Listen, we all love excuses. Sometimes, we don’t believe that things are our fault! Wouldn’t it be convenient if that were the case for the Lakers?
After trading for Russell Westbrook, there were ridiculously high pre-season expectations for Los Angeles. Unfair or not, many believed this team could have won the Western Conference. LeBron James and Anthony Davis won a title together in 2020 and looked to bring home another.
During training camp, these were the types of quotes fans heard (via ESPN):
Pelinka to team: “You could say this room has the greatest basketball talent assembled on a team in recent history. You could say that. But without the proper mindset as a team, that amounts to jack s—, and we know that.”
LOL.
James to the media: “It was exciting helping put this team together this summer. Understanding what I felt and we all felt was going to make us a title-contending team. … I watch enough basketball to know what I need to do to help the ball club depending on the acquisitions we make per year. So I’m very cerebral about what I need to do for our team to be as great as we can be and to be the counterpart to what Russ brings to the table. … I always figure it out.”
Safe to say, that didn’t work out. And there are plenty of reasons why this team sucked as much as it did. They squandered their roster construction and wasted a valuable year of LeBron’s career.
Davis, however, chose the classic excuse of “injuries” to explain the misery.
Anthony Davis: "What could we have been if I was healthy all year, LeBron, Kendrick Nunn? You think about those things. When we put this team together, we looked really good on paper, but we haven't had a chance to reach that potential with guys being in and out of the lineup." pic.twitter.com/4yuS4I7AJW
— Michael Scotto (@MikeAScotto) April 3, 2022
That excuse works if you are the 2019-20 Warriors and you lost Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry. It doesn’t work quite as well if you’re the Lakers, who had much bigger issues this season than injuries.
Sure, maybe the Lakers would have had more momentum if they had started with a healthy team (including Kendrick Nunn) when the season began. But that wasn’t the issue.
They constructed a comically old roster that lacked the floor spacing and shooting needed to fit in the NBA. They didn’t build a team that fit the run-and-gun style that Westbrook is known for, so the pacing never made sense. They lost important defensive contributors in Alex Caruso and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. They traded away their draft picks, which were assets they could have used to get better at the trade deadline.
However, in fairness to Davis, injuries played a massive role in why he didn’t have the season he could have had. Davis has only played around one-third of all possible minutes for the team this season.
Based on a formula suggested by Owen Phillips and Nathan Walker (both of whom now work for NBA teams), I determined how many wins each player “lost” due to games missed.
As you can see, Davis’ injury was costly — but there were more severe and impactful absences in the league.
The formula, which you can learn more about here, was derived from Taylor Snarr’s dunksandthrees.com. The basic math was (Estimated Wins / Games Played) * Games Out.
I then sorted each team by how many “estimated wins lost” they had on their roster in 2021-22. Once again, the Lakers were nowhere near the top of the standings regarding how much injuries impacted their performance.
This formula has some obvious holes, especially considering Kyrie Irving didn’t miss games because he was injured. But while this methodology isn’t an exact science, it has merit.
The math says Los Angeles would have only moved from the No. 11 seed to the No. 8 seed with an extra eleven wins. They would have still had to win the West’s play-in tournament to make the playoffs. That sounds about right.
Meanwhile, if the Nets or Warriors were also given a clean slate without any health concerns, both teams would have the best record in their respective conferences. So, sorry, AD. That wasn’t the issue with the Lakers.
