Given the way that the NBA playoffs turned out for the LA Lakers, it is easy to wonder whether we all missed the warning signs during the regular season. Sure, there were bad patches where the team looked disinterested or were punished for overconfidence - but heading into the post-season, the Lakers were still the trendy pick to represent the Western Conference in the Finals.
A chance to watch a Real NBA documentary on the Lakers provided an opportunity to look again for red flags - and there was still nothing beyond the typical ups and downs of an 82-game season. Kobe Bryant looked focused - despite battling injury - Andrew Bynum was healthy and Lamar Odom was playing the best basketball of his career. The Lakers were trailing the San Antonio Spurs in the standings but were on course for a 60-win year.
All the comments coming out of the locker room suggested that they were zoned in on chasing a third straight title, allowing head coach Phil Jackson to walk away with another three-peat. There were no indications that rumoured chemistry issues would later surface.
Then came the playoffs. Chris Paul's New Orleans Hornets gave the first clue that the Lakers were vulnerable, pushing Bryant and company much harder than many expected. And then the Dallas Mavericks confirmed the suspicions in style, sweeping LA in four games. By the end of that series, the Lakers were a shambles and Jackson was very open about how happy he was that the season was over.
There are still question marks over just what went wrong. Did Jackson lose the support of the locker room? Were there injury problems that went unannounced? Were there issues between the players? Perhaps we'll never know.
It just goes to show that however rosy the regular season appears, the playoffs are a different animal. There is no guarantee that it will be plain-sailing when the pressure mounts and everything is on the line, even for a group of players that have been in those clutch moments before countless times.
When the new season starts - and there could be a lengthy wait for that - new head coach Mike Brown will have the tricky task of guiding an aging Lakers team back to the NBA Finals. Only then will we see whether the 2011 collapse was a mere blip or the beginning of the end for the current group.
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