The Los Angeles Lakers lost their eighth straight game on Thursday, this one to the Chicago Bulls. Like all but one of those losses, the Lakers were blown out for the majority of the game and never had a chance late and that has head coach Byron Scott questioning his team.
With so many losses coming of the blowout nature, there is always the possibility that players begin accepting their fate before it happens.
According to Lakers Nation reporter Serena Winters, Scott wondered aloud if this is important to his players after the latest loss:
Byron Scott after tonight's game: "I start questioning, from my standpoint, if this is important to guys."
— Serena Winters (@SerenaWinters) January 29, 2016
The Lakers are 9-39 and extremely close to falling below the Philadelphia 76ers for the worst record in the NBA. Losses for this team aren’t much of a surprise considering how young most of the key contributors are, but consistent blowouts are not going to sit well with anyone.
In many cases this season, the Lakers have gotten off to terrible starts, falling behind big early on and trying to fight themselves out of that hole for the rest of the night. Sometimes when young players lose a lot of games early in their careers, it becomes acceptable to them and that is what the Lakers must be careful of.
The good thing for the Lakers is that they have veterans like Kobe Bryant and Roy Hibbert who will continually push the kids and not allow them to accept losing. The young players are all extremely hard workers as well, so what is happening now won’t sit well with them and they all will work hard to turn it around as quickly as possible.