The Los Angeles Lakers have been the butt of the joke for the past three season. It seems like the historic franchise is slowly falling off but realistically, the Lakers have simply been on the bad side of luck and has had the worst injury bug ever since their last final appearance in 2010.
After the Lakers won the NBA Championship in 2010 over the Boston Celtics, the Lakers were looking to be back on top of the basketball world. Superstar Kobe Bryant was shooting for another three peat campaign with the three peat master Phil Jackson and his sidekick Pau Gasol. However once the 2010-2011 campaign began, everything slowly but surely went downhill for the Lakers.
Bryant wasn’t the healthiest he’s been in the 2010-2011 season but thanks to huge contributions from sixth man of the year Lamar Odom and all-star Pau Gasol the Lakers cruised their way to a 57-25 record. After beating the Hornets in a surprising six games, they were swept in the semifinals by the eventual champs the Dallas Mavericks. A disappointing season but not catastrophic.
The Los Angeles Lakers 2011-2012 campaign was doomed from jump. Besides the season being shortned and more streneous thanks to the lockout, David Stern decided to block a trade that would have sent Hornets guard Chris Paul to the Lakers due to “basketball reasons” . This forced the Lakers to have to trade Lamar Odom prematurely thanks to hurt feelings of the nullified trade and also was the beginning of the end of Gasol as a Los Angeles Laker (non-stop trade rumors). Lakers lost in the second round again that year, this time to OKC 4-1.
That following off season the Lakers made two of the biggest splashes acquiring Dwight Howard (arguably the best center in the league at the time) and hall of fame point guard, Steve Nash. These moves seemed liked the one the Lakers needed to get them back to the top of the mountain, because it seemed the Lakers were trending in the wrong direction.
Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, Metta World Peace, and Pau Gasol was the projected starting lineup for the Lakers going into the 2012-2013 season. Everyone was calling the Lakers the favorites and expectations were very high going into the season.
That lineup I listed above however barely got to play with each other because from that moment till today, the Lakers were absolutely obliterated with injuries. That all-star cast above only got disappointing 18 games together. Between the starters and usual rotation players (Jordan Hill, Antawn Jamison, Steve Blake, Jodie Meeks), 171 games were missed. That has to be the worse injury luck a team has had as a whole. Bryant and Howard feuded for most of the season but were able to put their differences behind aside after the all-star break and squeak their way into the playoffs at the seventh seed. Sadly the Lakers were without their hero Bryant that postseason for the first time since 1995. Thanks to a torn Achilles from Bryant, and bad health altogether the Lakers were swept by the Spurs.
Dwight Howard bolted for Houston leaving the Lakers with nothing after trading away draft picks and former all-star center Andrew Bynum to acquire him. The 13-14 season was a repeat of the same issues that had been plaguing the Lakers since their championship days…HEALTH. With a big turnover in roster the Lakers still started a surprising 10-9. They even got Bryant back quicker than they had anticipated. Nick Young was playing pretty special and the D’Antoni seemed to be getting the most out this group of players. Then the injury God’s decided to step in again and kill anything the Lakers had going. Bryant played a mere 6 games before fracturing his patella forcing him to sit out the remainder of the season. Steve Nash back and knees just completely gave out limiting him to 15 contests, Kaman and Farmar had a hard time staying on the court. Overall, Lakers players missed 319 games due to injury and were forced to play 35 different starting lineups because of it. The Lakers ended their season with a .329 winning percentage, their worse since the late 50’s.
The Lakers receiving the 7th pick in the 2014 draft was the only good thing to come from that season.
Going into the season the Lakers team looked pretty odd and unfamiliar. Gasol had bolted to Chicago, Meeks dipped from LA and went to Detroit, but with Bryant and Nash back, fans and management were expecting the team to rebound. Well the injury God’s obviously still had some beef with L.A because they continued to lay the hammer down in the 2014-2015 season. Nash was ruled out before the season began and during some point during the season Julius Randle, Nick Young, Ronnie Price, Xavier Henry, Wayne Ellington and Ronnie Price all suffered season ending injuries.
Los Angeles ended their season with a franchise worst record at 21-61. It was he first 60+ loss season in franchise history as well.
After all these misfortunes the Lakers are finally starting to be able to send the light. After landing the number two pick in the 2015 Draft Lottery the Lakers now have a plethora of projected franchise players to choose from. They’re expected to make immediate contributions and also provide leverage for the Lakers to sign free agents during the 2015 off-season which will have plenty of players worth max contracts. May I also add, if the Lakers don’t pick up the player options on Jordan Hill’s contract they will have 24 million dollars to throw at free agents and a high draft pick that will most likely result in Jahlil Okafor, Karl-Anthony Towns, D’Angelo Russell or Emmanuel Muiday.
Brighter days seem to be ahead Lakers fans, let’s just hope the Injury God’s have had enough fun tormenting the Lakers.
