The Los Angeles Lakers are 5-12 in road games, going nearly a month since their last victory away from Staples Center. Not a good sign for a team with 24 of its last 43 games (56%) on the road. It’s never easy away from home, of course, but the Lakers haven’t been this bad through 17 road games since 2002-03.

“We’re 5-12 because we’ve played awful,” Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “I don’t think they care where they play. They shouldn’t. They have enough experience among them that they can play in Chicago as well as they can play in Los Angeles. Sometimes it’s even easier to find yourself on the road and come together as a team. There’s no other way to look at it.”

The Lakers begin a three-game trip Sunday in Toronto. They play Chicago on Monday and hit their regular-season midpoint Wednesday in Memphis. They need victories in all three cities, and then another two, to even get to .500.

The next few games are really just a warmup for the mother of all trips — the team’s annual two-week exodus because of the Grammy Awards.

It’ll be seven games in 12 days and it starts Jan. 30 in Phoenix. It continues through Minnesota, Detroit, Brooklyn, Boston, Charlotte, and finally Miami, where the Lakers haven’t won once since 2005.

via Mike Bresnahan of The Los Angeles Times