Let’s all rewind back to the Summer, August 6th to be more specific, when the Los Angeles Lakers made a blockbuster trade that shook the entire NBA. Shelling out Kyle Kuzma, Montrezl Harrel, Aaron Holiday, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Spencer Dinwiddie all for the return of one singular player: Russel Westbrook. At the time the deal was tough to grade, the Lakers got their third superstar (ignoring the fact he was past his prime) and shipped away only bench players with little team value. Some fans and analysts predicted the Lakers would do well and make it back to the Finals in June; others saw the Lakers giving up youth, guys who played with something to prove, and most importantly, guys who could play without the ball. When Westbrook arrived in L.A. his presence caused an immediate log-jam and before long anyone who said putting AD, Lebron, and Westbrook together (three of the most ball dominant players in NBA history) was a good idea had switched over.

Fans and analysts alike eventually started to credit the failure and severe drop off in wins to Westbrook, or Westbrick as the season went on. However, Russ is not the only one to blame, yes his numbers dropped off and he was unable to carry this poorly assembled team, but the Lakers had an average age of thirty. Combine that with Lebron and AD only playing in 27 games together and you have a recipe for disaster. Despite all this being said about the players unable to perform, the blame must fall on the front office. As the league was shifting towards youth, speed, and shooting the Lakers did the opposite by going for old, slow, and poor shooting players and their experiment this year will go down as one of, but probably the most failed seasons in NBA history coming in at around twenty wins shy of their preseason projection. Now the time has come for change a lot earlier than the Lakers were expecting, completely missing the play-offs, the organization must have one thing persistent in their mind: to build a team that can be a feared matchup and not one that teams check off as a guaranteed win.