The Worldwide Leader in Sports has made its annual NBA Summer Forecast and a dark cloud is cast on Lakerland again.
The question is, does ESPN hold a bias against arguably the NBA's most popular team? The answer is based on whether their forecasts hold water.
In their latest summer forecast, they predicted that the Lakers will finish dead last in 15th place in the West with 25 games which is actually an improvement.
"The 2016-17 season will be the first since 1995-96 without Kobe Bryant in a Lakers uniform. Kobe's retirement might not help ticket sales, but it will give D'Angelo Russell and Brandon Ingram a chance to shine in L.A.'s spotlight. That should allow the Lakers a chance to improve on a franchise-worst 17 wins last season."
The Lakers are also not the worst team overall. That distinction went to both the Philadelphia 76ers and who were projected to win just 20 games each.
Now the big question: Is the Lakers the worst team in the Western Conference?
On their part, Lakers Nation believes the projections were fair. Corey Hansford said, that the "Lakers do have a lot of promising young talent, it is still unproven for the most part."
He added: "It is very rare that a team full of young players leaps into a playoff chase, but moving into the 25-30 win range and being more competitive overall would certainly be a welcome improvement."
The issue is more about the ranking than the win total, which has the teams at the bottom improving-indicating possibly more parity in the league. Which team in the West should finish lower than the Lakers? The consensus is that the Lakers will improve with the coaching change, the rookies and the new signings but the problem is the other teams also made leaps.
The Phoenix Suns are projected only a game ahead of the Lakers with 26 wins. They managed to draft two power forwards in the lottery. Like the Lakers, they failed to make a splash in free agency. The Lakers could exceed them and possibly the 13th ranked Sacramento Kings.
The Kings have a superstar in DeMarcus Cousins but the situation is never stable with him and the recent trade rumors have him involved with different teams. If their situation implodes, the Kings could have a string of losses and fall short of their 30 win projection.
Does ESPN hate the Lakers? The projection doesn't sound good but it's not far from reality. If everything goes right, the Lakers will still not make the playoffs and the range of 10th to 15th seems accurate.