NBA Season Predictions, Standings 2013-2014: With just a few days after the first half of the NBA regular season, the Los Angeles Lakers continue to struggle throughout the season even when Kobe was around in the short six games that he played. The Lakers have been in a very tough season having injuries from key players leaving them helpless.

In Yahoo Sports' Power Rankings, the Lakers dropped four places down in just a week from 23 down to 27 mainly because of an 18-35 record in the first half of the season.

In a few games, shooting guards and even small forwards were playing as point guards and one by one, players like Kobe Bryant, Steve Blake, Jordan Farmar, Steve Nash, Nick Young and Pau Gasol were sidelined with injuries or health reasons crashing their record from above .500 percent down to one of the worst teams in the league.

Earlier in the season, all fingers point to the coaching staff, blaming them for the bad record. It proved to be wrong as injuries were the main reason that brought the team down to one of the franchise's worst records in the Kobe era.

Laker fans are known to be loyal and proud of their franchise seeing numerous championship titles under their belt and failing may not be an option for them.

One reason why people blamed the coaching staff earlier this year when head coach Mike D'Antoni commented that raised eyebrows in the LA community where he said:

"Why would I be discouraged? We're fighting with a bunch of good guys that played well before and they'll play [well] again. If [the fans] are discouraged, then, you know, find another team to root for. I'm all right. We're not going to give up. Are you kidding me? Discouraged? That's not even fair to these guys.

"[Missing] the playmaking is a big deal, there's no doubt about it. But again, we're going to be fine. I don't want to keep harping. I know we have excuses. We're not going to hang our heads and we're going to go out and we're going to battle Wednesday [against the Miami Heat on Christmas Day] and we'll get this done."

Since then, fans have been screaming to fire the head coach blaming him of the letdown the Lakers have brought to their home town throughout the season.

In his defense, he made an apology at once in LA Times saying:

"I was an idiot last night. I was out of my mind. I was ticked off. We didn't play well and said some stuff I shouldn't have. It was stupid. That's me, I just made a mistake."

"We need everybody to be pulling with us and it's going to take the whole village to get this done. That was the meaning. I just said it wrong and it came out wrong because I was agitated. But I apologize, and we'll move on. But we need everybody to be behind these guys. They're going to play as hard as they can play."

With a healthy lineup including a 100% Kobe Bryant, can the Lakers get their team back to the glory land?