Mannix: All right, Beck, let’s talk most disappointing teams this season.
We’ve got the Jazz, spending more time trying to tell us Everything’s fine! We swear! than actually fixing their issues. We’ve got the Knicks, bing-bonging back to the lottery. The Hawks, failing to match their hype. The Pelicans, dragging through another Zion-less season. The Blazers, tanking to the finish without Dame Lillard. The Kings, still Kangzing. And, yes—we’ve got the Lakers, failing to even make the play-in tournament.
So who ya got?
Beck: Look, I know everyone is frothing over the Lakers’ collapse, and I get it. We’re not used to seeing a LeBron James team crash and burn so spectacularly. But I’m going with the Nets as this season’s most disappointing team.
They started with a vaunted Big 3 of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden and ended with a vaunted Big 3 of Durant, Irving and Ben Simmons—except Irving played just 29 games, Harden forced a trade and Simmons has yet to log a single minute. Add in Durant’s injury absences, and you’ve got a preseason title favorite that’s instead slotted for the play-in tournament.
What say you?
Mannix: There may not be a bigger single-season disappointment than the ’21–22 Lakers. How’s that? A team steered by James, still very much near the peak of his powers, by the way, with Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook, is not one of the 10-best teams in the Western Conference. To me this isn’t even debatable. Beyond James’s brilliance, this was a season where everything that could have gone wrong, did.
Beck: There’s no denying the Lakers were an epic, unmitigated disaster. Given expectations, this might be the most humiliating season in franchise history. But put aside the preseason odds for a second. Everyone you and I talked to last summer—every scout, coach and team exec—thought the Westbrook trade was a colossal error, and that the Lakers would struggle to incorporate him with James and AD Did anyone foresee a collapse this dramatic? No. But just about everyone outside the Lakers’ front office expected the Lakers would underachieve with their new Big 3.
There were no such reservations about the Nets’ Big 3. The Durant-Irving-Harden triumvirate had been dominant in their short time together last season. They were supposed to be the greatest offensive unit ever assembled. But Irving’s vaccine refusal and his ineligibility for home games handicapped this team from Day 1—and ultimately sparked Harden’s trade demand.
Simmons might eventually be a perfect fit alongside Durant and Irving. But making his season debut in the first round of the playoffs (as is now rumored) seems less than ideal. I’m not sure they even make it out of the first round.
Mannix: But see—the Nets’ season isn’t over. They aren’t exactly steaming into the first round, but with a play-in win over Cleveland, they will get a wounded Boston team that will be missing defensive anchor Robert Williams. The Celtics, justifiably, will be the favorites but you’re not giving the Nets any chance to win? And if the Nets do win, is at least some of this season redeemed? Meanwhile, the Lakers are holding bizarre exit interviews where they take zero accountability (Westbrook) and spin the hilarious narrative that injuries and lineup inconsistency are why this team flopped (Davis). Hey, AD: You were 11–10 with you, James and Westbrook in the lineup. The mid-’90s Bulls, you were not.
Beck: Redemption? Always possible. The Nets should win their play-in game (or the next one if they were to lose Tuesday) and make the playoffs. But they’re entering as a low seed, without home-court advantage, and any path to the Finals could involve consecutive series against the Celtics, Bucks and Sixers, in some order. That’s a brutal path. And remember: The Nets were huge favorites to win it all when this season began. Anything short of the Finals is a massive disappointment from that standpoint. On the plus side, the Nets should start next season with a fully healthy (and eligible) Big 3 of Durant, Irving and Simmons. I’d take that over the grisly offseason facing the Lakers, for sure.
