Even before the start of the season, everybody around the NBA was talking about the Los Angeles Lakers.
Adding Russell Westbrook next to LeBron James and Anthony Davis seemed like a bit of a bold experiment while signing multiple veterans made people wonder whether they would be able to stay healthy throughout the season.
Fast-forward to today and the new-look Lakers remind us of the 2004 squad with the infamous 'Fab Four', and they look far from a true contending team right now.
According to Dave McMenamin of ESPN, 'LeGM' and the Lakers took a page out of Tom Brady's book, recruiting multiple former stars to join him in the pursuit of an NBA championship.
“Before the Lakers even had held an official practice this season, let alone played in a game, LeBron James told his teammates they reminded him of another veteran group led by an aging legend: Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers,” McMenamin said.
Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that the Lakers find the same success that the Bucs found last season.
Notably, Carmelo Anthony seems to agree with those comparisons, stating that James thought this team was going to go through a similar transition as the Tom Brady-led squad:
“Just from the standpoint of starting off slow and having new guys on the team,” Anthony said, per Lakers Daily. “New system. Guys trying to figure it out, guys trying to figure out how to play with LeBron and [Anthony Davis] and now incorporating [Russell Westbrook] and just now everybody figuring out what their role is. And what made it beautiful for the Bucs is that once it came together, it came together and you saw what happened with that.”
It's been a tough season for a team that was already in the spotlight even before the start of the campaign.
Even so, Anthony says that James' mentality and foreshadowing have been key for the team to stay mentally strong through this rough patch.
“It was just kind of preparing ourselves for whatever happens, whatever comes along,” Anthony added. “I think we were, I don’t want to say prepared for those [difficult] moments and those times mentally and emotionally, but yeah, those were conversations that were happening.”
Even if the Lakers find their groove and the veterans start contributing the way they should, that may still not be enough to get over their competition.
Davis needs to do some deep soul-searching and find his aggressiveness back once he's back on the court, as he's vastly underperformed even when healthy.
The trade deadline is just one month away and the Lakers are likely to be quite active in the market, as they're not going to be able to get the job done playing the way they've played.
