The Los Angeles Lakers. One of the NBA’s glamour franchises, with the 16 championships, the success of big men, and the amount of legends from Jerry West, to Kareem, to Magic, Shaq, and a current one, Kobe Bryant. After coming into this season with hype after acquiring All-Star center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash last summer, but now, the Lakers are seemly one of the teams on TV that you can’t look away from. Not because of the basketball abilities of the players, but because the drama is seemly there non-stop. The Lakers are currently 24-27 with a game at Miami on Sunday Afternoon on ABC. 3 games under .500, and this team isn’t that good as we thought they’d be. (The Lakers were down 20 points against Charlotte, and happened to come back to win. Not even amused.) Laker fans expect championships or at least a contender. This team isn’t even near that, at all. The Los Angeles Lakers are an below average basketball team.
The current problem with the Los Angeles Lakers is that they have pieces that are pretty damn good on paper but teams aren’t made on paper, they are made on the court. The Lakers are old, slow, and in new head coach Mike D’Antoni’s system, this team simply can’t run his type of offensive style. You can tell the egos are strong because they aren’t winning games. Why? Every other week, we’re hearing something about how a player doesn’t want to come off the bench (Pau Gasol), to there being screaming and crying at a team meeting (Dwight Howard), to then a guy possibly questioning a guy’s character and toughness to the press (Kobe Bryant). This team is full of divas. Full of guys who want to be “The guy.” The guy to carry their team to win it all instead of doing with it a team. The Lakers Organization wasn’t in the wrong to bring Dwight Howard or Steve Nash to their team. If you can get rid of a player like Andrew Bynum who isn’t playing at all for a Dwight Howard who is playing, that’s perfectly acceptable.
“THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS ARE YOUR 2012-13 NBA CHAMPIONS” is a headline that we’ll never see. That was the expectation when the Lakers decided to bring in both Steve Nash and Dwight “my neck, my back” Howard, but obviously things haven’t worked out that way, and I don’t think they will if the roster looks the same next season. The Lakers need to make changes. The Dwight Howard experiment hasn’t worked, and it needs to end. The obvious answer is a trade, because letting Dee-wite walk out without anyone in return would be stupid. The question now is where do the Lakers trade him, and for whom? That’s something to think about.
Dwight Howard isn’t 100% on the court and I don’t think that’s he’s 100% mentally. Perhaps, he’s ready to leave the bright lights of Los Angeles, and go to a smaller market such as, Atlanta or Dallas. As great as Dwight Howard is, he can’t accept when people attempt to challenge him. Kobe Bryant is challenging Dwight Howard mentally. Bryant has been quoted over and over again as saying that he’s tried to tell Dwight to just block all the other shit out, and just play basketball. The problem is that Dwight hasn’t done that. In this whole #Dwightmare saga, he’s told people what they want to hear. Let’s go back to when Dwight got Stan Van Gundy fired.
(coach killa, coach killa, coach killa *R. Kelly voice*)
Look at this…just look at it.
After Stan’s exchange with reporters, Dwight comes in and acts like everything is perfectly fine. He talks to the media like nothing is wrong, that they just need to focus on the next game. The funny thing about this is that Dwight is basically doing the exact same thing this season. He’s hit the reset button on the season like he’s a kid who’s N64 no longer works. It’s ridiculous. If he’s supposed to be so focused on the goal of winning a championship, why do we need to start the season over about 7 times?
Of course, it comes off as just “Dwight’s personality.” But how long are we just gonna chalk it up to his persona? Laker fans already got Andrew Bynum outta here for his personality, it won’t be long til the same happens to Dwight. Yet in some ways it already has. Bryant stated that the Lakers don’t have the time to wait for his shoulder to heal and he’s right, they don’t. Steve Nash also said the same thing to the media about Dwight, that he just needs to play. So what does Dwight do? Play against Boston last night because big brother Kobe and Scuba Steve said so. If these injuries are as bad as what he claims, if his legs are really going numb, if his shoulder is causing this much pain (even though he’s been cleared for the last few games prior to the Boston game), shut it down already Dwight. He’s gotta stop vacillating between playing or not playing, just like he did in Orlando with his #Decision. As a fan, I am sick and tired of watching this dude try to please everyone. It’s annoying, really. If it’s career and no one else will take care of him, why hasn’t he repaired that shoulder? Why didn’t he just sit out the season til January like we all assumed he would? I just don’t know, man.
It’s one thing for a team to seemly get embarrassed from time to time. In the NBA, there will be nights that this happens. But every other night, this happens with this team. A team, with championship or bust aspirations as Bryant said shouldn’t be getting embarrassed on the basketball court. This team seemly doesn’t give a flying fuck about playing together, or playing with pride. I don’t care if you suck. Losing doesn’t bother me one bit. It’s the way this team carries themselves on and off the court. Crying to the media about everything little thing isn’t built for titles. This team lacks the effort, the heart, and the desire like their fanbase has. Simply put it, when they put on that Laker uniform, they aren’t playing for pride or for the ones who did it before them, they are playing for themselves.
This is very sad how this ship is sinking. Nobody knows what’s gonna happen with the Los Angeles Lakers. Dwight Howard (Or 13-1, 6×2, 3×4, etc) is gonna leave this summer. The Lakers have no lottery picks because they traded all of their lottery picks to Phoenix. Kobe’s a grandpa. Pau will be coming off a foot injury. Nash is 39 years old. No, I’m not expecting this team to win a title while Kobe Bryant is on the roster. But his contract expires next year, and so does Gasol, and World Peace. That opens up a lot of cap space for the Lakers to do something. (No you dumbass Laker fans, Lebron James isn’t gonna leave Miami. Stop with that.) With the cap space finally clearing out, you can slowly rebuild and reload to contend for titles. Will that happen with Jim Buss being the dumbass that he is? Will Mitch just accept that it’s time to do this?
Your guess is as good as mine. This front office needs to understand one thing: This team currently constructed HATES each other. When they play, you can tell they do. As fans of this team, we’re gonna love them win or lose, but it’s time. It’s time to implode this team, soon. Laker front office, it’s time to bon voyage to Dwight Howard soon.
Tis The SZN 
Reblogged this on Writing, I do that..