Podcast: Are the Lakers really struggling?

The Los Angeles Lakers have won five games in a row, and eight of their last 10. They are half a game back of the best record in the NBA. So why has the discussion around them — on this site included — been so negative at times lately?

On the latest episode of “Lakers, Explained” — a podcast by Silver Screen and Roll — co-hosts Harrison Faigen and Anthony Irwin debated that question. Harrison says he understands why people are upset with the way the team has looked the last few games, but also tried to, well... explain... why he doesn’t feel quite as annoyed with their level of play as some others.

In response, Anthony made the opposite case: That there are things this team needs to learn about itself before the playoffs, and that they can’t do that if they aren’t putting forth effort with any consistency, in addition to all the other, bigger-picture reasons why he’s offended at their effort (or lack thereof) of late.

Then, Harrison admits that if the team is going to credit the way it approached every regular season game — in stark contrast to some other contenders — for helping them build the habits necessary to have success on their title run last year, we can’t just ignore that they aren’t doing so this year, even if there is deeper context to all of it and it isn’t worth sounding the alarms about their play just yet.

Finally, the guys wrapped up the show by having “The MVP Conversation.”

You can listen to the entire show in the podcast player embedded below, and to make sure you don’t miss a single episode moving forward, make sure you subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts.

You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen, and Anthony at @AnthonyIrwinLA.