The Los Angeles Lakers are struggling. After a promising 10-4 start to the season, which brought on significant praise for newly anointed head coach JJ Redick, the “LakeShow” now stand 12-10, loitering around 9th place in the West. Some of the blame can be pointed towards the team’s head honcho, a soon-to-be forty-year-old LeBron James, who had a string of uncharacteristically below-average games and continues to struggle from beyond the arc. His 6’10” sidekick, Anthony Davis, who was getting MVP considerations only a couple of weeks ago for his stellar play, has only managed to eke out more than twenty points in two of his last seven games; scoring just eight points in his last outing.

These recent losses, most of which have been outright blowouts, have caught the attention of Laker legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who took to X to write, “I’m embarrassed for the Lakers. They were down 32 points to the Miami Heat 105-72 at the end of the third quarter.” Mr. Johnson has every right to be embarrassed for the team he’d help win five championships for alongside Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Especially after watching the past two games. Something doesn’t feel quite right with the Lakers. It’s not just about them losing, it’s about how they’ve been losing. Careless turnovers, consistent lack of defensive effort, and no sense of flow or direction in their offence.

Redick took to the media after the terrible loss to the Miami Heat and said, “I’m embarrassed. We’re all embarrassed…It’s not a game I thought we had the right fight, the right professionalism…I own this, but need some ownership on the court as well. There’s not a sense from me that we’re together right now.” LeBron echoed much of this sentiment in regards to taking accountability, going even further by saying, “Whatever he said, I agree 100 percent, 1,000 percent. It’s not on the coaches. It’s definitely on us, for sure.”

It seems that whatever is causing the Lakers’ recent woes needs to be addressed in the locker room first and foremost. Though the team is already out of the running for the NBA Cup, here’s hoping they can figure things out sooner rather than later in order to compete for the big trophy in the summer.