Anthony Davis suggests Lakers need change in mentality and he might be onto something

The Los Angeles Lakers’ loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Thursday is something that should never happen.

A team with no less than five future Hall of Famers, maybe more, should never lose by 13 points to the second-youngest team in the NBA playing without its two leading scorers. But with Ja Morant and Dillon Brooks out, the Grizzlies became just the latest underdog to knock off what was supposed to be a title-contending Lakers team.

Instead, the Lakers are 13-13 and in sixth place in the Western Conference. They still hold the second-shortest odds on Tipico Sportsbook to win the West and fourth-shortest to come away with an NBA title this season, but they entered the year with only the Brooklyn Nets ahead of them.

The additions of Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard, among others, to a team with LeBron James and Anthony Davis are what created the hype, but the same things that made them a title favorite are part of what’s holding them back in the regular season. 

This team is old – the oldest in the NBA – and currently lacking the proper mentality to scrap for wins each night against younger teams with more to prove. Davis intimated as much following Thursday’s loss.

He’s wrong about them being the underdogs a lot; they were actually favored in each of their last three games, losing two of them. A change in mentality wouldn’t cure all of their problems, but there’s something to the thought that it would help if they played as if they were underdogs themselves.

The Lakers are just 4-13 against the spread when they’re the favorite to win, according to TeamRankings.com, the second-worst record in the NBA. But they’re 5-4 against the spread as underdogs. These records suggest the Lakers underperform in moments when they’re most expected to win – games like Thursday night.

“I think when their star players are out, we have to lock in even more because these guys have no conscience,” Davis said. “They want to come in and beat the Lakers, beat LeBron, beat AD, beat whoever, beat Melo. Like, they want to say, ‘I gave the Lakers 30, 25, whatever.'”

That kind of motivation doesn’t exist for the Lakers.

It can’t for some of the greatest players of all-time. So they’ll have to conjure up other ways to get up for seemingly lesser opponents. Age remains a factor, as the Lakers are the slowest team in the NBA – there’s nothing they can do about that – but they’re also bottom four in hustle stats like contested shots and loose balls recovered. Unlike age, these are things they can control and maybe a change in mentality would help.