The Lakers’ 2022–23 season couldn’t have tipped off in a worse way. The star-studded squad started a horrific 3–13 last year with little-to-no hope of getting into the playoffs and team owner Jeanie Buss said fans went as far as to send her death threats.
“I was like, ‘I’m not gonna survive this,’” Buss told The Athletic. “This is gonna be really rough. I was getting death threats.”
But thanks to some major moves at the trade deadline, Los Angeles completely turned its season around and made the postseason as a No. 7 seed.
“And then the team . . . something just clicked,” she continued.
“There’s an argument to be made that he [Anthony Davis] was the best player in the NBA when he was playing.”
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) September 20, 2023
Do you agree?
Jeanie Buss joined the latest The Athletic NBA Show to discuss more on the Los Angeles Lakers: pic.twitter.com/LiYOsMPH5d
The Lakers went on to upset the No. 2 seeded Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs and even beat the then-reining champion Warriors in six games after that. Their comeback story came to a anticlimactic end when they faced the eventual NBA champion Nuggets in the Western Conference finals and were swept in four games.
It wasn’t the ending they wanted, but the Lakers completely turned their season around and all of a sudden Buss went from a target to a success. Needless to say, the pressure is on for L.A. to keep that momentum up for the 2023–24 campaign.
