The Los Angeles Lakers have hit a bit of a rough patch recently, as they have lost sixth of their last seven games to drop to 16-32 on the season, which is the worst record in the Western Conference. The team’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday was by 49 points, which is the worst loss in franchise history.
While they have not been winning, the focused has remained on the development of the team’s young core of players and that will not change moving forward.
Third-year guard Jordan Clarkson recently talked about their recent rough stretch, saying that this is the first time the young Lakers are able to really learn from their mistakes, via David Aldridge of NBA.com:
“We’re just trying to stay focused on the process, to be honest with you,” Clarkson said last week. “This is the first time that we’ve been able to kind of learn from our mistakes, play with each other, learn with each other. The last two years that I’ve been here, we’ve kind of had to deal with situations. At the same time, it was all deserved. But now it’s kind of our time to turn the page and just learn.”
Last season was a bit of a lost one for the Lakers young players thanks to the Kobe Bryant farewell tour. The team admitted that development took a backseat to paying homage to the Lakers legend and minutes and opportunities that could’ve been given to the likes of D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle went to veterans instead.
A lot of the Lakers struggles this season has come at the defensive end, which is the area Clarkson said before the season that he really wanted to improve. Whether it be lack of effort or communication, or just the inexperience, the Lakers have been one of the worst defensive teams in basketball this season giving up 110.5 points per game.
To keep their first round pick the Lakers need to fall in the top three, which is looking more and more likely each week as they currently have the third worst record in the NBA.