The Los Angeles Lakers have had a terrible start to their 2022-23 campaign as they fell to their 8th loss of the season against the Utah Jazz. Considering they have only 2 wins in their first 10, the Lakers are looking like any of the teams tanking for Victor Wembanyama. The difference is that the Lakers don’t have their own pick and won’t get to benefit from being a bad team.
They hired coach Darvin Ham to replace Frank Vogel to rebuild the team’s culture. While there have been flashes of Ham’s defensive identity in a few of the games, the last 3 games have been bad defensive performances from the Lakers. As a result, coach Ham decided to emphasize to his team that he didn’t join the team to be a loser.
Darvin Ham with a pretty defiant stance after a 2-8 start, saying he can't abide any defeatist attitudes and he's always going to see the glass half full: "It's not always going to be like this. We're gonna turn the corner. I didn't come here to lose."
— Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) November 8, 2022
Coach Ham may not want to be a loser but the personnel at his disposal is putting him in that position. Hopefully, the Lakers can figure something out through the trade market because the team isn’t working on the court through their opening 10 games.
Are The Los Angeles Lakers Going To Make A Trade?
The Lakers’ hand is getting closer to being forced with every loss the team takes. They reap no benefit from being one of the worst teams in the NBA and have to maximize their window of contention around LeBron James if it hasn’t ended already.
Russell Westbrook has been a revelation off the bench but the Lakers are still floating his name around in trade talks. Even if Westbrook is looking better, he shouldn’t be a bench player considering the massive contract he is on. That is the only way to make the team better in the present, but the Lakers will have to be careful and make sure they aren’t left threadbare for the future by locking up cap space for next year or giving up all their future assets.
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