The Los Angeles Lakers have gone through a bit of a rough stretch in recent weeks, as after beginning the season 10-10 they have lost 19 of their last 24 to fall to 15-29 on the season.
A bunch of those losses can be attributed to injuries, as they were without some key players in the month of December. But they have been relatively healthy since the start of 2017, and it still hasn’t quite translated into wins.
Their last three games they lost by a combined 77 points to the Portland Trailblazers, San Antonio Spurs, and the Los Angeles Clippers, and naturally, the Lakers players felt a bit embarrassed.
After Saturday’s loss to the Clippers, forward Julius Randle talked about what this team needs to do to break out of this recent slump, via Lakers Nation reporter Serena Winters:
Julius Randle “[Need to] look yourself in the mirror, come in & realize what you’ve got to do, we’ve done it, it’s about doing it."
— Serena Winters (@SerenaWinters) January 14, 2017
Los Angeles has three home games upcoming against the Detroit Pistons, Denver Nuggets, and Indiana Pacers before playing 10 of their next 12 on the road as they embark on their annual Grammy road trip.
Despite their poor play recently, the Lakers are still just four games behind the Trail Blazers for the eighth seed in the Western Conference. They are also just 2.5 games ahead of the Dallas Mavericks for the worst record in the West though, so their play in the upcoming weeks will be very telling of which direction the Lakers are headed in.
Whichever direction they go in, it is hard to look at this season as a total failure as the 15 wins roughly halfway through the season is already just two wins behind their franchise low 17 wins last season.