Despite a promising start to the 2016-17 season, the Los Angeles Lakers find themselves near the bottom of ESPN's Basketball Power Index, currently 28th overall.
This was not really supposed to be the comeback season for a team that has ceded local basketball superiority to their co-tenant at the Staples Center, the Los Angeles Clippers -- at least for now. The Lakers are stocked with young, highly drafted players, and this season was supposed to be about developing this young core to find out if they could be the future of an organization that yearns to be back on top.