Granted, this team is newly assembled. Two of its most important players are freshly acquired. It is introducing a new offense that virtually none of the players have any experience with. Also, it's hardly had any time with its different stars all healthy.
Dwight Howard was hurt to begin the preseason. Kobe Bryant was hurt to end it. Now, Steve Nash is hurt.
So it's easy to conclude that it's a rush to judgment to throw around the blame. After all, the Miami Heat struggled when their "Big Three" of LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade were first assembled too.
There are a couple of distinctions, though. First, Miami didn't start off this bad. It won three games in the preseason. It didn't lose all of them. No team has ever gone winless in the preseason and made it to the finals, according to SportsCenter.
It split its first two games; it didn't drop both of them. The game it lost was against the then-defending Eastern Conference Champion Boston Celtics. The last team to drop their first two games and win the title was the 1990-91 Bulls, again according to SportsCenter.
The Lakers lost to a patched-together Dallas Mavericks sans Dirk Nowitzki and a Portland Trail Blazers team that didn't even make the postseason last year.
In short, in the effort to avoid blame, there might be some falling to eagerly into excuses. Not all the issues are just an issue of not having played together. There is blame to be had, and each of these men should shoulder their share.
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Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
