Gary A. Vasquez- USA TODAY Sports
It seems these days that the Los Angeles Lakers are living in a world where they think they should compete for NBA championships and are in the position to fight for one. Well you see, the former may be true, but the latter is far from reality.
The Lakers don’t have the depth to go on any serious run. The peak for the Lakers at this point is a second round exit in the Western Conference playoffs. Kobe Bryant isn’t going to last forever, and power forward Pau Gasol is getting up there in age with no real viable complement at the center position with Dwight Howard gone. Well, it wasn’t like Howard was a real complement to Gasol with the way Lakers head coach Mike D’Antoni was running things last year.
Point guard Steve Nash is still on the roster, but he is approaching 40 years of age. What exactly are the Lakers working with that they can say they are close to anything? The organization is approaching things like they are close. Look at what D’Antoni said yesterday.
“It’s hard for me to sit here and criticize or even to understand why he left a place like L.A.,” D’Antoni said to ESPN LA 710 radio Tuesday via Espn.com. “That’s kind of mind-boggling a little bit, but that’s in his DNA and what he wants to do.”
Oh really? You don’t know? You don’t know why Howard would leave a team that was 45-37 during the regular season and being arguably the biggest disappointment in NBA history? Well, that says it all.
Add to the fact that the Lakers’ fans continue to rely on the glory days to solve all of their problems, and this is what you see today. The organization and the fans need to understand they are not what they once were, and deal with it before the situation gets worse.
Wola Odeniran is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @ WolaOdeniran52.
