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It’s simple to take satisfaction from a superteam falling quick. It’s a reminder that expertise alone isn’t at all times sufficient, and that different components like match, chemistry and smarts nonetheless matter.
Listed below are among the groups that learnt that the laborious means.
LA LAKERS (2012-13)
The Lakers had their fanbase salivating once they added Steve Nash and Dwight Howard to their current core of Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol.
However Nash and Gasol couldn’t keep on the ground constantly, after which Bryant missed the playoffs, the place the Lakers had been swept by the Spurs within the first spherical.
Howard and Bryant by no means noticed eye to eye and the teaching upheaval didn’t assist both, with Mike Brown fired simply 5 video games into the season.
The next 12 months, Howard took much less cash to hitch the Rockets and Nash managed simply 15 video games earlier than retiring. Kobe, in the meantime, by no means made it again to the playoffs.
BROOKLYN NETS (2020-21 and 2021-22)
Brooklyn went all-in once they added James Harden to a staff that already featured Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, however these three guys solely ever performed 16 of a doable 113 video games collectively.
They received 13 of these 16 video games, however Harden wished out earlier than he’d even spent a full season with Durant and Irving, and identical to that, the entire experiment was over earlier than it began.
LA LAKERS (2021-22)
With Russell Westbrook, Dwight Howard and Carmelo Anthony heading to LA suddenly final season, the Lakers would’ve had some of the gifted groups of all-time if everybody was 10 years youthful.
Not solely was the roster extremely previous, the items didn’t match, and barely anybody might shoot or defend at a excessive stage. The tip consequence was the Lakers lacking the playoffs totally.
GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS (2015-16)
After breaking the Chicago Bulls’ supposedly unbreakable document of 72 wins, something lower than a championship was at all times going to be an enormous disappointment for the 2016 Warriors. Blowing a 3-1 lead within the Finals solely made issues worse.
PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS (1999-00)
This Blazers staff was completely stacked, with a roster that includes Rasheed Wallace, Scottie Pippen, Arvydas Sabonas, Steve Smith and Damon Stoudamire. In addition they had Detlef Schrempf in his twilight, in addition to a younger Jermaine O’Neal and Bonzi Wells.
A authentic superteam earlier than the age of superteams, Portland completed the season with the second-best document within the NBA at 59-23.
However the disappointment kicked in once they let the Lakers erase a 15-point fourth quarter deficit in Recreation 7 of the Western Convention Finals. It was the evening of the well-known Kobe-to-Shaq lob, and after that well-known second, Portland was by no means the identical.
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