There is going to be a great deal of speculation behind the collapse of the Lakers. Magic Johnson for one has said "they were together too long." Well they were together long enough to win two championships in a row, and the Boston Celtics won 8 championships in a row from 1959-1966 with most of the same faces. Being together too long is not an excuse.
Others will say that the Los Angles Lakers lost because they were too old. This explanation is a little more feasible. Yes all of the Laker's big name players are now 30 and older, but age was not the issue last year when Bryant, Lamar Odom, Derrick Fisher, and Ron Artest were all 30. It is not as much as the Lakers are old, it is more along the lines of the young talent in Los Angeles has been sub par. 23 year old Andrew Bynum is an injury waiting to happen and Shannon Brown is the only other Laker under 30 who sees playing time. So age may have played a factor, but it was not the primary reason.
No the reason that the Los Angeles Lakers looked so lost, so distraught, so distant compared to last year is because of the most underrated concept in all of sports.
Team Chemistry
The above photo is what good team chemistry looks like.
Now the team chemistry for the Lakers 2011 playoff run was about as stable as a reaction between Chlorine and Lithium. Bynum even told the media after the game 3 loss in Dallas that the Lakers had trust issues. That statement really turned up the bunsen burner in an already unstable locker room. And all of the in game problems the Lakers had were direct results of bad team chemistry. One problem was defensive rotation. None of the Lakers trusted each other to rotate to someone else's man. Why was Kobe Bryant taking so many shots? Because he didn't trust his teammates to score. Why did the Lakers seem complacent and lazy? Because they were all waiting for somebody else to do the work. No team can win by playing hero ball, it's not that league anymore. And all of the chemicals reacted viciously when Odom and Bynum both got ejected for their flagrant fouls against Dirk Nowitzki and JJ Barea respectively. How is a team supposed to win anything if they have bad team chemistry? They can't, plain and simple.
So what's next for the Lakers? There are going to be calls to blow up the team and start all over again. Normally I am not a fan of that course of action. But when the team chemistry is as bad as it is, that is the only rational course of action. The only one on the team that is untouchable is Bryant for obvious reasons. The guys who are not going to be Lakers next season are Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Ron Artest, and Steve Blake. Gasol has been drawing the most criticism from coaches, fans ,and the media due to his bad play and lack of effort. Odom is older, and has a bad tendency to disappear during games. Artest still has some character issues. And Steve Blake was a waste of Jerry Buss' money. All of these players have some value, but if Orlando gets a call offering one of these guys and Bynum for Dwight Howard, management would be wise to hang up the phone.
How could Orlando trade away this face?
One side note regarding Kobe Bryant. The conversations that Kobe could one day surpass Michael Jordan in terms of greatness are now officially over. Jordan is 3rd on the NBA's all time scoring list, while Bryant is 6th. Jordan's playoff points per game is 33.4. Bryant's is down at 25 points per game. And here is the conversation ender: Michael Jordan has never been swept in a playoff series. Kobe has. This is all without mentioning the iconic impact Jordan had on the game of basketball that Kobe will never touch. The only way that this conversation could ever be rekindled is if Byrant wins 7 rings. And even then, Jordan will remain on top.
But for a collapse to happen, there needs to be a force on the other side furthering the fall. Which brings us to the Dallas Mavericks. They looked great all throughout this series. In game 4 the Mavericks scored an astonishing 86 bench points. That is as many points as the Lakers scored in the entire game. Jason Terry was on fire throughout the series and the Lakers could not guard Dirk Nowitzki at all. The Mavericks did not want to the the first team in NBA history to allow a team to win a series down 0-3. From the start of game 4, the Mavericks put their foot on the throat of LA and never took it off. As good as Dallas looked, their bench will not score 86 and the team will not shoot 63% from downtown every game. I still contend the Grizzlies-Thunder winner is coming out of the west. But one thing is for sure, there will be a new NBA champion this year. And now, without LA, the chase for the O'Brien trophy continues.
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