LOSER: Los Angeles Lakers
The Lakers do realize that they just lost to the Portland Trail Blazers the other night right? Let me rephrase this… the Lakers lost to the Lillard-less, McCollum-less, Powell-less Trail Blazers that were led by Anfernee Simons, Jusuf Nurkic, and a handful of players that you would probably think deserve to be in the G-League.
Now 26-30 on the season, the Lakers’ problems have only gotten worse as the season has progressed and you cannot blame Russell Westbrook for what transpired in Portland the other night because he wasn’t playing!
Los Angeles is in big trouble right now as a franchise because they have no cap space, no means to free up cap space and they made zero moves at the trade deadline.
Lakers’ GM Rob Pelinka, who is notorious for making big trades, sat back and watched other teams make moves while this team continued to plummet down the standings in the Western Conference.
LATEST NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: Key Takeaways From Wild NBA Trade Deadline Action
Giving them the benefit of the doubt, the Lakers did try to move Russell Westbrook for John Wall in Houston and they did try to move Talen Horton-Tucker for Terrence Ross in Orlando, but in both deals, the Lakers were shot down because of their lack of assets to trade away as an incentive.
One can say that things will get better when the Lakers look to add talent in the buyout market, but the best players expected to be bought out of their contracts are Goran Dragic and Gary Harris.
Are either of those players really going to make a big difference in terms of winning games should the Lakers sign them?
LATEST NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: Key Takeaways From Wild NBA Trade Deadline Action
Not making any moves at the trade deadline was the worst thing the Lakers could have done and they are not only the biggest losers of the trade deadline, but they are the biggest losers of this NBA season.
Oh, and they are still paying Luol Deng $5 million this season in dead cap money, which pretty much sums up the Lakers’ season in a nutshell.
