The Lakers have officially been eliminated from playoff contention which means this year was a total disappointment
Written By: Chaim Cohen
April 6, 2022
How disappointing was this season?
Coming into this season Vegas had the Lakers at +350 to win the championship. That gave them the second highest odds in the entire league. It's fair to say that going from a title favorite to not being in the playoffs means that they were a major disappointment. Although they did have some injuries, those injuries were not any different than any other team. There are zero excuses for the Lakers besides them not being good. Coming into the year they had what seemed to be three of the top 20 players in the league. After this season players like Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook now have something to prove due to how they performed this year. The Lakers being in Los Angeles means that the spotlight is always on them and that was not an exception this year. Even though they were bad, you still would always see their low-lights all over your Instagram feed. The media was all over the Lakers this year because it was just so crazy that a team that everyone was so high on completely fell apart. One can make a good argument that the 2021-22 Lakers were the most disappointing team in NBA history. When you have "The King", who is supposed to be the greatest player of all time along with Anthony Davis, who is supposed to be a top three big in the league you are expected to make at least the second round of the playoffs. Not making the playoffs would always be embarrassing but it's especially embarrassing during this era when we have the play-in tournament. This means that there were 10 teams in the Western Conference that finished ahead of the Lakers. So to put it simply, this years Lakers team competes with the 2013 Lakers for the most disappointing team of all time.
Where should they go from here?
At this point I think it's safe to say the Lakers should just blow it up. The problem with the Lakers is that it's hard for them to blow it up. Unlike most other teams they have about zero young talent and also no draft picks. So the only way for them to blow it up is just by doing "bad" trades just to open stuff up. I think if they do decide to blow it up it's fair to say LeBron is out. Also I would guarantee that Vogel either leaves or gets fired before next season. As far as what to do with the players I think they just need to trade Anthony Davis and Westbrook for picks. While both these players' stocks went down this year, they would still get good assets in return for Davis. Considering Westbrook’s age and contract they should trade him for about whatever they can get, but if they aren’t satisfied with what they got offered they can just play his contract out until 2023. At this point they won’t have a coach or a real best player but they will just have to accept that they will be in a rebuilding mode. The problem is that since there is such a spotlight on them they have a pressure to stay “competitive” so they might not trade anyone and then they will just keep trading the few picks they have but once their players leave they will be left in an even deeper hole. The Lakers are in a hole right now and they have the choice to start climbing out of it or they could stay “competitive” and try to milk out the rest LeBron's career.
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