For the Los Angeles Lakers, no one problem overshadows the franchise… because there are too many problems to count.
As we conduct an April Autopsy of the Purple and Gold’s NBA season, the D’Angelo Russell-Nick Young mess is not the Lakers’ foremost problem. The culture which created it — rooted in ownership, but evident in multiple locations — has to be fixed, so that specific soap operas will no longer hold back one of the NBA’s anchor organizations.
In the link above, the point is plainly made that because the Lakers and Byron Scott treated D’Angelo Russell like a child, it should not be surprising that Russell acted like a child. There’s no need to elaborate on that point. It simply sits there as the symbolically potent explanation for the Lakers’ entrenched woes.
It’s one thing to be a young team which loses on the job — losses might occur, but learning accompanies the losing. The depressing and alarming reality which courses through LakerLand is that very little learning appears to be occurring. Just how much has D’Angelo Russell learned about basketball… and about handling himself as a professional? Naturally, he must take some responsibility for this, but organizations mold young players and teach them how to do things the right way. Consider how Erik Spoelstra is cultivating Justise Winslow and Josh Richardson in Miami, with Pat Riley there — just as he was for LeBron James — to make sure the right environment remained firmly in place.
Some organizations rot from the inside solely because of the owner — the Knicks are Examples A, B, C-F, G, H, and maybe even I. The Lakers have an ownership problem in the years after Jerry Buss’s death, but this is not as pronounced as the Knicks’ situation. The Lakers could have been in a much better position had they not bizarrely stuck with Byron Scott, who began eroding Russell’s confidence (and playing him far fewer minutes than he should have) very early in the season.
The Lakers — whose season was already over (for playoff purposes) on Nov. 16 after a 19-point loss to Phoenix, and who became the first team to lose to the Philadelphia 76ers this season (on Dec. 1) — should have done what the Brooklyn Nets errantly and unfairly did this season to Lionel Hollins: sack their coach in midstream.
General manager Mitch Kupchak deserves a substantial amount of blame for not intervening when Scott made it clear he wasn’t going to give Russell extended fourth-quarter minutes. This wrong turn by Scott wasn’t a long-delayed movement, either; Scott went public with this declaration in November. The playoffs were already off the board, so there was no point in NOT spending the remaining 65-70 games enabling Russell to get every possible chance to learn how to be an NBA player. Most of this process was basketball-centric; some of this process could have enabled Russell to also learn how to carry himself as an adult.
Standing here with a view of the wreckage alongside the highway, these many months later, the distractions and distrust surrounding Russell represent a foremost point of concern for the Lakers. Getting rid of Nick Young (who also needs to be taught a thing or two about how to be a professional) is a necessary thing to do in the attempt to give Russell a firm foundation in his career. Yet, it’s ultimately a minor move when seen in a larger context.
The Lakers have to find a competent coach. The Laker name carries a measure of allure, but top coaches should not want to set foot in Los Angeles unless or until the organization rights itself. The Lakers need to carry themselves as grown-ups, building back a locker room in which veterans can feel comfortable. Only then would a bigger free agent — we’re thinking of 2017 here, not 2016 — perhaps consider a future with the franchise.
The Lakers have basically lost a step relative to the rest of the league. They are not in any way a destination for big-fish free agents. They have to begin to win back that reputation, which means their 2016-2017 season must build the bridge 2015-2016 failed to construct. How will Buss and Kupchak maneuver?
Your guess is as good as mine, because as said in the first line of this piece, there’s no one problem with the Lakers. This organization is swimming in a polluted sea of several equally urgent worries.
The Lakers died a very bad death this season.
