Lakers: Expert Gives LA A Very Dubious Honor After Playoff Elimination
The Lakers season effectively ended last night in Phoenix. Their loss to the Suns last night, coupled with the Spurs beating the Nuggets, mathematically removed any possibility of the Lakers qualifying for the play-in tournament.
Which means, the Lakers were the headline of the day in the sports media world. On ESPN's Get Up, NBA expert Zach Lowe absolutely tore the Lakers to shreds and nominated them for worst of all-time. Or as some would call it, "WOAT status".
"Even if your expectations were low, as Windy [Brian Windhorst] points out, to be sniffing 20 games under .500...this qualifies as maybe the single-most disappointing single-season team in NBA history."
After Tuesday's nights loss, the Lakers are 17 games under .500 with three relatively meaningless games on their schedule. This is the franchise's worst win percentage for a season since 2016-2017.
Lowe ripped the front office for the players they decided to sign with what little remaining cap space they had after acquiring Westbrook.
"It's not just health, it's not just injuries. It's that they thought they were going to get something out of Kent Bazemore, Trevor Ariza, Kendrick Nunn - those turned into zeroes. The Westbrook trade was a disaster. Even if you thought this is a play-in team, or .500 team, or a 45 win team...for them to be this, 20 games under .500 almost, is one of the most disappointing seasons in the history of sports."
Lowe's larger point was that the Lakers could've remained somewhat competitive despite the injuries to Anthony Davis and LeBron James if they had simply built a better roster.
Every NBA team deals with injuries, but the Lakers were ill-equipped to consistently win games without one, or both, of their superstars.
Expect the impassioned eulogies to continue in the aftermath of the Lakers playoff hopes being finally dashed.
