The arrival of LeBron James as their latest in a succession of superstar imports was supposed to halt the longest period of suffering in the Los Angeles Lakers’ California history.

What James and the Lakers have experienced instead will be remembered as the most disappointing season of James’s career — because it will extend a stubborn playoff drought that has flummoxed the N.B.A.’s most glamorous franchise.

Not even James’s presence could prevent a sixth straight missed postseason for the new Lakers, who are mere days from being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs entering Sunday’s visit to Madison Square Garden to face the Knicks. The Lakers, remember, missed the playoffs only four times in their first 53 seasons after relocating from Minneapolis in the 1960-61 season.

So much for Hollywood fairy tales.

Perhaps expectations for this team were unrealistically high, given the modest quality of James’s supporting cast in Year 1, but his Lakerland debut was never supposed to veer this far off-script for a once-in-a-generation player. What follows is a breakdown of how things fell apart — in six stages.