Things aren’t going great for the Los Angeles Lakers. Just how bad are things, you ask? Not even Carmelo Anthony wants to play for them.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, talks between Anthony and the Lakers have “paused” until Los Angeles re-enters the playoff picture. Currently, the Lakers are 4.5 games back of the eighth seed in the Western Conference. Here’s more for Woj:
“The Lakers had been leaning toward signing Anthony for the rest of the season — until losses in four of the past five games left the organization and Anthony’s camp wondering if it made sense to bring the veteran into an unsettled environment with suddenly so little chance of making the playoffs, league sources said.”
There are a few things that can be taken away from this report.
The first — and most glaring — is the fact that Anthony, who has been moved to four different teams within the last year and is still searching for an NBA home with 19 games left in the season, doesn’t view the Lakers as a desirable destination. If that’s not a testament to the current state of the franchise, I don’t know what is.
It also puts into question just how many teams are interested in acquiring Anthony at this stage of the season. If Anthony is turning down a spot on an NBA roster, it has to be because he has other offers.
The bigger question, though, is whether or not free agents feel the same way about the state of the Lakers and if it could have an effect on their pursuit of a second star this summer. If Anthony turned down a spot on the Lakers, who’s to say the bigger name players won’t?
We’ll find out this summer, but things are looking pretty somber in Los Angeles right now.
