Los Angeles Lakers: The Difficulties of January
By Shane Young
In the last two seasons, the Los Angeles Lakers have forced tears to drip down their fans’ faces, walls to suffer holes the size of fists, and college semesters to be dreadful.
Of course, the last effect there pertains to myself, who spent countless hours each night trying to crack the formula to their mistakes. Chronicling the Lakers’ mishaps from the nightmare with Dwight Howard, to the group of misfits (led by Nick Young), anyone would be nauseous.
Where it reeks of a whole new level of waste — at least since Mike D’Antoni took over for Mike Brown — has been the winter. When the temperatures drop, Los Angeles’ record hits the ground faster. Their season gets drop-kicked worse than Spencer Lanning, and playoff hopes turn into a false reality.
Specifically, it takes place during January, which normally occupies the team’s annual Grammy road trip. Due to the highly-prolific awards ceremony needing Staples Center for a prolonged amount of time, Los Angeles tends to hit the road for six or seven consecutive road games. Down in San Antonio, a similar process is practiced each year, with the Spurs having to deal with a yearly rodeo.
During last season’s debacle with injured stars and role players entering & leaving the rotation, D’Antoni led the team to a 2-5 record during their Grammy trip, which took place from Jan. 15-26 (at Phoenix, Boston, Toronto, Chicago, Miami, Orlando, and New York). Entering the road trip 14-24, the belief was that coming away with four wins (at the least) would spark momentum and assurance for when they returned home. Instead, they finished the seven-game trip with an average point differential of -3.3, falling to 16-29 before the end.
The next three games following last year’s trip? All losses, capping off the Lakers’ longest losing streak of the year (7).
Opposed to what many expected, the experiment of combining an egotistical center (Howard) with the largest ego in the league (Kobe Bryant) didn’t equate to positive results in 2012-13, neither. In every season, there’s going to be a roller coaster. At times, Bryant and Howard soared the Lakers 600 feet in the air. Other instances, especially early on, plummeted the team into mother Earth.
Even with the star power Los Angeles owned during the 2012-13 season — with far less injuries than last year — their Grammy trip didn’t draw the happiest satisfaction.
D’Antoni’s first long trip with his new gig brought the team to 4-3 throughout the Grammy adventure, with a point differential of -1.2 in the seven games. That year, the trip began right at the closing of January, and lasted into Feb. 10.
Looking through the lens of the future, Kobe and new head coach Byron Scott have a few reasons to smile, and numerous reasons to hang their heads.
It’s been rare to find positives within the team, but having trainer Gary Vitti overly-confident on Steve Nash‘s back and legs is enough to jump for joy. Even with today’s health advances, it’s never typical for nerve-root irritation to fade away. It’s a medical problem that grows with your age once you sustain it, and Nash hasn’t mirrored his Phoenix style one time as a Laker. Well, for the little amount of time he’s spent in uniform.
Negatives — on the other, deeper hand — are building up in the grocery cart for Bryant and the final two years of his career. It’s to the point where, when he checks out and heads home, he’ll only have five rings to put on the counter — not six.
The Lakers are stuck in the Western Conference, where you could throw any Eastern Conference leader and expect middle-of-the-pack results. It’s that grueling, and filled with terrifying schedule conflicts for teams piled near the bottom. If you’re located in the Southwest or the Pacific, you can’t expect one of the easier grinds during the season these days. You cringe when you realize where Los Angeles is on the map. Byron Scott probably has more than once already.
Something remarkably different next season, however, is the short Grammy trip in January 2015.
This time, it will be set for Jan. 16-23, just a eight-day stretch, rather than 12 (last season). Opposed to having seven straight matchups on the road, the Lakers will pack for just four. From a perspective of making a playoff push, it’s more than just favorable … it’s ideal. If there’s going to be a chance at reaching 49 wins, losing streaks can’t occur in the middle of the winter. It would be the same old song and dance for this organization.
Having 16 banners in your arena doesn’t entitle you to having a phenomenal season every year. Just based off the last two seasons, their fans have become accustomed to harsh losing stretches, and they make it feel as if the franchise has been at the bottom of the barrel for a whole generation. They should try living through the grievances in Milwaukee, or Sacramento since their early 2000’s run. It does get much worse.
Although the Grammy trip is shorter for the Lakers in 2014-15, January still becomes their kryptonite.
To begin 2015, Los Angeles has 15 games right off the bat in January. That list includes six road games, and nine games on their home floor.
Based on my detailed East & West win projections from August, it makes January the hardest month — by far — on the Lakers’ schedule.
Throwing out unforeseeable injuries to other teams, they’ll be up against 14 different squads that have a combined record of 698-532, which is deadly for your New Year’s Resolutions:
Last season, Los Angeles didn’t perform well against the competition they’ll see this upcoming January. In fact, it was mortifying how they played against these 14, accumulating a 11-31 record against them for the whole season. They were swept by the Bulls, embarrassed by the Wizards twice, and torn apart by Indiana’s defense another two times.
Having more home games than travel through the month really doesn’t seem too helpful, since three straight home events will be duels with Portland, Miami’s new look, and then LeBron’s Ohio family.
Look no further for Bryant’s time to “put up or shut up” this season, as it’s the part of the year that will make or break the Lakers’ season. If it’s going to match the level of rubbish every pundit is suggesting, the downfall is going to happen around the mid-way point. By the start of January, Los Angeles will already be 32 games into the year, and there will be a clear indication of how many wins they’ll need to strive for to get that lucky number 49 (probable playoff mark).
Their mitigated Grammy trip is thrown right in the middle of the hogwash, as they’ll start the short journey directly after having Cleveland’s trio visit Staples on Jan. 15. Hitting the road for Utah, division rival Phoenix, New Orleans, and then San Antonio, this Grammy trip includes a higher degree of difficulty than the last.
The seven-game trip last season included an opponent winning percentage of just .493, although the Lakers did only capture two wins during it. This shorter four-game travel will include a projected difficulty of .524, with New Orleans already on people’s radar of teams to explode with gunfire.
If re-signing the younger bodies of Wesley Johnson, Nick Young, Jordan Hill, and Xavier Henry can assist the veterans in staying injury-free through January, there’s still reason to feel buoyant about breaking 40 wins.
As soon as the war is over, February is mighty generous for the Lakers. Their 10 games scheduled for the month, luckily, includes seven that are against sub .500 teams. Of course, it’s all by projections, and the Nuggets could completely come out of left field and back up their statements of them being underrated and counted out. The only 50-win squads Los Angeles will have on their plate in February equal the Trail Blazers and Cavaliers, with both being on the road.
Using February as their motivation to pile up the victories should be the key to surviving any arduous game in January, since they know their nightmares will be behind them. We all know how this group tends to handle pressure, however. It may set them up for a world full of higher disappointment than we pictured.
It only gives you a more extraordinary sense of respect for Gregg Popovich and the Spurs, who face an hellacious eight or nine game road trip every year. This upcoming season, 81.8 percent of the Spurs’ February will be spent on the road.
Embrace the schedule, and fight through the bitter, cold weather, Lakers.