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Los Angeles, California.- With the loss of 121-110 against the Suns, the Los Angeles Lakers were out of the race for the NBA postseason.
It was the seventh consecutive disaster and the Angelenos remained eleventh in the Western Conference, with no chance of reaching the Spurs, tenth, who occupy the last place that gives access to the play-in.
The triumph of the Los Angeles Lakers in the eternal 2019-2020 season seemed to mark the beginning of a new dynasty of gold and purple.
With LeBron James entering the final phase of his career at a sublime level of maturity and accompanied by the best Anthony Davis imaginable, the Californians were the favorites, the future was in their hands and they were the rival to beat.
A condition that was maintained during the first three months of the following year, 2020-2021, where Frank Vogel’s men were, by far, the most regular and well-oiled team in the entire NBA. However, in the blink of an eye, everything vanished, managing in extremis to qualify for the Playoffs in the Play-In and being eliminated at the first change.
Who would have thought that the movements in the campus made in the heat of that failure would end up giving rise to an even greater disappointment. And it is that the Lakers have gone from the greatest success imaginable in the NBA as it is a title to the most radical opposite, which is none other than the mediocrity of the Draft Lottery area.
What happened? What happened within the Lakers so that in less than two years they have gone from the top to the disaster? There is no single cause to explain its debacle, rather it is necessary to point out a list of keys to understand what has happened.
The collapse of the Lakers cannot be understood without mentioning the physical problems. The injuries are inherent to the sport and can only be prevented through preparation work on the part of the trainers. And even so, there is always a factor of luck or chance that cannot be controlled and that depends entirely on the game.
The Lakers have been especially affected by this last category. And it is that it all started at the moment in which Anthony Davis was forced to stop his activity in February 2021 for fear of a serious injury to the Achilles tendon of one of his feet. The load of games since July 2020 and the short rest time led to the interior suffering a dangerous injury that limited him to 36 games throughout the season.
However, in the month and a half that followed that loss, the Lakers stayed afloat thanks to a splendid LeBron James. Entering mid-March 2021, the team was third in the West, 2.5 games out of the lead and having led the Conference in the first half of the season without much trouble. It was from there that everything started to go wrong. Without AD or LeBron, everything was in the hands of Schroder, Drummond and Kuzma who could not avoid falling to the Play-In in a final to be forgotten.
Information: NBA.
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