I always thought it’d be hard to top the disappointment that was the 2012 Los Angeles Lakers.
That was supposed to be one of the greatest teams ever assembled. You bring in Dwight Howard in his prime, Steve Nash fresh off a Western Conference Finals run and you run them alongside Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Metta World Peace? Yeah, that sounds like a world-beater to me.
But it wasn’t, obviously. They made the playoffs by the skin of their teeth. Everyone was always injured except Bryant. Well, until he tore his Achilles at the end of the season.
Somehow, though, this current Lakers team has done worse. They’ve got one of the greatest players of all-time in LeBron James paired up with Anthony Davis and then they added a Hall of Famer like Russell Westbrook. Lots of people had this team pegged for an NBA Finals run in the preseason.
But they just missed the playoffs completely. They won’t even make the play-in. They couldn’t grab the 10th seed, y’all. TEN.
This Lakers team is absolutely the biggest disappointment in franchise history. So whose fault is it, anyway? Let’s break it down.