The team that was built to be unbeatable just kept losing.
On Jan.25, the Los Angeles Lakers went to Brooklyn to face the Nets and displayed a joyfulness that was unusual for them this season. Their top stars LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook were all healthy — one of only 21 times this season that happened. It was Davis’s first game back from a knee injury. It was James’s only appearance in New York City. He had been suspended for the team’s November visit to Madison Square Garden, his favorite place to play. On back-to-back Nets possessions, James stole the ball and raced the other way as the crowd murmured in anticipation. They erupted into cheers each time James dunked. After the second one, James grinned. He laughed with Michael Strahan, the former N.F.L. star, who was sitting courtside, and jogged back to the Lakers’ bench still smiling. “The more minutes that we log, we continue to see how dynamic we can be,” James said after that game. The Lakers were in eighth place in the Western Conference, and the night offered hope. At the time it felt inconceivable that a team built to be an unbeatable superteam might get stuck in the play-in tournament, but the Lakers had plenty of time to rise in the standings. Many assumed they could still be dangerous in any playoff situation. Back then, few expected what would actually happen. The Lakers were eliminated from playoff contention by the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday, even though James had the second-highest point average of his 19-year career this season. On Friday, James was ruled out for the final two games of the season because of a lingering ankle injury that had already kept him out of the three previous games. The Lakers are likely to finish 11th in the Western Conference, a spectacular failure for a team that expected to compete for a championship this season. This season was challenging for many teams, as the N.B.A. attempted a return to normal with the coronavirus pandemic still happening and with high-profile injuries afflicting many teams. But no team in the league will finish the season with as large a chasm between expectations and reality as the Lakers did. “It’s obviously disappointing on many levels,” Westbrook said. “But there ain’t much you can do about it at this point.” Westbrook was introduced with superstar fanfare in August, as Rob Pelinka, the Lakers’ president of basketball operations, declared that he gave them a chance to win the franchise’s 18th championship.
