Lakers 2021/22, Why did they go wrong?

The season of the Hollywood team was painted as one of the favorites, but everything collapsed horribly and the worst was consumed: Eliminated from going to the postseason.

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Like falling from heaven to hell in a matter of months and that involves all the members, when they win... they all win and when they lose... they all lose. After 10 years they managed to return to the top of basketball in 2020 with an emotional title giving a great tribute to Kobe Bryant, with LeBron James, Anthony Davis and a great group beating the Miami Heat in the finals in 6 games.

Everything indicated that a string could come with the material they have however, the 2020/21 mid-season broke the fantasy of a two-time championship when injuries began to attack the squad, with a rushed classification to the new format called Play-In involving the 7th-10th seed in each conference, winning spectacularly against the Warriors, but falling in the divisional to the future West champions, the Phoenix Suns.

Lakers decided to restructure its ranks to recover the throne achieved 2 years earlier, with LeBron and AD as protagonists under the direction of Frank Vogel. Here Rob Pelinka, manager of the team, decided to change a core of players armed and made in the Lake Show for other squads such as Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Alex Caruso, who were part of that title for renowned players such as Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony, DeAndre Jordan, reinforcements such as Kendrick Nunn, Trevor Ariza and Kent Bazemore, plus the return of Dwight Howard and Rajon Rondo, essential in that championship.

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BUT, the majority of players who had passed the peak of their careers with a lot of experience and a high average age compared to the rest of the league, it could be that so many years in the elite of this sport managed to add the results they wanted... well, in The whole season never came. The performance of the reinforcements was disastrous, with no support in the defense and little resistance to scoring points, losing games that they had in the bag towards the end against fresh teams where youth and experience were mixed, something that the Lakers did not have. the first mostly.

Rondo was traded to the Cavs, DeAndre was cut for poor performance, Nunn didn't even play the season, Ariza and Bazemore failed to support the established schemes at all. Although Carmelo did his job from the bench, he also missed some key points for the victory, which is part of his DNA. Howard couldn't pull off that same defensive man boost as in the 2020 title, coupled with the game crisis. Westbrook had one of the worst seasons of his career, he came with high status from the Wizards to help the main duo but had many accumulations of errors at key moments and in the eyes of the fans he turned out one of the biggest villains of the catastrophe.

Positive notes were given by the rookie Austin Reeves who achieved too much to keep a sinking ship afloat collaborating in his offensive field, even a Wenyen Gabriel who came from the G-League, achieved more support in the system than so many stars that some Once they were consecrated and Malik Monk from the Hornets trying to give freshness and youth to the mobility of the game like Reeves, but they were missing about 4 more members like them to avoid the one that was coming.

Meanwhile, Duo face of the team, LeBron was the most outstanding again as he has been in every team he has played, fighting for the scoring championship something that he has only won once in 2008. But in 2020 he had a serious injury that separated him from several games, leaving the Lakers without options with a team that was like Harlem Shake without him on the court. While Davis was in the hospital for a long time, not only when he was 100% healthy, he had setbacks in the game, but he was also part of the team's failures, especially in defense that he is asked to comply with.

Each one has their responsibilities in the tough elimination, LeBron was also part of the mobilization of these players to the team along with Pelinka and the board that did not fulfill their mission. Nor did he manage to have any character Frank Vogel, who had the badge of a champion, could not find a solution to the crisis they had at any time, his position is surely finished when the campaign ends.

They were before the All-Star game in about 4th place to drop to 8th in games, falling worse each game like Bitcoin when trending down, to the point that the Spurs and Pelicans far from them were able to unseat them to finish off their aspirations with 3 games to go before the end of the regular season.

What will happen in the offseason? A lot of changes in the Buss family, starting with the technical direction, let's see what will happen to Pelinka as they will scold him. The idea in theory is to continue with the LeBron-Davis duo for 2022/23 with those who achieved a good performance to continue a little more, those who failed will have to start packing their bags to another squad or rather their end for some in the NBA. The Lakers have been in the league since 1949, since then they have only been eliminated 12 times, 8 of which have been in this 21st century, but that of 2021/22 will go down in the books as the biggest failure in NBA history.