The Los Angeles Lakers’ season couldn’t have strayed much further from the original plan and projections, and because of that, it’s looking like LeBron James will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
There are many moments to point to and wonder if that’s where it went wrong, but the extremely public Anthony Davis trade talks in early February seems to be a key turning point.
Since it became clear the Lakers wouldn’t be playing postseason basketball this year, many in the NBA world began playing the blame game. The larger consensus became that president of basketball operations Magic Johnson and general manager Rob Pelinka were largely to blame due to poor roster construction.