The Los Angeles Lakers are 10-20 since beating the Golden State Warriors on Christmas, 4-10 since Anthony Davis requested a trade that drew half their roster into his orbit and 3-8 since LeBron James returned in earnest from injury. They trail the eighth-place San Antonio Spurs by five losses with 18 games left, and their odds of making the playoffs are projected at 2 percent.

In other words, arguably one of the two greatest players in NBA history on inarguably one of the two greatest franchises in league history is in danger of sitting out the spring in his first year with the team, and the resulting discussion is as you’d expect: irrational finger-pointing abound.

LeBron James and Luke Walton both fall on the list of who's to blame for the Lakers' failures. (Getty Images) More

In an attempt to assign some rationale to a scenario that wasn’t all that unpredictable, we’ve come up with the Power Rankings Of Who’s To Blame For The Los Angeles Lakers Collapse.

7. “The Young Guys”

An internet search of “LeBron James” and “young guys” turns up a cache of stories about how vital the superstar considered the development of Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart to the Lakers’ success this season. There was certainly logic behind that claim, but it was also as if he was preemptively laying blame at their feet if this campaign went off the rails.

The moment he arrived on a practice court in Los Angeles, James likened the team’s recent first-round picks to his children, suggesting it would take time to figure out their strengths and weaknesses, and he would even occasionally have to step aside to give them freedom to grow. He openly discussed the perils of striking a balance between deferring and doing too much.

More recently, James on one hand acknowledged how “tough” it was on the “young guys” to hear their names discussed repeatedly in media reports during the Anthony Davis trade request saga, and on another chastised them for falling prey to such “distractions” during a playoff push. He then publicly questioned whether their inexperience was the root cause of their failures.

“How do you know what’s at stake if you’ve never been there?” James asked after a loss to the Davis-less New Orleans Pelicans last month, repeating the question when pressed. “When you’ve never been there or know what it takes to actually shoot for something like that, it’s like you’re afraid to get uncomfortable. So you gotta be comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

A funny thing about that night: Ingram and Kuzma looked comfortable, combining for 45 points. That game ignited a string of five defeats in six attempts, including losses to the tanking Memphis Grizzlies and Phoenix Suns, that sent the Lakers spiraling 4.5 games out of the Western Conference’s final playoff seed. In that stretch, Ingram and Kuzma have combined to average 44.3 points, 12.2 rebounds and 5.8 assists, offering further evidence that they have developed into solid complementary starters on a team headlined by an all-time great.

It is true that Lonzo Ball’s season has been derailed by knee and ankle injuries that sandwiched a disappointing 47-game stint, save for some inspired defense. Likewise, Hart has failed to deliver on preseason promise that pegged him as a stable 3-and-D wing option for James. Still, expectations were always too high for the “young guys,” and the fact that the Lakers have relied on production from half of them is a pretty reasonable outcome for a handful of unprovens.

LeBron James and the @Lakers are running out of time to make a playoff push.



After last night's loss, the Lakers' odds to miss the playoffs jumped to -900 😱 pic.twitter.com/l0IfCYUY5u — Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) March 3, 2019

6. Jeanie Buss

The Lakers owner described her brother Jim as “completely unfit” to run the team’s basketball operations, pushing him out in favor of another unproven team president (Magic Johnson) and general manager (Rob Pelinka). The first three springs of this regime has so far produced the same number of playoff appearances as the final three years of her brother’s reign: zero.