A comprehensive look at the worst 6 years in Lakers' history

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Remember June 2010? It was a great time to be a Los Angeles Lakers fan. Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol & Co. had just won the NBA title for the second straight time. The smell of three-peat was once again in the air.

Then it all came crashing down, as the 2011 lockout gutted most of the team's infrastructure, followed by a trade veto that the greater Los Angeles area will never forget.

Now, the Lakers are mired in an offcourt quagmire involving D'Angelo Russell surreptitiously videotaping Nick Young confessing to infidelities -- just the latest in a long line of stumbles, bumbles and outright egregious mistakes made by this organization in the past five years.

So buckle up, Lakers fans and non-Lakers fans, as we run through a timeline of the Lakers' destruction. Fair warning: It's not going to be pretty.

December 2011: Chris Paul's trade to the Lakers gets rejected by the NBA

It all starts with a blockbuster trade that ultimately never happened. Paul was the best point guard in the league in 2011, and a backcourt of CP3 and Bryant would have struck fear into the hearts of the rest of the league. Instead, David Stern vetoed the deal, which would have sent Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol away from L.A. Both felt betrayed by the move, and the trust and chemistry in the locker room never recovered.

Huh. That last part sounds kind of familiar.

Summer 2012: "Now this is going to be fun"

Except, you know, it wasn't at all fun. Acquiring Dwight Howard and Steve Nash was supposed to restore the Lakers to their former glory. They dealt Andrew Bynum as part of a four-team deal to get Howard, then mortgaged the future by moving two draft picks to nab Nash. 

Both moves failed miserably. Howard crumbled in the L.A. limelight, clashing with coaches and Kobe alike. Nash, meanwhile, played just 67 total games for the Lakers.

November 2012: A coaching triangle tips off the 2012-13 season

Despite all the talent on the Lakers roster, the team went 1-4 to start the 2012-13 season, then fired coach Mike Brown in a Friday news dump. Over the ensuing weekend, the Lakers talked to Phil Jackson about a return to the bench, raising hope that things would turn around and that the Lakers could add another ring to Jackson's jewelry case.

Flash forward to that Sunday night, and Mike D'Antoni was officially named the coach of the Lakers. Co-owner Jeanie Buss called the decision not to go with Jackson "a betrayal," which was kind of odd, since she's the owner of the team. A throwaway remark revealed the divisions within the team and how disjointed the front office really was (and continues to be).

January 2013: D'Antoni struggles, Pau gets benched

The former Suns and Knicks head coach wanted his team to play fast, loose and open, but the personnel was better fitted for a post-oriented approach in Los Angeles. That disconnect came to a head for D'Antoni and the Lakers shortly before the All-Star break, as Gasol was benched for six straight game. That didn't sit well with Gasol, whose complaints to the media caused D'Antoni to share his own exasperations: "Well, you know, 'all for one' didn't last long, did it?" the coach rhetorically asked the media.

Shortly thereafter, Gasol returned to the starting lineup, because consistency and forward thinking hasn't really been a hallmark of this organization since.

February 2013: The Lakers lose their guiding light

If there was one person up to the task of fixing the Lakers, it was Dr. Jerry Buss. Sadly, however, he was hospitalized for much of the last 18 months of his life. The team did what it could to prepare for a transition to ownership under his offspring, but there was no way the Lakers could truly steel themselves for the loss of such a titan.

Dr. Buss passed away on Feb. 18, 2013. His memorial was attended by hundreds of members of the NBA family, past and present. "The NBA has lost a visionary owner whose influence on our league is incalculable and will be felt for decades to come," then-commissioner Stern said at the memorial. "More importantly, we have lost a dear and valued friend."

April 2013: Kobe's Achilles tendon betrays the Black Mamba

By April 2013, it was clear that the combination of Gasol, Bryant, Nash and Howard likely wouldn't be enough to win the title. But any fading hope was snuffed out when Bryant tore the Achilles tendon in his left leg against the Warriors, just days before the start of the playoffs. Bryant, ever the fighter, literally tried to pull the tendon back up on the court, and he managed to knock down two free throws before exiting the floor.

He's never been the same since.

Still, the Lakers were far from doomed before Bryant's injury, even if things weren't going that great. The Achilles injury was a force-multiplier that compounded all of the previous mistakes and set the tone for the team going forward.

July 2013: Dwight Howard flees southern California

Despite giant signs asking him to "STAY", Howard left L.A. in free agency to sign with the Rockets. After his departure, the team cleaned house. Only Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Jordan Hill, Jodie Meeks, Steve Blake, Steve Nash and Robert Sacre remained on the roster after the summer, with the departing players replaced by the likes of Wes Johnson, Kendall Marshall, Ryan Kelly, Chris Kaman, Xavier Henry ...

... and Nick Young. On July 12, 2013, the Lakers signed Swaggy P, setting the wheels in motion for what happened over the past week.

