Their fans are worried as the team continues to lose losses despite having a world class point guard, one of the best shooting guards to ever play the game, a small forward who asks for the hardest defensive assignments, an All-Star power forward and a multiple Defensive-Player-of-the-Year winner.
If it weren’t for the fact that the Lakers had just fired Mike Brown, there’s a good chance people might be whispering that Mike D’Antoni needs to be fired because his team is losing. How could they be losing with such talent? Fellow Bleacher Report writer Dan Favale says that the Lakers are definitely in panic mode.
While the panic does make sense, there is precedence for this type of fluctuation. More importantly, that precedence doesn’t go back that far.
One can look at the Miami Heat when the Big Three came together and see where I’m going with this analogy. The Miami Heat definitely did not come out as powerfully as they should have: they were 13-9 through the first two months.
The Heat should have been 21-0. Instead, they were just above average through the first quarter of that season. The thing to remember is that those Miami Heat went on to win their division and go all the way to the NBA Finals where they lost to the Dallas Mavericks.
But they won it all the very next year.
The Los Angeles Lakers, while currently three games under .500, have something else in common with the Heat. There are a lot of talent individual players trying to play as a unit when they each used to be the star of their own team.
Dwight Howard was the All-Star center for the Orlando Magic, the go-to guy; Steve Nash orchestrated the Phoenix Suns offense; Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant played a type of basketball that didn’t require a point guard. When you bring that much talent together in one building, there are going to b...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
