The Los Angeles Lakers currently have 27 wins. There have been worse teams in purple in gold in the past. Just in the last eight years, the franchise has had four teams with 27 wins or less for the season. But this current iteration seems to be emanating a different kind of stink.

Admittedly, the season is far from over. The Lakers could hold onto the 9th seed for the play-in tournament and sneak into the postseason by the skin of their teeth. Anthony Davis could return from injury and Russell Westbrook could somehow find his footing this late into the season for a miraculous turnaround. But barring those things happening, things are looking dire in LA.

This won't be the worst Lakers season from a winning standpoint, but it could very well be the most depressing for the LA faithful for several reasons.

Here are three of the biggest reasons why this season is slowly shaping up to be a contender for the worst season in franchise history.

This is LeBron's team in Lakers colors

LeBron James' arrival in purple and gold resulted in a 2020 championship, raising the franchise's 17th banner in their storied history. At the end of the day, that's the end game every team in the league chases and could be enough to justify all the misfortune that's followed since then.

However, it's hard to ignore the Lakers' precipitous fall at present especially after reaching the NBA mountaintop. LA has done everything in its power to appease King James in his quest for more rings. They acquired Anthony Davis in 2019 then Russell Westbrook in 2021, shipping away all of LA's homegrown talent in the process. But going for broke with the LeBron method doesn't always end up well for the team when he inevitably leaves.

It's almost always easier to root for a team built from the ground up through internal development. With a roster that feels specifically crafted by LeBron James, in some ways the team feels quite synthetic. It's not as glaring when the team is winning, but with Anthony Davis injured and Russell Westbrook struggling while several former Lakers continue to thrive elsewhere, it's hard not to notice the team turning into a hodgepodge of over-the-hill veterans with an injury-prone AD surrounding a passive-aggressive LeBron James whose future in LA seems much more precarious than anyone would have ever imagined.

The Lakers have had some down years in the recent past. There were a couple of slow seasons following the Lakers' most recent two-peat, but those teams still had Kobe Bryant on the roster to negate any negativity.  Even the 26-win Lakers team following Kobe's retirement was full of youngsters who were still raw but showed promise.

A franchise that's found success decade after decade doesn't have many low points – and hard to imagine another that tops this one.

Russell Westbrook failing to live up to hype

Amidst a season filled with misfortune and turmoil for the Lakers, the biggest is undoubtedly the failed Russell Westbrook experiment. LA already had a relatively dry war chest of assets remaining. In swinging a move for the former MVP, they sent away the last member of their original youth movement in Kyle Kuzma as well as the veteran depth provided by Montrezl Harrell and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who unlike some current Lakers are clearly still in their primes.

But acquiring a third star in Russell Westbrook seemed worth it. With both Anthony Davis and more recently LeBron James becoming injury-prone, Westbrook was expected to take a ton of pressure off of the Lakers stars' shoulders. Instead, it's been the opposite as the team has tried hard to integrate Russell Westbrook and help him flex his proverbial muscles, which has become detrimental to overall team performance.

Things would be different if this was a team built to lose or in the midst of a rebuild. Instead, the Lakers were seen as a potential title contender after making their big swing for Westbrook. While not everyone was optimistic that the season would result in a Larry O'Brien trophy, few could've conceived it to turn out this way. With such sky-high expectations to start the season, for everything to go up in smoke makes the disappointment feel that much more palpable.

The Lakers' bleak future

Things look bad now, but the worst part is yet to come. The Lakers went all-in for another title while sacrificing all of their trade assets, both in player and draft pick form. Normally that's fine. In giving up all your trade powder, that means you acquired a big-time star or two.

But Russell Westbrook is currently untradeable and would need sweeteners to send him and his nearly $50 million annual salary away. Anthony Davis is far too injury-prone to fetch a return worth anything close to his peak form, if the Lakers want to trade him at all.

LeBron James could very well force his way out of LA, maybe not this offseason but very possibly the next. The saving grace would be if they somehow manage to do the unthinkable and trade LeBron James away, and what they can get in return still seems like it would be less than one would think for the current face of the league.

With the roster filled with single-season mercenaries hunting for a title that's more than likely not coming, there's not much to look forward to in a post-LeBron landscape. The light at the end of the tunnel this season may be all but faded already. The ones to follow don't look too much brighter, either.