If you’re a Lakers hater, then you’ve earned the right to laugh all you want at the demise of this year’s edition of the Los Angeles Lakers.
If you’re a Lakers fan, take a deep breath. Next, watch a few of these remaining playoff games and forget about the Lakers for a couple weeks. Before you start messing around with trade machines and looking up player contracts, let the loss marinate a little bit before you start playing pocket GM.
That’s because there are a number of reasons as to why nobody should be surprised that the Lakers were defeated in the second round of this year’s playoffs. But there are also a number of reasons as to why this team shouldn’t blow things up, as some have suggested.
First, some facts.
Including both the playoffs and the regular season, the Lakers lost 11 of their last 17 games. Even if you take out the Dallas sweep, the Lakers still lost 7 of their last 13. Neither impressive nor title-worthy.
It’s obvious the Lakers need shooters. In the past 12 months they jettisoned Adam Morrison, Sasha Vujacic, and Jordan Farmar. None of which are ever going to win a three-point shooting contest but they didn’t replace them with anyone but Steve Blake.
I sent out a tweet that asked how many Mavericks would be on a list of the best shooters in the series before you got to the second Laker?
Assuming Derek Fisher is the Lakers second best outside shooter, you could make the case that Dirk Nowitzki, Peja Stojakovic, Jason Terry, Jason Kidd, DeShawn Stevenson, Rodrigue Beaubois, Corey Brewer, and even Shawn Marion would all be higher on the list than Fisher. The Mavs had eight of the best nine shooters in the series.
Even though the Lakers won 57 games, 13 of those wins came in their first 15 games. They had a five-game winning streak in December in which the only playoff team they beat was Philadelphia. They also had a seven-game winning streak in which five of the seven wins came against teams that missed the playoffs. The other two were against the Knicks and Hornets — not exactly contenders.
Their most impressive stretch, and the one that got people believing this team might win a third consecutive title, was then they won 17 of 18 games after the All-Star Game.
So 42 of their 57 wins came during four impressive stretches.
But those four impressive stretches were matched by four unimpressive stretches that included one five-game losing streak, one of four games, and two three-game losing streaks.
The recurring theme to this year’s Lakers season was two steps forward, two steps back. After winning the first four games of a seven-game road trip in New Orleans, Memphis, Boston, and New York, they followed it up by losing the final three to Orlando, Charlotte, and yes, Cleveland.
Against the other nine teams with the league’s 10 best records, the Lakers were an unimpressive 11-12.
So even though the writing was on the wall, that this team might struggle to win a championship, those four stretches during the season gave us reason to believe that they could “flip the switch” and turn it on when it mattered. Maybe they were bored with the regular season.
So it’s no wonder the Lakers lost the series and their fans are all scratching their heads looking for answers.
But it turns out we may have just confused bored with tired.
Over the last four seasons, the Lakers played 77 playoff games — just five fewer games than an entire regular season. There’s a reason why so few teams have advance to play in four straight Finals. That’s not an excuse so much as it is an explanation.
And that brings me to why it’s ludicrous to think this team should blow it up and start over.
Let’s take a look at some ages.
30, 31, 32, 32, and 38
Those aren’t the ages of the Lakers elder statesmen. Those are the ages of Paul Pierce, James Posey, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and PJ Brown when the Celtics won the title three years ago.
30, 31, 31, 32, and 36
Those are the current ages of Pau Gasol, Ron Artest, Lamar Odom, Kobe Bryant, and Derek Fisher.
So any talk that this Lakers team is old and can no longer compete is ludicrous. I’m not denying that they’re an older team. I’m just saying that if it’s possible for the Celtics to return to the Finals two years after they won the title in 2008, there’s no reason to think this Lakers team can’t bounce back with an infusion of a couple guys and newfound motivation.
There’s no harm in seeing what’s out there for some of the guys on their current roster. Contrary to many reports out there, the Lakers have some very attractive assets for teams looking to deal. Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom each have only one guaranteed year left on their contracts with team options for a second year. Those are perfect deals for teams who might be leery of Bynum’s knees or Lamar’s outside interests.
I’m sure there will be plenty of teams interested in a 30-year-old Pau Gasol, even with four years left on his deal. Big men don’t grow on trees. There’s a reason why Shaq, Theo Ratliff, Kurt Thomas, PJ Brown, and countless others have continued to play deep into their late 30s. There aren’t many who possess the skill set that Pau has.
There are a few Lakers who can probably be considered either undesirable or unattractive. There won’t be teams lined up for Derek Fisher, Luke Walton, Ron Artest, or Steve Blake. That isn’t to say that any of them couldn’t redeem themselves with a redefined role.
Artest is still one of the league’s best defenders. Fisher is still second on the list of guys you’d want taking a last-second shot on this team. Blake gets a semi-pass after a year on a new team and playing in a new offense. And Walton, well, never mind. He’s useless.
But the best thing the Lakers have going for them is they are no longer the hunted. It’s exhausting for a team to play 82 games against teams that are bringing it every single night. The Lakers lost 11 games at home this year. That’s one fewer loss than they had at Staples in the previous two seasons combined.
But it wasn’t only that that they lost 11 games at home, but to whom some of those losses came against. More than half of them came against Milwaukee, Indiana, Phoenix, Memphis, Sacramento, and Utah — five non-playoff teams plus the 8th-seeded Grizzlies.
The Lakers now find themselves in the same position they were after losing to the Celtics in 2008. In both instances, they were embarrassed. The Lakers responded the last time by making it back to the Finals and beating Orlando.
Perhaps the sting of their humiliating second-round exit will provide them with the juice they need to go forward.
Now they find themselves with nothing to do in late May and June for the first time since they lost to the Phoenix Suns in the first round of the 2007 Playoffs.
Plenty of time to rest, reload, and rediscover that hunger that burned inside of them.
And sometimes the best changes come from within.