LOS ANGELES_Losing can amplify a team's problems, and the Los Angeles Lakers have done a lot of it lately.
So on Thursday, with frustrations mounting throughout the roster, the Lakers held a team meeting in lieu of practice to allow players to air their grievances with each other, with the coaching staff and with the organization.
"Hopefully we think about what we said to each other, what we said to the coaches and that the coaches have listened to what we said," forward Brandon Ingram said. "Hopefully we can take it into practice, into games and just get better."
Friday night's game showed that their product on the court still needs work. The Lakers lost to the Clippers, 121-106, after going down by 17 points early in the first quarter. Blake Griffin returned for the Clippers after missing 14 games with a sprained knee ligament he suffered against the Lakers last month.
Griffin finished with 24 points and former Laker Lou Williams scored 23 off the bench. The two combined to make 24 of 27 free throw attempts.
The Lakers were led by Jordan Clarkson, who scored 20 points off the bench on nine-of-16 shooting. Julius Randle made his first start of the season and scored 18, as did Ingram.
"I just don't think we were ready, for whatever reason, to engage in the fight," Coach Luke Walton said.
While the Clippers won for the fourth time in five games to creep closer to .500 after going 6-8 within Griffin, the Lakers have lost eight of their past nine games and sit second to last in the Western Conference, a half-game ahead of Memphis. They've played a tough stretch of games that included two against Golden State, one at Houston (their sole win) and one against Cleveland. They played each team close, impressing Walton. But the losses continued against teams they should have beaten.
"Every team has issues," Walton said before Friday's game. "You look at the top teams to the bottom, they all have their issues. Part of this job is keeping a pulse on everything and continuing to grow and do things in a certain manner. It gets more challenging when you're on a team that's losing."
What's frustrated Lakers players besides the losing is a combination of on- and off-court issues. Lack of consistent playing time is one issue. They've also been hearing for months that their franchise's future might not include many of them, and some players have wondered if personnel decisions, rather than a quest for wins, are dictating some of the Lakers' rotations.
Those frustrations came to light last week when the Lakers lost by three to Portland, which did not have star point guard Damian Lillard. Afterward Walton said he thought players were "pouting." Veteran center Andrew Bogut said players were frustrated and the effort overall wasn't very "professional."
Bogut specifically cited the Lakers' salary cap plans as part of what frustrated his teammates. The team's front office has made clear that it wants to sign two big-name free agents to maximum contracts this summer, and to do so it will have to move some of the current players.
On Thursday, the Lakers faced a practice day in which four of their starters would have been unavailable or significantly limited _ Lonzo Ball, Brook Lopez, Kyle Kuzma and Ingram all were nursing injuries. Given the dearth of healthy players and the clearly simmering frustrations within his roster, Walton canceled practice.
"I'm always thinking about how we can get better in the time we have to work," Walton said. " ... We weren't going to get much done on the court that day anyway. It was just a creative way to grow and get better for that day. The amount of questions being asked about having a team meeting are a little blown out of proportion from the fact that we had one. It was just a way for our group to get together."
Kuzma called it a "heart-to-heart."
Each player spoke and got a chance to air his grievances. Some of the veterans tried to use their own experiences to offer advice to their younger teammates about how to weather uncertainty about their futures.
"I don't think you work through it in one day, but I think we put it out there about how each guy was feeling about how they play on the basketball floor, about how they're feeling about the business of the organization, how they want to be played or anything of that nature," Ingram said. "I think they just put it all out there and ultimately I would hope they felt free after they did."
Said Kuzma: "We're just trying to get back on the same page."
Walton harkened back to his playing days with a reminder that meetings like the one the Lakers had Thursday are not limited to losing teams. He remembered frustrations often mounting even on the Lakers teams he played for that won championships.
Phil Jackson was his coach back then, and Jackson had an unorthodox method for clearing negative energy on the team. During a losing streak or another such down time, Jackson could be seen walking the halls of the Lakers' facility burning sage.
"I thought about it actually," Walton said. "I did not go that route, but it did cross my mind."
