With the stated preseason goal of winning a championship, the 2021-22 Lakers finished with just 33 wins, to 49 losses, ultimately failing to qualify for a play-in berth, let alone the playoffs. Undoubtedly, it was a very disappointing campaign for all involved.
Lakers VP of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka summarized things prior to Monday’s exit interviews at the UCLA Health Training Center.
The day after the season concluded with an OT win at Denver, the organization announced that Frank Vogel’s tenure as the team’s head coach – which included the 2020 NBA championship in his first season – had come to an end.
“We expressed gratitude for the three years of being able to work together,” said Pelinka at his exit interview on Monday, April 11. “It’s a point in the Lakers history where we felt like it was time for a change in our leadership voice. Those are difficult things to do.
“This is an inflection point where he goes from being the leader of the Lakers to part of our legacy, and especially our championship legacy.”
One of the most difficult things Vogel had to deal with throughout the 2021-22 season was a lack of health, which led to a franchise-high 41 different starting lineups on the season. Even more damaging was who was missing: LeBron James and Anthony Davis were out for a combined 68 games. Potential starter, or at worst, sixth-man-to-be Kendrick Nunn missed the entire season, and several other key role players missed action, as Trevor Ariza and Talen Horton-Tucker both had early-season surgeries.
“Forty one starting lineups ... wow,” said LeBron. “It’s just, you never get an opportunity to see what the ball club could have been. Definitely frustrating, for sure.”
Regardless of health, the team just didn’t play well enough on either side of the basketball. They finished 22nd in offensive efficiency, and 21st in defensive efficiency, after Vogel had led them to No. 1 in defense in 2020-21, and No. 3 in 2019-20.
“Obviously it wasn’t a successful season by any means, from top to bottom,” said Russell Westbrook, who joined the Lakers in a trade that sent Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Montrezl Harrell plus a first-round pick to Washington last summer. “There are so many different things you can point to … I’m big on putting a ton of pressure on myself coming into any situation. Just my play in general, not my best season … I know a lot of people outside of here have their own expectations, but for me personally, I put myself on a very high scale, and I’m not happy (with how I played).”
L.A. failed to build the type of chemistry that seemed almost instantaneous when Davis joined LeBron in 2019-20. That team started 24-3, despite little carryover from the previous season. This year’s edition never got more than three games over .500, at 16-13, when undrafted rookie – and major bright spot – Austin Reaves hit a buzzer-beating three at Dallas. The next game, at Minnesota, Davis suffered a knee sprain that would keep him out for over a month, right around the time where most of the team would miss games due to the NBA's health and safety protocols. From that point moving forward, Davis and LeBron would play only seven more games together.
Health provided, Davis does believe that he and LeBron can still anchor a championship team.
“We’ve shown that we can,” said Davis. “I don’t know that’s something we just have to reevaluate in the offseason, upstairs, me and him talking about this season and what we would like to see next season and kind of just figure it out. Guys like to decompress and just kind of take time to think about themselves and look in the mirror and evaluate themselves and then come together as a group and just figuring out what’s best for the team to get back to championship mentality that we had our first year. So that would be a very interesting conversation just from the standpoint of what changed.
“I mean, injuries, but even when we were healthy we, I don’t think we were able to reach our full potential. For whatever reason. So I think we want to figure it out and just get back to that championship pedigree that us as players know we’re capable of and like I’ve said the organization.”
That 2019-20 model – and 2020-21 to a similar extent – was built more upon athletic, two-way role players supporting LeBron and AD, where as the 2021-22 version had more primary ballhandlers, less size and less versatility.
“Our roster did not work,” said Pelinka. “We did not have the season that our fans expect … we have to fix those things, and one of the things we’ve done and will do as we look to hire a new coach is to include that coach in the process of how to make a roster work together.”
L.A. did see several bright spots from young players throughout the season, headlined by a terrific debut from Reaves, who was nabbed by the scouting department and developed by the coaching staff from the start of summer league play. Malik Monk overproduced on a minimum contract with an efficient offensive season at all three levels. Talen Horton-Tucker had moments of on-ball dominance amidst an adjustment to a different, off-ball role, and free agent pickups Stanley Johnson and Wenyen Gabriel made meaningful contributions with their athleticism and energy.
LeBron impressively averaged 30.3 points per game, the second highest of his 19-year career, and he did so efficiently, shooting 52.4 percent from the field (career average: 50.5 percent). He set a new high in three’s made per game (2.9) and took advantage of an often-vacant paint due to small Laker lineups by consistently ranking among league leaders in points at the rim, even if those lineups often left L.A. more vulnerable on defense especially in AD’s absence. It was the first time in LeBron’s career where he played significant minutes at center.
“(Position) doesn’t matter for me personally,” said LeBron. “My personal goal was to be able to play any position on the floor. Every game is different. Matchup is different at times. So, to be able to have the availability to our team that I can switch off and play center for minutes or play point guard for minutes or play the wing spot for minutes according to what the game dictates or needs, that’s for me to make sure that I’m equipped and in the best possible shape I can be in to help us win ballgames.”
Davis put up his usually impressive numbers, averaging 23.2 points, 9.9 boards, 3.1 assists, 2.3 blocks and 1.2 steals, but had one player fall into his leg (Minnesota’s Jaden McDaniels on Dec. 17), and landed upon the foot of another (Utah’s Rudy Gobert on Feb. 16), limiting him to 40 games played.
How to best fill a roster around AD and LeBron will be ironed out by the front office in the coming weeks.
“I mean, it’s human nature to automatically to start thinking about the roster and what it could look like and how we could obviously have a roster that brings in more wins,” said LeBron. “That’s the most important thing. That’s the job that we’re in. So, I’ll start to think about it a little bit. But it’s not sorely on me, obviously, but we definitely want to be better. We want to be better coming into next year. That’s the most important thing for this summer.”
"He feels highly motivated to return next year and have another elite (season),” added Pelinka. “For him to play that way in Year 19 (2021-22) is jaw dropping … Every indication that we’ve received is he sees the Lakers as his home.”
It’s only been 18 months since the Lakers won the 2020 title, and rediscovering some of the chemistry that was so electric for that team, and really, most title teams, will be important. If not easy.
“Basketball chemistry can be an elusive concept,” explained Pelinka. “You don’t always know if it’s going to be there, or not, until you get a chance to see if players gel together. There are so many factors … injuries to star players … we also signed a point guard that we didn’t get a single game out of in Kendrick Nunn. But we’re in a results business, a wins and loss business. We’re not in an excuse business.”
“I do think a chemistry of players that are willing to work hard together and make the sacrifices needed to compete every night at a high level is a north star, and a barometer,” Pelinka concluded. “But the calculus for Lakers success is pretty binary. Either we win a championship, or we don’t. There are no gold stars for the in between. This year, we failed in that mission. That’s the way we look at things here. To get into a position where we can be a team that competes next year at that level to try and bring our fans the 18th title is going to take a focus on making sure that the chemistry of the team is healthy and that we’re growing together throughout the course of a season.”