Over the summer, vice president of basketball operations Jim Buss said the Lakers had "turned the corner."
But the turn has led to a dead end, and now the Lakers could be exploring trade options for all their assets not named Kobe Bryant.
Shopping D'Angelo Russell Could Signify End Of Jim Buss Era in Lakers Basketball
A day after Hoopscritic.com reported that Los Angeles was throwing first-round draft pick D'Angelo Russell's name around in trade negotiations, second leading scorer Lou Williams now could be shopped as well, according to ESPN.
"Ditto for the Los Angeles Lakers and a number of veterans on their roster: Roy Hibbert, Brandon Bass, Nick Young and Lou Williams," ESPN reported. "We should note, however, that Hibbert possesses the only expiring contract in that quartet. Bass holds a $3.1 million player option for next season."
Lakers Dismantling Underway By Shopping Center Roy Hibbert
Williams is averaging 15.5 points per game, along with 2.7 rebounds and 2.6 assists. But Bass' contract is an indication of how misguided Buss' preseason view of his team was.
"I think we've done a great job [rebuilding], Buss told USA Today Sports in October. "Yeah, I think we're in dynamite position. Not good position -- dynamite. I think we've turned the corner. I don't know if you discount that terminology, 'turn the corner.' But when you're headed down the wrong road, and you can finally get off that road and turn the corner, that's huge in my opinion."
The corner the Lakers have turned into is a 9-39 record, which is on pace to break last year's 21-61 mark as the worst in franchise history.
It is true that Los Angeles has a quartet of promising young players in Russell, fellow rookie Larry Nance and second-year players Jordan Clarkson and Julius Randle.
It makes sense for the Lakers to shop everybody to see whether they can land a big name; none of the four young players have shown enough consistency for Los Angeles to believe them to be future All-Stars.
The best thing Buss has done is to stack the odds in the Lakers favor, as they retain a top-three pick in the June draft to give them another young player with which to turn around the franchise.
But that hardly qualifies as turning the corner.
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