Los Angeles Lakers are one of the biggest and most famous franchises in NBA with very successful history loaded with superstars. Pairing their succes with Hollywood lights and a huge passionate fanbase, you get the perfect basketball story.
However, in the past years Lakers were facing some rough times and were drowning deep in the ocean of result despair, often at the very bottom of the standings.
This year, there are some new kids on the block making the effort to bring the franchise back where it belongs.
What went wrong?
Since the late great dr. Jerry Buss passed away in 2013, the franchise went downhill. He was the best owner in all of American team sports history, and it was impossible to fill his shoes. Although no one expected anyone to be at his level, his son Jim Buss, who ran the organization up until last year did really awful job.
Going into 2012/2013 season, expectations were hughe as Lakers aquired Dwight Howard in a mega multi team trade and Steve Nash through a sign and trade. Together with Kobe who was in a back end of his career and Pau Gasol, this supposed to be a garanteed success. The man who was hired to run the team was Mike D'Antoni. That season turned out to be a complete disaster and the start of the Lakers struggles. Lakers finished the regular season 7th in the Western conference and got swept by San Antonio Spurs in the first playoff round.
In the following seasons Lakers were awful. They were fortunate to keep their first round picks because they traded most of them in that Howard deal, but pick protections turend out to keep the picks in LA.
To put insult to injury, in the offseason of 2016 Jim Buss and Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak, made one of the worst descisions in franchise history. They gave Luoul Deng and Timofey Mozgov ridiculously big contracts. Those descisions caused a lot of problems for years to come. The nail in the coffin was that they allegedly had a chance to trade for DeMarcus Counsins last year, but they passed on it.
Better days are comming!
After Jeanie Buss (Jim's sister who is the real owner) found out about how her brother handled the situation, she fired him and Mitch.She then decided to hire Lakers legend Earvin Magic Johnson as the president of basketball operations and former Kobe's agent Rob Pelinka as GM.
Magic and Rob already showed that they are capable of doing the job and that they mean bussiness. They shipped out Mozgov's contract allong side D'Angelo Russell for Brook Lopez and his expiring contract and a late first round pick that eventually turned into Kyle Kuzma.
To be fair, D'Angleo Russell has a lot of potential, and is by all means far from scrub, but he was supposed to be a leader of a young Lakers team and his actions showed differently, so it was worth to trade him to unload Mozgov's contract form salary cap. The most recent deal they made also alligns with upcomig free agency plans. He taded two young role players Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance Jr. They are both decent players and they could fit in any system in the league, but he got two expiring contracts in Isaiah Thomas and Channing Frye. That is a big risk but it is necessary to take the next step.
Magic is already proven to be a great bussinessman as he is very succesfull with his private bussinesses and no doubt he will do the same with Lakers.
His next big challenge is the biggest one so far. The big question is will he be able to land big superstar free agents that are necessary to contend for a championship such as LeBron James, Paul Geroge or someone like that. Lakers have a promissing young players and a lot of money left in the salary cap. Deng's contract is still problematic, but stretching his contract seems to be the best solution to free even more space for impovements.
New kids on the block
To give Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak some credit, they did draft Brandon Ingram who is improving rapidly game in and game out and looking very promising. Also Julius Randle exploded this season and is balling the lights out in the past couple of months. Kyle Kuzma looks like a great wing player already. He stretches the floor, plays OK defense and is the best shooter on the team this season.
Even Josh Hart showed he can be productive off the bench.
The second pick in this year's draft, Lonzo Ball had a lot of hype comming into his rookie year. He recieved a lot of hate from the fans mostly because of his dad, who basicly put a giant target on his back. However, Lonzo is dealing the preassure very well and has shown falshes of pure greatness this season.
Of course, there is still a lot of room for improvement for him. His shooting percentages are not good, even thoogh the shot started to fall in lately. His unorthodox shooting form limits him in pullup jumpers, and his free throws precentage is awful. On the bright side, he is once in a generation passer with outstanding court vision and basketball IQ. He rebounds very well for a poing guard and plays good defense. 10/7/7 is great for a rookie and if Lakers aquire better shooters he might be a legit triple-double threat every night.
Big summer ahead
With this young team and young coach Luke Walton, Lakers are currently sitting 11th in the hard and competitive Western conference with 31-38 record, which is already a big improvement compareing to last 4 seasons. There are some big descisions to be made this summer, besides landing big free agents of course.
They definitely need to get shooters as they are 29th this season in 3-pt percentage, and in today's NBA, you won't get far with that.
What to do with Julius Randle who is a free angnt? What to do with Isiaiah Thomas who is looking to get big dollars? Do you keep Brook Lopez and KCP? Do you offer DeMarcus Cousins the max with his very serious injury? Do you go another year with this young squad and turn to 2019 free agent class with Klay and Kawhi?
All those questions will be answered soon, but there is one thing we know for sure. There is a bright future ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers franchise.
It is time for the Lakers to return to the basketball elite. The palce where they always have, and always will belong!