has contributed to their overall greatly or not remains to be seen, but not having your best player for half the games this season has to hold some water as it pertains to an explanation of underachievement.
Nevertheless, the Lakers are still a bad defensive team with a healthy LeBron. And if they’re going to make any noise in the Western Conference this season, they’re going to have to be able to defend and probably defend at a high level.
I don’t think anyone is looking at this Lakers roster, with how it’s constructed, and expecting them to outscore the likes of the Golden State Warriors or Phoenix Suns in a playoff series.
The big question for the Lakers is whether or not a healthy roster is going to be good enough for this team to evolve as a team over the course of the season. And if the answer to that question is no, then I’m not really sure what the next step is for this team.
Los Angeles doesn’t have many assets that they could cobble together to make a move via the trade market, and good luck finding a team that would be willing to acquire Russell Westbrook at this point in his career.
Next. Warriors, Suns set to square off in most anticipated game of the season thus far. dark
I’m not sure if the Lakers are broken, but they do seem stuck. Right now, I just can’t stop thinking about where the Lakers would be right now if they had Buddy Hield instead of Westbrook.