|
Overall
Win/Loss Record (At Season’s End): 45-37,
third place Pacific Division
|
4
|
At
Season’s End:
15
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Team
Statistics and League Rank (At Season’s End)
|
Individual
Statistical Leaders (At Season’s End)
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Taking a Look Back at the Season that Once Was . . .
|
SDH Player of the Year:
Earl Clark 
In a team that turned out to be a complete train wreck, it was nice to see that there was at least one bright spot to salvage from the wreckage as it came in the form of a 6'10" swingman that was often ignored throughout all the turmoil. Earl Clark was a simple add in from the massive mega deal that sent Dwight Howard to Los Angeles and was not even expected to make the roster let alone play a game. Yet he managed to persevere and when he got the chance, took the opportunity to show his team and its fans that they have a potential diamond in the rough. In the 59 games he had played, he started in 36 of them giving Laker fans something to smile about as they watch their highly anticipated championship team fall well short of expectations. It will be interesting to see what more we can expect from this up and coming young player in next upcoming seasons as he looks to have quite a solid career ahead of him.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Analysis:
It is difficult to determine whether to call the six month debacle otherwise known as the 2013 regular season of the Los Angeles Lakers should be determined as a tragedy or a comedy. For fans who bleed purple and goal, it must have been certainly difficult to watch their team who they anticipated returning to championship glory play so poorly and have to scratch and claw to reach the playoffs. For those who simply observe the drama take place as the team, coaching staff and front office were scrambling around like chickens with their heads cut off bumbling around as if it were a Three Stooges short film, it was rather hilarious to say the least. It certainly was tragic for Lakers owner , the late Jerry Buss, to spend his final days watching the team he spent more than 100$ million on fall so very short of expectation leading many to speculate that it was not just the cancer that killed him, but his passing was mainly due to a broken heart. For the sick individuals who would dance on Buss' grave as they resented his inane ability to flagrantly disregard the league's salary caps and luxury taxes because of his ridiculously deep pockets, there must be a sense of satisfaction to see Buss' latest concoction fall apart right in his face as he lay on his death bed. Either way, whether people anguished or reveled in the Lakers' misfortunes and the drama surrounding them or not, one thing remains certain--that the collapse of the once mighty Los Angeles Lakers was possibly one of the biggest story in not only basketball, but in all of professional sports as well. It all started in the previous off season where the Los Angeles Lakers, who have been capped out for years having a payroll that was almost twice the league's salary limit, was capable to sign Steve Nash to a three year deal worth 27$ million dollars. If it were not for trade exemption they received the previous season thanks to the trade that sent Lamar Odom, now with the Los Angeles Clippers, to the Dallas Mavericks, the Lakers would have never been able to offer Nash such a lucrative contract. Any other NBA team, it would not have been able to accomplish such a feat as the luxury tax penalties alone who have warded them away faster than the plague; however, the Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak, who had a boss with extremely deep pockets and almost limitless resources, simply had to wave his magic wand to bring the 38 year old future Hall of Famer into the fold. Many viewed the new Laker acquisition with both awe and disgust as they saw the deal as another unjust case of the rich getting richer and it did not end there as Kupchack and Buss finagled a deal which would also add another superstar. As if having three NBA All Stars and future Hall of Famers was not enough, the Lakers went on to pull of one of the biggest and most complicated trades in league history that involved four teams, more than ten players, three first round draft pick, and the largest trade exemption that anyone has followed the NBA has ever seen in order to add an extra special gem to the already full strong box. Dwight Howard arrived in LA in the same spectacular fashion as Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and Shaquille O' Neal before him--as the next great Laker center who bring championship glory to the team once again. Paired alongside veteran superstars in Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, and Steve Nash, Dwight was not only supposed to bring the Lakers back into champion contention, but carry on the legacy once those three rode off into the Sunset Strip together. The season had not even started and most analysts and sports media pundits already had the LA Lakers facing the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals--so when the Lakers stumbled through the preseason losing every game and opened the regular season winning just two of their first six games, one can understand why ownership and the front office entered into panic mode. Unfortunately that sense of panic led them to act rashly and fire the team's head coach Mike Brown six games into the season with literally no real backup plan forcing the team to desperately grasp straw in order to find Brown's replacement. It was a mix of the panic and desperation that would not only determine the future of the Lakers' regular season but also their chances for an NBA title, and it led both the team's head honchos, GM Mitch Kupchack and acting owner at the time, Jim Buss, to make one of the worst decisions that would send the franchise into a tailspin. Instead of picking candidates who had winning credentials such as a Nate McMillan, Jerry Sloan, or even former head coach Phil Jackson, Buss and Kupchak chose to bring in a coach that not only was the antithesis of what they wanted to accomplish, but also had previously been run out of the last city he coached for. Last season, Mike D'Antoni had exposed himself as a complete fraud as he was not even able to coach a New York Knicks team that consisted of Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler, and Amare Stoudemire to a .500 record and was thus forced to resign in mid season and leave the Big Apple in disgrace. So when the Lakers' top brass proclaimed that this charlatan who would be the man to bring their team back to championship contention, it was certainly met with a high dose of skepticism to say the least and it essentially ruined what little credibility that both Kupchack and Buss still has. As a result of the string of rather unwise decisions by both men and their adamant justifications of them, the Lakers went from being one of the sawed after teams to becoming a complete train wreck and finished the season as a complete leaghing stock. Many shook their heads in dismay and disgust to see a team whose starting five was being paid more than 83$ million combined for that season alone play so poorly as they struggled to even attain the last playoff spot in the West, let alone show any ability to contend for a title. Dwight Howard entered the regular season a fraction of his former self as he neither as explosive or dominant as he was prior to the trade while partner in the front court, Pau Gasol would have his worst season in his professional career as he would post career lows in scoring (13.7) and field goal percentage (.466). Steve Nash finally looked as if Father Time had finally caught up with him as the player that seemed ageless in eyes of many now started to look his age while Metta "whatever his name is" continued to show a steady decline of his athletic abilities with each passing. That resulted in the 35 year old Kobe Bryant having to shoulder the burden yet again of carrying his teammates on his back as he spent the season compensating for their shortcomings to go along with the ineptitude of his team's coaching staff and front office. All that pressure came to a head when he would suffer a season ending injury right before the playoffs and would be forced to sit by and watch his team thoroughly get humiliated by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the Western Conference Playoffs. Now that the Lakers' season has mercifully come to an end, the question is what next as their enter the off-season with the unsavory decision of what to do with Dwight Howard, whose contract had expired upon the team's rather embarrassing exit in the post season. With Howard eligible to receive a maximum contract of almost 120$ million for five years, do the Lakers really want to invest that much in a player who only helped them win just 45 games? Even without Howard, the Lakers would still be paying through the nose in luxury tax penalties as they would have pay almost 40$ million alone; however, add Howard into the mix and many project the Lakers would be on the hook for luxury taxes close to sixty or seventy million per year for the next three to four years. Essentially the Lakers are now stuck because they have this aging team and are virtually handcuffed financially with a payroll more than 100$ million--and that's not including the more than 70$ million dollars in luxury tax penalties per season for keeping such a team together. And what is even more sad is that with the team that they have, they still will never be anywhere near to returning to the NBA Finals anytime soon. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
SDH Presents the 2013 End of Season NBA's Worst to First: 15. Los Angeles Lakers
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment