The Best Possible World

So the recent stuff going on with the Lakers has brought out the pessimistic view from a lot of fans...

• What if Russell becomes a super star for Brooklyn?
• What if PG wins a ring in Cleveland and decides to stay?
• What if the Celtics trade for PG with him agreeing to an extension as part of the deal?
• What if the Lakers cave and trade away Ingram or Ball to get PG?
• What if Lonzo Ball isn't as good as Russell?
• What if Ingram would have been enough to get Paul George and he turns out to be a bust?
• What if the Lakers use that cap space next summer to sign another Mozgov-like deal?

These are all genuine concerns. I can't deny that any one (or even several) of them are possibilities. But as an exercise, I decided to come up with the most optimistic scenario I could come up with (trying not to be TOO optimistic... no Bryant becomes Shaq 2 and leads the Lakers to a title this year or anything, but very best possible within the realm of possibility). Here's about the best I could come up with:

1. Indiana, to spite the Lakers, does a 3 way deal with Cleveland and gets back some players from a 3rd team. Paul George joins LeBron and Kyrie in the Fellowship of the Ring. They belong their long journey to Mordor (wait, no... I mean Golden State)
   
2. Boston greedily hoards all of their assets (Danny Ainge: my precious picks, my precious)
3. The Lakers sign only short term contracts to keep their cap space available, and also make a trade with Houston where they give up a future 2nd round pick to get Lou Williams back.
   
4. Ingram turns it around in his second year and shows WHY the Lakers kept him off the table. His 3-point shot returns and he adds strength and improves on defense. Because of the large Laker fan base, Ingram gets a stupid high number of votes for the All-Star game - he doesn't make it, but gets more votes than several more deserving players.
   
5. The switch from Mozgov to Lopez means the Lakers half-court offense becomes more potent. They have a legit post player who is also good in the pick and roll, and a slightly better defender than Mozgov as well. Rabid Laker fans desperate for an All-Star vote Brook Lopez into the All-Star game (infuriating fans from Golden State, San Antonio, Minnesota, and New Orleans at least).
   
6. Lonzo Ball steps in and is very good for a rookie. He shows that his pick-and-roll offense (which wasn't really part of the Bruins offense) is just fine, working well with any of Lopez, Randle, or Ingram. But the bigger contribution is a resurrection of Showtime offense, with the Lakers fast breaking at a high rate. Lonzo wins the MVP of the rookie-sophmore game on All-Star weekend and also gets to compete in the Skills competition. Lavar Ball says Lonzo will be MVP of the league the next season and while everyone shoots it down as hyperbole, most people admit it's a possibility that Lonzo could one day be an MVP.
   
7. Clarkson, having worked hard on it over the summer, improves his 3-point shooting to near 40%. That combined with his speed filling the wing on the Showtime II fast break with Lonzo Ball means that Clarkson has advanced to be a legitimate NBA starter. Everyone says Kevin Pritchard was an idiot for not accepting Clarkson in a trade for Paul George
8. At the start of the year, the bench squad including Williams, Hart, Nance, Black, Nwaba, and Zubac shines. Kuzma and Bryant play mostly with the D-League team because of depth at their position. Once again, people praise the Lakers for finding good value draftees.
9. Randle's improvement in strength means his defense moves up a big notch. He's good enough that Lakers fans are distraught when he's traded to Philadelphia at the trade deadline to dump off Luol Deng's contract. The Lakers get back Philly's lottery protected 2018 pick, putting them back in the draft while simultaneously freeing up enough cap space to sign two max free agents.
   
10. After the Randle/Deng trade, Larry Nance Jr steps into the starting lineup and shines. With Lonzo, Clarkson, Ingram, and Lopez all pretty good scorers, they don't really need any scoring out of him, so he plays more of the Kurt Rambis role, hustling back on defense to stop fast breaks and playing solid defense, but he still electrifies the crowd with monster jams from Lonzo alley oops pretty regularly. Fans push for Nance to be in the dunk contest, but remembering the Shannon Brown debacle of a few years ago, the NBA decides to go with more well known players.
    
11. With two PF's traded off to Philly, Kuzma gets called up to the bigs and gets a few minutes here and there at backup PF to get his feet wet.
12. Zubac really shines as Lopez' backup. There is some more adjustment to the NBA game, but he continues to improve his offense and makes the Zublocka nickname as popular as The Machine was a few years back. People make funny internet memes of Zublocka.
13. The Lakers stay in the hunt for a playoff spot until the last week of the season, and narrowly edge out Minnesota for the 8 seed. They get swept by Golden State, but a player-animosity builds between Larry Nance and Draymond Green. Also, Zublocka gets a 1 game suspension for going after Draymond after Draymond clothselines Ingram.
14. Russell excels for Brooklyn and they actually come close to making the playoffs, but fall just short, being beat out by Philly in the last week of the season.
15. With the other Philly young players, Randle becomes enough to elevate them to an 8 seed in the big East. They actually manage to win 2 games against Cleveland in the first round and everyone says Kevin Pritchard was an idiot for not accepting Randle in a trade for Paul George.
16. Despite heroics by Isaiah Thomas, the Celtics still can't make it past the Cavs in the East. Everyone says Danny Ainge is an idiot for not giving up the farm for Porzingas or Paul George when he had the chance.
    
17. Cleveland loses to Golden State in the finals. Draymond Green says that God could send a team of angels down and they couldn't beat the Warriors, making him the only person in the world more braggadocio than LaVar Ball.
    
18. Summer of 2018 Paul George tells LeBron it was nice, but decides the Lakers promising young team (with most of them still on board) would be better. Lakers sign Paul George and Boogie Cousins to near max contracts
19. Also in the Summer of 2018, Danny Ainge's precious 1st rounders that he wouldn't give up for anything become one late lottery pick (from Brooklyn) and 1 pick deferred to 2019 (because the Lakers made the playoffs).
20. Wade and Melo get big buyouts and join LeBron on the Cavs.
21. The Lakers big 4 of Ingram, Ball, George and Boogie surprises everyone and upsets a healthy Warriors team to make it to the finals in 2019, before knocking off the Banana Boat Cavaliers in the finals.
22. The Lakers and Warriors duke it out with each other for the top of the Western Conference for the next several years (as the Spurs and Lakers used to). And Philadelphia becomes their most regular opponent in the East as the aging Cavs fade into the Sunset and Ainge's precious picks become non-lottery picks and get him only so so players.
    
23. Indiana, because they refused to deal with the Lakers gets players who are not as good as Randle or Clarkson, or eventually Kuzma or Hart either.

And they all lived happily ever after... as long as they were Laker fans.