Los Angeles Lakers power forward Anthony Davis Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports

Anthony Davis: Lakers need to play like 'underdogs' to turn around season

Originally posted on Game 7 | By Charles Kruger | Last updated 12/10/21

The Los Angeles Lakers fell in extremely humiliating fashion to the very shorthanded Memphis Grizzlies on Thursday night.

Despite Memphis being without a pair of its most prolific scorers in Ja Morant and Dillon Brooks, the rest of the team’s players had no trouble picking up the slack en route to a 108-95 blowout win.

Given the sheer embarrassment of this particular loss, Lakers star Russell Westbrook was understandably frustrated after the game.

L.A. big man Anthony Davis took a different approach. In his estimation, the Lakers need to do one specific thing to change the team’s fortunes.

Play like underdogs.

“We gotta play like we’re the underdogs,” he said. “Which, now, at this point in the season, the way we’re playing, in a lot of games we probably are. We gotta be able to have that mindset and we gotta come in and be scrappy and be the more physical team and play like we’re the underdogs.”

It’s hard to argue with one portion of Davis’ statement. The Lakers definitely should be perceived as underdogs against any half-competent team at his point. They have done nothing to show themselves to be a legitimate title contender 26 games into the season.

L.A. has been linked rather seriously to a blockbuster trade that would go a long ways in fixing some of this summer’s front office mistakes. Given how the year has gone up to this point, they’d be wise to give it serious consideration.

If things don’t change, and quickly, this group may go down in NBA lore as the most disappointing "super team" of all time.

This article first appeared on Game 7 and was syndicated with permission.

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