The Los Angeles Lakers had a very terrible season in 2021-22, missing the play-in tournament and winning well under 40 games in the entire season. The team had a lot of issues, Russell Westbrook’s poor play and Anthony Davis’ injuries being prime among those, but that wasn’t the only thing wrong with the Lakers last season.
Since their championship win in 2020, the Lakers have lost or traded away a lot of their key role players, and last season was an example of poor roster construction. The team had a lot of veterans that are well past their primes, names like Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, and Trevor Ariza.
Even outside of that the Lakers’ roster was nothing impressive, with most of the players unable to make any sort of impact in terms of playing winning basketball. And just how bad the situation was has been made apparent in free agency over the summer.
Many Of Last Season’s Lakers Can’t Find New Teams
Thanks to the Lakers employing a lot of veterans as well as some projects, many of their players from last season are still free agents. Free agency has been on for months, and many players have found new teams to sign with, but last season’s Lakers have struggled to find opportunities where they are wanted.
truly impressive that half of the lakers roster from last year is no longer in the nba pic.twitter.com/CAwaxlr6LH
— Fastbreak Breakfast (@fastbreakbreak) October 1, 2022
This list isn’t entirely accurate, Mac McClung and Kent Bazemore have found teams for themselves, but the likes of Carmelo Anthony, Trevor Ariza, and Dwight Howard are all without teams. It’s a scathing commentary on the Lakers front office that so many players they gave deals to last season are players that simply cannot find deals elsewhere just a few months onwards.
The situation is a self-fulfilling one, where the Lakers were poor thanks to the quality of players at their disposal, while the players’ stock was affected by the team’s subpar play last season. It’s no wonder that even with LeBron James having one of the best scoring seasons of his career, the team simply could not accomplish all that much.
Of course, it would be nice to see these players find deals, a lot of them still have something to offer at the NBA level. There is also the fact that Melo and Dwight are legends, so it would be good to see their careers end on their terms. And the Lakers will be hoping that this year’s roster is better than last year’s.
