Lakers' Season One-Third Complete

One-third of the Los Angeles Lakers' 2015-16 NBA season is complete, and the Lakers have yet to win two games in a row or even win twice in the same week. Four wins in 27 games helps explain why the Lakers sit at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and are widely considered the worst team in the wild Western Conference.

No matter how bad the Lakers seem, the Philadelphia 76ers at 1-28 on the season unconditionally stand out as the worst team in the NBA—only the Sixers beat the Lakers for their only win. LA cannot even talk trash to the team with 28 losses in 29 games. One-third of the way through the season, the Lakers stand as, at least, the second worst team in the NBA.

But the Lakers have Kobe Bryant.

Per the LA Times, the Lakers own the NBA's best road attendance with an average of 19,223 fans showing up for games where the Lakers share the marquee. The LA Times also reported that ticket sales spiked 85 percent after Bryant announced publicly that 2015-16 would be his last season, with the increase nearly equal both home and away.

Perhaps the easiest test of ticket value is comparing the Lakers and Clippers, as the two teams play in the same arena and in the same city. The Clippers host Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night, and the cheapest ticket in the house is going for $59 on Ticketmaster resale. The Lakers host that same Thunder team on Wednesday at the same arena, and the cheapest seat in the upper 300 section in the corner of the arena goes for $110.

The Lakers' tickets cost nearly twice as much as the Clippers' tickets despite the fact that the Clippers have four times as many wins as the Lakers, and the Lakers generally play some of the worst basketball in the NBA--if not the absolute worst. Most recently, the Lakers lost by 40 points to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Oklahoma City, and Durant and Russell Westbrook had relatively quiet games.

Still, the Lakers have continued to attract interest, play on nationally televised games and even remain relevant on the NBA news beat. While Bryant's last contract is roundly considered an absolutely failure in terms of putting together a contending product on the court, it continues to display value in terms of marketing and selling a basketball team that, frankly, is horribly bad at playing basketball.

Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom for the 2015-16 Lakers.

Julius Randle and D’Angelo Russell continue to ignite sparks of hope and inspiration, as the pair of lottery picks expect to be the Lakers' ticket out of the current sorry state of the franchise. Randle's strength and determination make it easy to see the 21-year-old on an All-Star team in two years' time, provided he finds a jump shot and works on finishing with his right hand. Russell may take longer to establish his place in the league, but the 19-year-old started to show his potential as he earned late game opportunities.

One-third of the way through the season, the Lakers appear headed for a top-three pick, which is vital since falling out of the top three picks for the 2016 NBA Draft would send the Lakers’ first round selection to Philadelphia.

At the current rate, the Lakers are on pace for 12 victories and 70 losses, which would immediately eclipse the franchise’s previous worst season. In 2014-15, the Lakers lost 60 games for the first time in the team’s history.

One-third of the way through the 2015-16 season, finishing with only 61 losses would require a minor miracle and one that the team would be weary of celebrating considering LA would probably lose its draft pick.

At the start of the season, the Lakers did not expect to win the title or come close, but most experts picked the Lakers to improve on an historically poor 2014-15 season. One-third of the way through the 2015-16 season, the Lakers appear destined for far and away the worst season in franchise history, but, at least, the Lakers have no. 24 on the court this time around.