The Los Angeles Lakers are embarrassed after a recent blowout loss but their true colors may finally be showing.
There was a point during the early portion of the season in which it appeared that the Los Angeles Lakers would emerge as a potential dark horse contender in the Western Conference. However, as the Lakers have fallen into a bad slump of late, it feels as if that was such a long time ago. Getting off to a 10-4 start to the season, the Lakers have dropped six of their last eight games and are now 12-10 and sitting outside the top 8 in the West standings.
Over their past two games, against the Minnesota Timberwolves and Miami Heat, the Lakers have been outscored by a total of 70 points. Something is clearly off with the team and as head coach J.J. Redick put it, the team is embarrassed.
"I'm embarrassed. We're all embarrassed. "Lakers coach J.J. Redick
Redick would also go on to say that ownership was needed. And the players did seem to agree in their respective postgame interviews. But the coaches and players can say all the right things. At the end of the day, there needs to be a stronger effort overall. Right now, the Lakers are a bad team. Over the last eight games, the Lakers have a bottom-five offense, defense, and net rating.
Los Angeles Lakers got the benefit of a soft schedule to start the season
It's clear that the Lakers need to play better. How they will accomplish that is the real question. But what we could be seeing from the team over the last couple of weeks is their true colors. During their 10-4 start to the season, the Lakers got the benefit of playing somewhat of a soft schedule that included games against the Toronto Raptors (twice), Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs, Utah Jazz, New Orleans Pelicans, and the Philadelphia 76ers (without Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey).
That's a truly favorable early portion of the schedule that could help explain their quick start to the season. Now that their schedule has toughened up a bit, along with the Lakers hitting a lull of their own, it's easy to see why Los Angeles has fallen apart a bit over the last few games. Then again, there are always easy portions of a schedule throughout the course of the season. And I suppose you can't blame the Lakers for taking advantage.
At some point, though, things are going to even out and the Lakers are going to have to reveal who they really are. Generally speaking, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. the Lakers may not be as good as that 10-4 start to the season but at the same time, they're also not as bad as how they've looked in their last eight games. The Lakers are an average team. And unless there's a big move waiting to happen at the trade deadline, it's hard to envision how this team emerges as a real contender this season.