Losing Lakers: Viral video shows their season in a nutshell

The Los Angeles Lakers season was a downward-spiraling disaster that finally ended on Tuesday night. Their seventh straight loss against the Phoenix Suns finally put the Lakers out of their misery.

The Lakers season was a bit confusing because of just how bad it really was. They went from a team which looked to having high hopes at making it to the championship to not even making it to the play-in tournament.

What happened to the Lakers?

Injuries and illnesses surely played a part in the Lakers’ losing season, as the anticipated duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis only actually played together once during the seven-game slump, which is indicative of the entire season. They began the season making moves, one of which was the Russell Westbrook trade from the Washington Wizards. That didn’t quite go as they expected either, though. Westbrook struggled to find his place with the team and had his lowest average points since the 2009 season and a huge drop in rebounds and assists per game. Head coach Frank Vogel ended up taking him out of the final minutes of the games.

They did still have a chance to make it into the play-in tournament, as LeBron carried the team when he was healthy. In the end, though, they couldn’t push hard enough when it mattered late in the season.

The viral video shows the Lakers team at the beginning of the season, excited and ready with their new team together, taking photos and celebrating. The video plays over the 80s song, “One Shining Moment”, which has become associated with NCAA basketball’s March Madness tournament (which ended just a day earlier) and is typically played as the winning team remove the nets and a montage of the tournament plays. This time, it played ironically over the downfall of the LA Lakers.