Injuries are a fickle thing in sports.
On one hand, they’re an obvious inhibitor to team success and knock teams out of routine, forcing sometimes unwelcome changes. On the other hand, though, publicly using them as an excuse is viewed as some form of taboo.
This leads to the Lakers’ current predicament.
The team is beaten up early in the season. Without LeBron James, Trevor Ariza, Talen Horton-Tucker or Kendrick Nunn, they are devoid of wings and ball handlers both. As Darius Soriano put it on Saturday, the team has just enough players left to fill out lineups but not enough for them to be successful ones.