NBA: 6 Big winners, 5 unfortunate losers from the first half of the 2023-24 season

Los Angeles Lakers - Loser

It's amazing that after everything that transpired last season, midway through this year the Los Angeles Lakers find themselves in essentially the same spot. A few weeks before the NBA Trade Deadline, the Lakers are in desperate need of a big move that would effectively salvage their season. The Lakers are 9th in the Western Conference standings and while they're not completely out of finishing as a top 4 or 5 seed before the playoffs, this is a team that is playing with little to no consistency.

What makes all this the more disappointing for the Lakers is that after a somewhat surprising run to the Western Conference Finals last year, the hope was that the Lakers could build off of that momentum this year. Instead, it seems like the Lakers remain a big move away from getting back to where they ended last year in the postseason.

The good news for the Lakers is that they appear to be a team that is going to make some kind of move ahead of the trade deadline. The big question is whether they'll be able to make a move big enough to move the needle heading into the second half of the season.