Who is most to blame for this Lakers season?

The Los Angeles Lakers are in the midst of an incredibly frustrating season that has now introduced blame leaking into the mix. We are not yet even out of January. Usually, the kinds of cover-your-ass media management tactics we’ve seen this week are for the offseason after a tough campaign, but here we are.

So after successfully halting any and all conversation about Russell Westbrook online a few weeks ago, Harrison Faigen used this week’s episode of “The Lakers Lounge” to turn our attention to the Lakers on a macro level, and ensure no one need spend any more energy trying to figure out what went wrong.

We did it. You’re welcome, everyone.

We did so by listing the contributing factors to this current situation — a power ranking, of sorts. In order to give ourselves space to make cases for wherever we ranked the various members of the Lakers organization, we decided on three main entities each, plus a couple honorable mentions apiece.

What we found in this exercise, interestingly enough, is that Russell Westbrook really didn’t come in that high for either of us. Could he play better? Absolutely. Is his contract crippling from a cap management standpoint? Indisputably. But the Lakers knew that when they were trading for him. And so while we think not holding him accountable for the way he plays is too far in the other direction, Harrison and I both agreed that the people who acquired him in the first place and whoever empowered those responsible to do so deserve the lion’s share of the blame.

Well, those people and, well, I’m not going to give away Harrison’s top pick here. But it’s a doozie.

We wrap up an honestly fun episode with Harrison’s latest conspiracy and, once again, you are not going to believe where he winds up.

You can listen to the full episode below, and to make sure you never miss a show, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts.

And for a short-form recap pod, check out Lakers Lowdown, in which Anthony Irwin recaps the previous day’s news and gets you ready for the day ahead in LakerLand, every weekday morning on the Silver Screen & Roll Podcast feed.