Lakers are Stuck in a Purple and Gold Haze

It’s a day which will live in infamy in Lakerland.

Before that night, the Los Angeles Lakers were seen as dark horse championship contenders. Since the NBA All-Star break, they were ranked No. 6 in offensive efficiency and No. 11 in defensive efficiency. The club had just completed a 15-2 stretch in the month of March, their winningest month as a franchise since 2000. Luka Doncic was averaging 40 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists per game over his previous 13 contests. The vibes, as they say, were immaculate.

And then it all came crashing down.

It wasn’t bad enough that the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder proceeded to smack the Lakers by 43 points just to remind us all how far they really are from being true contenders. Los Angeles compounded the suffering by losing their two leading scorers - Doncic (hamstring) and Austin Reaves (oblique) – to multi-week injuries in the process.

Unless Doncic and Reaves have a direct line to God, or at least to the medical team that helped Magic Johnson fight back against HIV during the height of the AIDS epidemic, all signs point to both guys missing the rest of the Lakers’ season.

I guess, technically, Doncic and Reaves could both come back if the Lakers advance beyond the first round of the playoffs. But if the first two games without them are any indication of what’s to come (a road loss to the tanking Dallas Mavericks followed by a 36-point home loss to those very same Thunder), you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks the Lakers can win a single game in the first round much less an entire playoff series.

But wait, it gets worse.

This postseason run was supposed to set the stage for the next wave of Lakers basketball. Every major question you may have had about this club was supposed to be answered in April, May and June.

Are we sure Reaves is good enough to be the second option on a championship team? Can LeBron James continue to thrive as the third option in his twilight years of NBA basketball? Does this roster need to be completely overhauled for us to compete? Should we dangle everybody not named Luka in a trade package for a star like Giannis Antetokounmpo?

Good luck figuring all that out now.

How can the Lakers confidently navigate the offseason without seeing this current group compete at the highest level? That magical month of March may very well have been a mirage. We’ll never know. The Lakers’ future is murky at best. They’re flying blind through a Purple and Gold haze right now. Only time will tell if they can land the plane.