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Remember this?
In 2021 Lebron acted as the GM and brought his friends to the team. While the Lakers were trying to get Buddy Hield, who would have been a perfect fit at the time, James commanded that the team take on Westbrook’s massive 44 million dollars per year. This was an obvious bad fit from the beginning. Not to mention the lack of shooting and floor spacing.
But Lebron solved that by getting a 37 year old Carmelo Anthony, and while he was ok shooting the ball, the way he was targeted on defense was laughable.
This experiment ended catastrophically, and the Lakers missed the playoffs.
The solution was to fire Frank Vogel, the guy who led this team to the title, just 2 seasons prior.
And what’s happening in this off season is almost the exact same scenario that could end up in a debacle.
Instead of trying to improve the roster that finished in the play-in, the entire focus for the Lakers has been on drafting Bronny. This was of course fulfilling Lebron’s wish, despite the Lakers hilariously justifying this pick.
And we don’t even need to talk about the reason why JJ Reddick became the coach.
A rookie coach btw on probably the hottest seat in the NBA. All the eyes, the media, the pressure will be on him. And he got thrown in here, just because Lebron liked him.
I mean, there’s no way in hell anyone is believing this…
Meanwhile, the Lakers haven’t done a single thing to address the real issue. Which is the roster itself. A 40 year old James is not leading this team far in the playoffs. They needed firepower but pretty much whiffed out on all the major free agents.
The only hope for now is that they can somehow make a move for Derozan who has been one of Lebron’s preferred options.
Worst of all, even if they get him, the outside shooting and the floor spacing will remain bad.
Last year the Lakers were 28th in three point attempts and 24th in makes.
You are not winning in today’s NBA without a solid three point presence.
Maybe, they believe they solved that with their 17th pick in Dalton Knecht.
Whatever the case may be, to me they are so far among the losers of free agency and I’m wondering who are they going to blame when it all comes crashing down next season.
Speaking of losers, we got a bunch more headlined by the Denver Nuggets.
I mean, what are the owners doing here?! By refusing to pay up when it matters, they have now lost key players in 2 consecutive seasons. And if Bruce Brown’s significant bump in salary was not realistic for them to match, Denver absolutely could have and should have kept KCP a major piece on defense as well as a reliable 3 point shooter. Not to mention the continuity factor that he was a seamless fit for this team.
Thing is, I knew that it was over as soon as heard the GM say this:
They were already decided that they weren’t going to pay KCP his number, so now it’s Christian Braun stepping up?
If the Nuggets are thinking that they can run it back after losing yet another major piece while the Mavs and the Thunder got way better, and Minnesota will only progress with Edwards…
Woow, the Denver front office are lying to themselves.
Not wanting to pay and keep the core together when you have a generational talent like Jokic in his prime leading the team is just sad.
What’s really sad however is witnessing the end of an iconic era.
They are in play for Markkanen but he doesn’t move the needle, this is not going to be a contender. So what are the Warriors doing, and how does Steph Curry feel wasting his final years going pretty much nowhere?
Also, how does Giannis feel? He watched the Knicks and the Sixers get significantly better and meanwhile, Milwaukee did nothing to close the gap with the now champions Boston Celtics who are a real juggernaut, and clearly the best team in the East.
Then, what in the world are the Clippers doing? They watched PG leave for absolutely nothing in return after pretty much giving away a whole truck full of picks and players to the Thunder.
They’re left empty handed all because they didn’t want to give him a 4th year to his contract.
And at the same time signed James Harden to a whopping 35 million dollars per year for the next 2 seasons, when literally nobody would give him that type of money on the market. Crazy.
So now they randomly brought back Nic Batum at almost 36 years of age, and got Kevin Porter Jr who’s been out of the league for a while and a highly controversial character mind you.
Derrick Jones Jr is a good addition but they are definitely going to lack some firepower in the west, especially with Kawhi’s availability always being a factor.
As for PG, he created a trio that the east should be afraid of along with Embiid and Maxey. But the Sixers should be afraid as well, since all of this is predicated on the health of Joel first and foremost and then George himself of course.