Without a doubt the worst year of this past decade for the Los Angeles Lakers was the 2021-22 season. After injuries to LeBron James and Anthony Davis wrecked their chances at defending their title the prior year, the front office made a huge trade for Russell Westbrook, as well as adding a number of veterans such as Carmelo Anthony and Trevor Ariza, not to mention players like Dwight Howard and Rajon Rondo who were brought back from that 2020 championship squad.
Unfortunately, the end result was a mess as the Lakers finished with an abysmal 33-49 record, finishing 11th in the West and missing the playoffs. And in looking back on that year, Ariza did not mince words about why things went the way they did.
“Everything went wrong,” Ariza said in an appearance on the Bootleg Kev Podcast. “Everybody’s old as shit on the team. It was just putting together a bunch of players that were really, really good at a point in time when they had their own team […] Everybody played inside the paint. So when there’s no space inside the paint how do you, you can’t really, you can’t tell Russ who’s the point guard to go stand in the corner and expect him to shoot 40%.”
Undoubtedly the biggest issue on this team was that Westbrook did not fit alongside James and Davis. As Ariza said, Westbrook isn’t someone who can be expected to space the floor and that is what was needed next to that duo. And the age of the roster was definitely noticeable as the Lakers had 12 different players appear for them with at least 10 years of NBA experience.
It just didn’t work and it forced the Lakers to do a big reset the following season, eventually trading Westbrook to the Utah Jazz for D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley, while then-second year guard Austin Reaves truly began to come into his own.
As Ariza said, the Lakers brought together a bunch of players who were All-Stars at one point in time, but were past that point at that stage and the combination of everything just imploded in the worst way.
Timberwolves emerge as a suitor for Lakers free agency target Jonathan Kuminga
The Lakers have made the playoffs every year since that disastrous 2022 season and will look to continue that for the 2026-27 season with a completely remade roster around superstar Luka Doncic. The team is still looking to add pieces with wing Jonathan Kuminga a known target, but another team has emerged as a suitor for the forward in the Minnesota Timberwolves.
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