It’s tough to find positives for the Los Angeles Lakers in many respects this season; it’s much more difficult after a crushing loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. They have a roster full of players that will not be around for the future. The one young player that could have been special this season (sorry, Jordan Clarkson), Julius Randle, is out for the year with a broken leg.
Kobe Bryant is a fighting his basketball mortality, and while that may make for great reality television, it’s not exactly must-see-TV for those who have been pulling for the Black Mamba during the length of his career.
So, finding something to root for and be excited about has been hard. The one piece that fans can take away is that Byron Scott, who has underwhelmed in his last few coaching stops, has this team doing two things that are essential for coaching success; the team is playing hard, and the team is getting better as the season progresses.
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The Los Angeles Lakers, who have essentially been out of serious playoff contention since the final roster was announced and confirmed by their one win through their first 10 games, have played for coach Byron Scott despite the deck being stacked against them from the start.
With wins over the NBA-best Atlanta Hawks, Houston Rockets, Toronto Raptors, San Antonio Spurs, and Golden State Warriors, it’s clear that this club will not lay down against superior opponents.
While this may seem like a “so what?” type of point, it’s extremely important. Scott was brought in to lead a depleted roster, and initially looked to be a name to placate the Los Angeles Lakers fan base rather than the best basketball decision. To compound that choice, he was set up to fail with a disastrous roster that looked poised to one-up the terrible season it undertook a year ago.
Instead, the team gathered more than half of their wins in the month of December and have looked more competitive as the season has progressed
Despite their horrid start to the campaign, the team has looked better as they have moved forward, and compete well even when Kobe Bryant sits out to rest his weary legs; a thought that would have seemed preposterous at the beginning of the year.
The team grabbed a win versus Golden State without the franchise legend right before Christmas, and followed up with competitive contests versus the Dallas Mavericks and later the Portland Trail Blazers.
When discussing a franchise with the stature of the Los Angeles Lakers it’s difficult to take “competitive losses” as an acceptable sign of improvement, but given the talent level of the roster it’s an impressive feat that this team isn’t getting dismantled each night against hungry, desperate Western Conference teams jockeying for position.
The insertion of Ronnie Price and Ed Davis into the starting lineup, while making this squad worse offensively, made certain there would be some level of accountability on this team regardless of the struggles this squad would undertake. The result has been a fundamental change in the way this team plays, and to some extent it has worked.
Kobe Bryant has become a pass-first player in his twilight days, Carlos Boozer has proven himself to be a valuable bench player, and Ronnie Price and Ed Davis are enjoying nice seasons in their new roles.
These facets of the Los Angeles Lakers progress provide a bit of hope going forward as an organization.
They may not have the wins, their prized rookie, or a roster full of star players. But perhaps they are building a solid foundation going forward.