Los Angeles Lakers: 5 biggest disappointments from 2017-18 NBA season

1. Turnovers proved incredibly costly

When you have one of the youngest teams in the league playing at the third-quickest pace in the league (102.6), there is always going to be a risk associated with such a strategy. By the end of the season, this outcome became quite self-evident.

Overall, the Lakers finished 29th in the league in turnovers at 15.6 per game. With a rookie point guard in Lonzo Ball, and a host of other young and emerging players, turning the ball over while playing at such a breakneck speed cannot be totally unexpected. Having said that, this is a results-driven business, and these turnovers ultimately proved extremely costly.

In 40 games this season when they committed 16 or more turnovers, the Lakers posted an 11-29 record. This featured 12 games in which they recorded at least 20 turnovers, from which they won on just three occasions.

This clearly was an issue throughout the course of the season, as the following tweet from Serena Winters, formerly of Lakers Nation, detailed at beginning of their horrible month of December:

Furthermore, here were some comments from earlier in the season in which the Lakers turned the ball over 23 times during a road loss to the Milwaukee Bucks:

While their turnovers slightly improved as the season progressed, their overall ranking was clearly unacceptable whichever way you want to spin it.

Next: Full two-round 2018 NBA Mock Draft

Moving forward, while much of the focus this summer will be centered on the front office and their pursuit of star free agents, the ability to play at a fast pace and still being under control will be at the very top of the wish list for all involved in the Lakers’ organization.