After sorry exhibition it’s OK to ask: Are Lakers tired, or terrible?

Tired legs. Injuries. A historically poor effort in a game.

This isn’t the way the Lakers wanted to start exhibition play, but it’s as real as the championship trophies in a southeast window ledge overlooking their practice court.

Great franchises aren’t always good, and the Lakers are teetering, based on, pick any or all, their medical reports, rapidly increasing age, two exhibition blowouts, eye-popping lack of athleticism and/or misfiring rookies.

With Steve Nash asking out of Sunday’s game, the attention only intensified on what the team planned to do with him over the next six months. He will sit out about one-fourth of their 82 games throughout the regular season, approximately one a week, to help manage chronic nerve damage in his back, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Nash, 40, played only 15 games last season and could not finish the Lakers’ 116-75 loss to Golden State on Sunday, their second-biggest preseason defeat since they started tracking exhibition scores and stats in 1982.

“He just didn’t feel himself. He didn’t say what it was particularly,” Lakers Coach Byron Scott said Monday. “Being that he’s been in this league for that long, and he understands his body a whole better than I do, I take that for what it’s worth and sit him down the rest of the game.”

Nash did not talk to reporters after Sunday’s game or Monday.

After the remarkably one-sided exhibition, Kobe Bryant said the team was short on its shots and heavy in its legs because of the tough practices conducted by Scott in his first training camp with the Lakers. Bryant said things would improve when practices started “tapering down” soon.

Scott smiled and nodded when asked about it Monday.

“The one thing that I wanted to do against Golden State that last game, we had a good, hard practice that morning and then we had to play against a very good basketball team. So mentally it’s a challenge. And also physically it was a challenge,” Scott said.

“I think the guys are starting to understand that about a week from here, they’ll start feeling so much better about their legs and they’ll be in so much better shape. Even though it sounds sometimes a little madness, running them the way we run them, but it’s all for the betterment of the team and for the end of the season where they’ll still be fresh.”

Bryant seemed fine Monday and gave a brief comment, saying, “He gave us a chill day” while walking out of the training facility with a laptop in his hands and headphones around his neck.

The Lakers didn’t look fresh or chill against Golden State, outscored at the three-point line, 39-0, and somehow surrendering two four-point plays in the first quarter.

Neither Nash nor Bryant practiced Monday. Same for point guards Jeremy Lin (sprained ankle) and Jordan Clarkson (strained calf). With Nash’s status unknown for Thursday’s exhibition, Clarkson definitely out and Lin only a 50-50 shot, fourth-stringer Ronnie Price might start against Utah.

It would be more appealing to see Clarkson, a second-round draft pick, but he’s not physically ready to return and made only five of 20 shots in the first two exhibitions.

And the Lakers continued to tamp down expectations on their other rookie, power forward Julius Randle, the seventh overall pick.

“I thought his two games against Golden State, he just looks lost,” Scott said. “So he’s got to get to the point where he understands the offense a lot better, is not chasing the ball, and defensively he’s got to use that size and that quickness and that’s something that he hasn’t done yet.

“He’s still learning and he’s got two weeks to kind of catch up on all those things because I at least want to be able to trust him when I put him in the game.”

Randle is shooting 39.3% and averaging 8.7 points in three exhibition games. The Lakers’ season opener is Oct. 28 against Houston.

At the very least, there’s always comic relief from Nick Young, who said with a cast on his right hand, “It’s too early to panic. It’s only preseason.”

He then proclaimed he would take eight three-point shots a game, and make five of them, when he was ready to return from a torn thumb ligament next month.

“So you’ve got to calculate that into the game too,” he said.

Etc.

Ed Davis will get the chance to impress Scott with extended playing time against Utah. “He’s the guy that’s done the best job at protecting the rim for us,” Scott said. A free-agent pickup, Davis has limited skills on offense but could edge out Robert Sacre and become the backup center to Jordan Hill. . . . Ryan Kelly (strained hamstring) practiced Monday but was not expected to play Thursday. Xavier Henry (back spasms) also won’t play against Utah.

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

Twitter: @Mike_Bresnahan