The Lakers lost to the fun and exciting Phoenix Suns last night, 112-106, in Los Angeles. They're now 0-5 for the first time since 1957, when they were the Minneapolis Lakers and Kobe Bryant was only like 15 years old.


Hey, speaking of Kobe, he took 37 shots—almost half the Lakers' 88 field goal attempts—last night. That's a lotta fuggin' shots! He also missed 23 of them. That is also a lot. Here's a graphic showing all of his shots.


This shot chart looks like the fucking St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Julius Caesar's toga didn't have this many red spots on it.

Even if it's true that having their ancient mummy of a shooting guard take a ton of shots probably gives the Lakers just as good a chance (which is to say, no chance) of winning a basketball game as attempting to distribute those shots more evenly among all their other bad players, this is still pretty remarkable. His shooting percentage is inversely proportional to his proximity to the rim! I guess when you're older than Larry King and half as athletic, that's how it goes.

Kobe's festival of chucks skewed things a little bit—he took seven threes, as many as all his teammates combined—and for the first time this season, the Lakers did not attempt more long twos than threes and dunks/layups combined. Bummer. That particular brand of bad basketball was becoming their signature move.


Since we can't make fun of them for that, let's laugh at Carlos Boozer instead.

Below is a highlight reel from last night's game. I'd like to call your attention to Carlos Boozer in this video. Specifically, I'd like you to watch him during the Suns' highlights, most of which happen because he sucks. Even more specifically, I'd like you to think about the Lakers' NBA-worst 117.4 DefRtg (points allowed per 100 possessions), while you watch Carlos Boozer do whatever the damn hell he is doing at the defensive end.

First he kinda just goes to sleep and lets Markieff Morris walk to the restricted area for a catch-and-dunk at 0:06. Then, at 0:35, he gets caught trying to figure out what his favorite color is, while Markieff jogs past him in a pick-and-roll for another catch-and-dunk. Then, at 0:53, he gets scored over in transition by little-ass Isaiah Thomas because he's too braindead to stop the ball in transition and too soft to consider genuinely contesting the shot. At 2:20, Kobe funnels Marcus Morris to the baseline, where he expects Boozer to rotate over and protect the rim; Boozer, for his part, is all, "Nah," and Morris gets an easy layup. At 2:28, he comes out too high on Anthony Tolliver, doesn't recognize the back screen until too late, and then just kinda stands there while Green flies by him for an alley-oop. At 3:07, Isaiah Thomas drives straight at him; Boozer just kinda waves his arms like he's signaling to a rescue chopper, then thoughtfully steps aside. At 3:48, he loses track of one of the Morris twins again and gives up a wide-open three. And so on. (It's OK if you stopped watching by that point; you've already seen more than Carlos Boozer did.)


It's been a long time since Boozer wasn't a horrendous defensive player; even the past couple of seasons on Tom Thibodeau's defense-minded Bulls, he usually couldn't be bothered to muster more than an occasional Effort Face at that end. He doesn't even bother with the Effort Face anymore. He is the :expressionless: emoji at the defensive end, now, both facially and in the sense that neither he nor the :expressionless: emoji moves, at all, ever. The Lakers could scarcely do worse at the defensive end if they replaced him with a mop bucket with "CARLOS BOOZER" written on it. Depending on the circumference of the bucket, it might at least record a couple of steals if opposing players dribbled the ball into it.

Carlos Boozer's individual DefRtg is 124.4, fourth-worst among all starters in basketball. The third- and second-worst belong, respectively, to Kobe Bryant and Jeremy Lin.


The Lakers are the goddamn best.

Top photo via Getty; shot charts via NBA.com; video via YouTube