Two of the most notable basketball franchises, the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks, have each been an embarrassment for the past four years or so. With the departure of Phil Jackson, timing well with the end of Kobe Bryant’s prime, the golden years of the 2000’s Lakers also departed. Although it ended with a total of 5 championships, this run left the team completely unprepared for the next stage in the franchise. As for the Knickerbockers, well, they never had any golden years in the 2000’s. A decade-and-a-half of poor decision making from the top of the organization down, mixed with underachieving players has left the club’s dedicated fanbase disappointed year after year, minus an exception in 2012-13. Let’s go through the reasons why each ball club has struggled, and their outlooks for the present and future. For die-hards of both teams, this could be hard to read.

To start, it must be noted that the LA Lakers won NBA titles in 2000, 2001, and 2002, largely due to the contributions of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, combined with the genius of Phil Jackson. Obviously there was a notable feud between Kobe and Shaq, so the dynamic duo was broken up in 2004, and the team went into a quick rebuild of sorts. In 2009 and 2010, Kobe Bryant with his new partners in Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum, went on to win NBA titles back-to-back. So, clearly there are relatively recent, great memories of the Laker teams of the 2000’s. However, aging players, unbalanced trades, worthless drafts, instability among executives, and poor--and honestly too many--coaching hires have brought the Lakers to the bottom of the NBA. Now, they do have young players with potential such as Julius Randle, D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson, and a #2 pick coming up in June’s draft, so not everything is so bleak for the future. But, you must also consider the fact that this team actually lost more games this season than they did last season, despite adding Russell and some veteran role players. These poor results ended with the firing of Byron Scott, and hiring of Luke Walton.

The key now is for the Lakers to decide in which direction to go. Should they trade some young valuable players for an All-Star caliber veteran? Should they keep trying to build by way of a young group growing together? Should that answer be yes, they could be in for a long rebuild, putting a longer timetable on becoming truly competitive again for their great fans, who are certainly not used to this magnitude of losing. So, on the negative side, this team is far from making the playoffs in the tough Western Conference, and they had locker room tensions among players this past season, most famously between Nick Young and D’Angelo Russell. It is also hard to tell if any of these young talents can fit well together on the court. But, the positive things are that they have a quality young coach who can grow on the job in Luke Walton (a former Laker player), and they do have young assets who they can choose to keep and develop or cash-in for some proven players, a luxury not so many teams have. LA also has loads of cap space to spend on free agents too, and with the lure of Southern California, they could certainly do some damage on the open market in the next year or two. Talented free agents will be available, but the key is for the Lakers’ brass to decide which players will fit into the team, and then sign them to reasonable contracts. This team has many options for the future. It is key to choose just one path, however, and they need to pursue that path as intelligently and meticulously as possible. With good planning and patience, the ultimate goal of making this storied franchise great once again could likely happen within the next six years, depending on the building route they plan on taking.

Moving on to New York, let me just say that their fans don’t have fond memories of any championship winning team since 1973. They have a team that reached that stage in 1999, almost by way of a miracle, but lost to Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs. So the Knicks organization and their fans are much more desperate for a quality basketball team. There were glory days in the 1990’s with Patrick Ewing as the star player, and Pat Riley as the star coach, but no rings developed from this great duo, much to the dismay of Knicks fans who were around during that era. When owner James Dolan began to get too involved in basketball affairs at MSG, things started to go downhill. This began right after the resignation of a great coach, Jeff van Gundy in December 2001. Not long after, Dolan hired a friend of his, the legendary point guard, Isiah Thomas, to be the President of the team. Thomas didn’t have the qualifications for this, and this showed when the team was atrocious, year-after-year. Eventually, he went further and hired himself to coach, and things became even worse. Finally, in 2008, there was a step in the right direction, as the organization hired the brilliant Donnie Walsh, who immediately fired Thomas. Walsh then cleared the roster of its weak and overpaid players in the Summer of 2010, signing Amar’e Stoudemire, and later, trading for the current star of the team, Carmelo Anthony.

Now, six years later, after much mediocrity (except the 54-win season in 2012-13) and recent failures, the team has just a couple bright spots. The good news is that can change completely within the next few months. They avoided a potentially disastrous decision when they hired Jeff Hornacek to coach instead of Kurt Rambis, which is a start. But still, they simply need more talent on the squad. That is where controversial President of the team, and former coaching legend, Phil Jackson, comes in. Some in the media have claimed that he is doing this job lazily; others, including close friends of his, have claimed he is “in it to win it,” in his words. Regardless, this summer is key for Phil and the Knicks organization as a whole. It is a must for them to gain talent via the draft, free agency, and trades. It remains to be seen if they can do any of this, as the past few times they have had a chance to make an impact in the offseason, they have struck out. But with the up-and-coming star, Kristaps Porzingis, paired with Carmelo Anthony’s massive talents, Jeff Hornacek’s exciting new offense, and the allure of Manhattan’s bright lights, their offseason luck can change, and maybe a contender will finally be upon us this fall.

In summation, it seems that the Lakers are realistically in a slightly better position than the Knicks at the moment, although this can change rather quickly, like many things in the NBA. But clearly, both squads must turn it around, as they are two of the three biggest laughingstocks in the NBA, along with Philadelphia’s 76ers, who at least were purposefully awful in order to get good draft picks. But with the history and markets that LA and New York have, there is no excuse for being this bad. Not only are their respective fan bases hoping for a turnaround, but the NBA league office is no doubt hoping for their biggest markets to pull through. I mean, after all, they haven’t in awhile, right?