Is It Time For A Rebuild In LA? The Los Angeles Lakers Are Not Exceeding Season Expectations

It is more than clear that the plans for the 2021-2022 Los Angeles Lakers basketball hasn’t worked out well for the 2020 NBA Finals champions. From the beginning of the season until now, the Lakers have failed to exceed expectations that was set upon heading into this season.

The team is currently sitting at the 11th seed in western conference with a 31-47 record, that’s 16 games below .500 after being favored to not only win their division over the Golden State Warriors regardless of the return of starting guard Klay Thompson.

The Lakers were also the most favored to win the western conference this season over teams such as the Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks, Utah Jazz, Denver Nuggets, and Memphis Grizzlies, who all took turns this year spanking the Lakers in their own home court in LA, and in their’s.

It’s more than clear the Lakers are a team that the term “hot mess” will be an understatement for due to things constantly not clicking for the team communication wise offensively nor defensively. This now leads to the question of who deserves the most blame for the team’s downfall?

Does the blame lies on star players and team captain LeBron James. head coach Frank Vogel, or general manager/team president Jeanie Buss, or is there enough blame to around for all three factors?

Some can say it’s James’ fault due to him picking the team he want to compete with this season, Vogel’s fault due to play calling that hasn’t worked out, or Buss’ fault for not putting her foot down as the one resposnible for the entire organization.

With a team that has the star caliber players of LeBron James, Russel Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, and Anthony Davis, you can’t help but to ask yourself, what went wrong and how in the world is this team in this predicament?

Davis unfortunately has missed at least 39 of the past 78 games for the team this season, Westbrook have had some hot and cold moments this year, regardless of how well he’s stepped up within these past weeks.

As of James, regardless of how the team has looked overall, it’s no question that he’s the least of the team’s deficiencies due to MVP caliber numbers he’s averaging this season.

This season James is averaging 30.3 point per game, 8.2 rebounds per game, 6.2 assist, 52.4% field goal percentage, 35.9% 3-point percentage, and 75.6% free throw percentage within all 56 games he’s played this season.

Unfortunately for James, the team is general hasn’t been behind him health wise nor playing wise, which is a valid explanation of the team’s downfall this season, along with his battles with ankle that’s been having sideline at least 20 games this year and 3 of the recent 6.

The Lakers hopeful road to the playoffs this season doesn’t get any smoother as they face the number one seed the Phoenix Suns tonight in Phoenix and they’re back on the road to face the number three seed the Golden State Warriors in the Bay Area Thursday night.

Can they turn this season around and sneak into the playoffs or is it the beginning to the end for the Lakers as we know it? These next two games will be the game to determine just that.