Los Angeles Lakers: Don’t Sweat the Regular Season Stuff

Way back when I was in high school, we received progress reports every five, 10 and 15 weeks and the final report card at the end of the semester, the latter of which was the only evaluation that actually counted toward anything relevant, like college.

The point is that progress reports in high school mean about as much as the popular vote means to the presidential election. The same can be said about midseason assessments in sports.

Sure, the Los Angeles Lakers are flunking a few tests and forgetting to turn in an assignment or two, but we're not even at the halfway point of the season. It's January, people, not June. The final report card isn't coming out for months.

I get it—the Lakers are playing bad basketball. They are 11-9 since Thanksgiving and 4-6 over the last 10 games. In those four losses, the Lakers have lost by 17 points per game, all while scoring a single-game high of 85 points, almost 20 under their season average. It's embarrassing when you lose to Milwaukee at home without Brandon Jennings and get blown out by a Memphis team that lost the night before in Utah.

And the Lakers were supposed to feast on this part of their schedule. They clearly are not very hungry.

But let's not get too ahead of ourselves. As poorly as the Lakers have played, there is more than enough time for the team to right the ship toward Championshitopia. In fact, if I am a Lakers fan, I'm not all too upset with the way things have been going in Tinseltown of late. It is far better to hit a bump in the road mid-regular season than it is mid-postseason.

Take last year's Cleveland team, for example. The Cavs played brilliant basketball all season long en route to a league-best 61-21 record. Come playoff time, however, Cleveland collapsed against the Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals—and now that franchise will never be the same.

Adversity never killed anybody, and it won't k...