Late 2013: Kobe takes all of the money ... then gets injured again

Has Kobe Bryant been worth every penny (and more) to the Lakers over the years? Sure. Did his last deal, reportedly worth $48.5 million over two seasons, hamstring L.A.? Absolutely. The fact of the matter is the NBA has a salary cap. Other veterans, such as Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki, took discounts in order to help their teams restock with talent. Bryant took a different path.

Which is fine, truly. Get that money, Kobe. But his deal became even more onerous when Bryant fractured a bone in his left knee just five games into his return from his Achilles injury. Bryant was sidelined for the remainder of the 2013-14 season.

Spring-Summer 2014: Hey, it's another coaching search!

The marriage between Mike D'Antoni and the Lakers simply never worked -- so the Lakers and D'Antoni parted ways in May 2014. Naturally, rumors immediately sprang up about the team bringing Phil Jackson back. Again. But the Zen Master went with the Knicks instead, leaving the Lakers grasping at straws. In the mean time, Pau Gasol decided he'd had enough and left for greener pastures with the Chicago Bulls.

Unmoored from their recent past, the Lakers needed to make a splash. Their answer as head coach? After multiple interviews and seemingly looking for any other option, it was this guy:

It's Byron Scott! Hooray!

He's still the coach. But you probably already knew that, as evidenced by all the holes you've punched in your wall while watching Lakers games.

October 2014-January 2015: Julius Randle goes down, followed by Kobe

Kobe Bryant was back for the 2014-15 season, Julius Randle was set to take the floor as a rookie, and things were looking up. Until, that is, Byron Scott started Carlos Boozer over Randle in the Lakers' season opener. Placing veterans over the development of young guys has kind of been Scott's thing ever since.

And even that might have worked out okay, if Randle had taken Boozer's starting job later in the season. But disaster struck almost as soon as Randle checked in for his first NBA game. In the fourth quarter, after playing just 14 minutes, Randle broke the tibia in his right leg. He missed the remainder of the season.

Oh, but that wasn't all. Bryant battled soreness and fatigue for the first couple months of the season, missing games for rest along the way. Then, in January 2015, Bryant tore his right rotator cuff against the New Orleans Pelicans. He lost the remainder of the season and was unable to shoot a basketball until August 2015.

March 2015: Steve Nash retires

Yep. We pretty often (try to) forget that it happened, too, but Nash was a Laker. 

It's arguably the worst move in modern Lakers history. Not only did Nash fail to live up to his expectations, the deal cost the Lakers their 2013 first-round pick, and their 2016 first-rounder is on the line, too, as a top-three protected pick currently owned by the Philadelphia 76ers.

More over, Nash ruffled feathers by not retiring before the final year of his deal, despite clearly being too injured to play. Later, it came out that the team asked him to stay so they could potentially use his expiring deal as a trade chip. At the time, however, it was an awful look that drove Lakers fans nuts.

Spring 2015: Let's play the family feud, Buss style

With the loss of Bryant, the Lakers reached what was at the time the the lowest point in team history. 2014-15 ended up as the worst season ever for the Lakers, and questions about the state of the franchise went all the way to the top of the masthead.

Jeanie Buss told reporters taht her brother Jim had laid out a three-year timeline during which the Lakers would make their way back into playoff contention, no question about it. 

If not, Jim said, he would step down. It's an ultimatum to which Jeanie has repeatedly said she will hold her brother.

June 2015: D'Angelo Russell becomes the future

The upside to such an awful season for the Lakers was the No. 2 overall pick in the 2015 draft. And D'Angelo Russell seemed like a solid choice for Los Angeles. He has the potential to become an elite point guard, and when coach Scott has allowed him to play this season, he's been pretty good.

Unfortunately, Russell and the rest of the Lakers' young players have struggled to get on the same page as their coach, to say the least.

July 2015: LaMarcus Aldridge has no interest in the Lakers

With big names on the market this past summer, the Lakers were aggressive in free agency. But they came up way short, particularly in their pursuit of Aldridge. The former Blazers big man, who eventually signed with the Spurs, has denied reports that Kobe's presence in his first meeting with Los Angeles deterred him from signing with the Lakers. 

The fact remains, however, that Aldridge didn't feel the need to meet with the Lakers a second time. And when the team tried to rebound by making a late play for DeAndre Jordan, that failed, too.

November 2015: Kobe announces his retirement

Enough said, really. And we can't blame Bryant for deciding now was the time. He's beat up. His team is awful. There's no light at the end of the tunnel in sight.

Sounds like a good time to get as far away from the Lakers as possible.

March 2016: The "prank" fiasco

We don't know why D'Angelo Russell did what he did. We don't know what he hoped to accomplish.

All we know is that it's going to be really, really awkward in the Los Angeles locker room for the rest of the season.

And it's all because the NBA wouldn't let the Lakers trade for Chris Paul (plus, of course, the numerous mistakes since then).