Lou Williams implies not all of the young Lakers ‘compete as hard as they can’

Basically since the moment the Los Angeles Lakers were no longer a .500 team and started losing games at a rate that has left them almost at the bottom of the NBA standings, theories on the reason’s behind their drop-off have flown wildly across social media.

For a certain subset of fans, the fall-off has been taken as certain evidence that the team’s young core is either a) full of busts b) doesn’t know what it means to be a Lakers or c) doesn’t work hard enough.

Lou Williams appeared to lend some credence to the last theory when he spoke to the media following the Houston Rockets’ 139-100 blowout victory against his former team.

"Some of those young guys are really genuine guys who are going out there and compete as hard as they can," Williams said (as tweeted by Mark Medina of the O.C. Register), and while it’s face that would seem like a compliment, his use of the word “some” here implies criticism by omission.

Some will dismiss this comment as a throwaway line, or just ignore it since it’s not what they want to hear, but as a former teammate, Williams ostensibly would have intimate knowledge of the Lakers’ locker room and thus his words shouldn’t be totally tossed out.

Which young players is Williams talking about? He didn’t say, so people are left to speculate which ones or if he meant that at all. The player the Lakers acquired in the Williams trade, Corey Brewer, didn’t quite that strong of a stance, but it sounds like he is trying to make sure all of the younger guys can be described as hard workers:

The Lakers have 14 games to show that their roster is full of hard workers, and it will be interesting to see which guys take advantage of their opportunities, and which ones simply ride out the losses until the end of the season.