The Los Angeles Lakers have been on a roller-coaster ride this season. The high pre-season expectations and the possibility of another championship run came right before the continuous injuries and issues with roster fit that saw them spiral out and end the season without even a chance at a postseason berth. While not much can be done immediately, there have been rumors of big moves in the offseason already.
Frank Vogel is expected to part ways with the franchise, with replacements already being talked about in the media long before this season has come to an end. And while Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook have also been linked with possible moves away, their positions seem a bit more secure than Vogel’s seems to be at the moment.
Frank Vogel has been unable to do much with the roster this season, and while part of the blame for that falls on the front office and the players themselves, to not even get to the play-in with 5 Hall Of Famers in the squad should always be considered something of a failure. And Davis has seemingly taken a shot at the coach during an interview, talking about the constant line-up changes the squad has seen this season.
(AD’s quote starts at 5:46 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ1fw7Op4eE
“That championship team, guys were healthy. We had our closing lineups, we had our starting lineups. This year we had more starting lineups than we had wins.”
The Los Angeles Lakers couldn’t quite figure out their line-ups this season at all, they played 40 different combinations throughout the season. The most a line-up started together was 7 games and only 6 different combinations managed to play 4 games or more together.
That is 9 more than the 31 wins the Lakers have managed this year and it’s an alarming stat by any measure. Injuries or not, this much experimentation is far from conducive to winning basketball games at the highest level and it’s no surprise that Vogel finds his job in jeopardy after a disappointing 2021-22 campaign.
