Author: Martin Rogers / Source: USA TODAY
SportsPulse: Jeff Zillgitt and Martin Rogers give their take on which legendary franchise is in worse shape at the moment. USA TODAY
The NBA regular season officially ends on April 10, but in reality it finishes at different times for different teams. For the New York Knicks and Phoenix Suns it barely retained any meaning past November.
For the Golden States Warriors, it has only just begun.And for the Los Angeles Lakers, the curtain has just come down and the summer vacation might as well start. Sure, there are 19 games and five weeks still to go officially, but you can put a fork in these Lakers because they are done.
The final rites happened in sorry fashion Saturday in a loss to those dismal Suns, who captured only their 13th win of the season amid a whopping 51 defeats. But such ignominy is the kind of fate that befalls a sorry team, and that’s exactly what the Lakers are now and have been for most of this campaign.
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They’re sorry because they have sorry structure, patched together last summer to try to cater to LeBron James in a manner that appeared haphazard at the time and feels even more like it now.
They’re sorry because they have sorry leadership, with the executive branch having blundered its way through the Anthony Davis debacle and, on the court, James having done little to improve or inspire the youthful talent around him.
The mathematics says that the Lakers could still make the playoffs, in the same way that a five-month old could rise…
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