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The Los Angeles Lakers hit a new low on February 9, losing to a Portland Trail Blazers team playing without Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, Norman Powell, Robert Covington and Larry Nance Jr.
Lillard is out with an injury, while McCollum, Powell, Covington and Nance Jr. were recently traded.
Despite LeBron James and Anthony Davis playing, the Lakers lost to the Blazers by a final score of 107-105. They had 21 turnovers and shot 46.2% from the free-throw line. Los Angeles is now 26-30 on the season despite having five future Hall of Famers on the roster in LeBron, Davis, Russell Westbrook, Dwight Howard and Carmelo Anthony and the team’s body language looked awful during the Blazers game.
Lakers games are aired on Spectrum SportsNet in Los Angeles. The studio crew usually tries to stay optimistic. However, one of the analysts couldn’t hold his true thoughts back following the Blazers contest and it was none other than one of the best players in Lakers franchise history.
James Worthy Went off on Lakers
James Worthy won three championships with the Lakers during his Hall of Fame career. He’s one of the greatest players in NBA history and a Lakers icon, so his words resonate deeply with Los Angeles fans.
After the Lakers lost to the Blazers, Worthy ripped the purple and gold for losing and said, “This is the lowest point of just about any season I’ve seen as a Laker over the years.”
“I don’t have any words for it because we’ve used all our words,” Worthy said on Spectrum SportsNet, via Bleacher Report. “We saw Milwaukee come in and we thought that maybe, OK, that’ll be a measuring game against a good team and we saw what happened. And then against Portland, a team of professional players, but it was almost like they were playing against local [YMCA] pick-up group of guys.
“I think it just goes to show you how deeply, mentally disconnected [the Lakers are]. The inability to fire your brain up for game that you know you should win—or for any game for that matter—shows that there’s a really tough virus going on with this team right now that I don’t know what the medicine is. But this was really bad.”
The Lakers are in ninth place in the Western Conference standings. They are 27th in the league in defense, giving up 112.5 points per game, and would be in the play-in tournament if the season ended today.
Westbrook has been the scapegoat of the Lakers’ struggles this season. However, he didn’t play against the Blazers due to a back injury and Los Angeles still lost, so the one-time MVP can’t take the fall for this loss.
The Lakers’ next game is on February 12 against the Golden State Warriors. To bond as a team and fight through their current rut, the group has a special function planned.
Lakers Have Team Function Planned at Vineyard in Napa Valley
According to Dave McMenamin of ESPN, the Lakers have a team function planned at a vineyard in Napa Valley before facing the Warriors. We’ll see if some good wine and food can cure Los Angeles’ “fog.”
“Obviously, this is something that’s weighing on this group that we’re all trying to get through,” LeBron said after the Blazers game. “Almost feels like it’s a fog, just fog in the air. And we’re all trying to see what’s on the other side of it.”
The Lakers will be heavy underdogs versus the Warriors, who have the second-best record in the Western Conference.
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