How should the Lakers prepare for next season?
There has been a lot of speculation surrounding the Lakers this offseason, should they try and trade for a couple of superstars? Should they keep continuing the youth movement? Should they try both?
Its no question that the Lakers finished with a bad record, they did however finish 9 games better than last season. It is arguably up in the air how the Lakers' last games played out, some argue that they only bea thet 5 teams because of tanking/missing key players from the other team and that can be up for speculation until the lottery comes to our television sets on May 16th at 7pm ET.
The real question should be though, is should the Lakers wait it out 1 more year, regardless of the draft, to see if anyone makes that next year jump?
My answer is yes.
My reasoning behind that is I went back and took a look at the old OKC record back when they had finished 20-62 in 2007-2008 and 23-59 in 2008-2009 in their 2009-2010 season they made a huge jump to 50-32. I'm not comparing the rosters of both teams because obviously OKC made the right pick 3 years in a row with Durant, Westbrook, then Harden, but it baffles me by how much people are willing to throw away the keys to a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO just because it's in rough condition. As long as the body is straight, that car can be turned into a diamond, which is my analogy for this team. What if the Lakers are about to make a jump from a 26-56 record to a 38-44 record? It seems possible, at the start of the season they started 10-10, if things would have played out that way the rest of the season, they would have finished with a record of 41-41 to be tied with the 8th seed.
The growth from Ingram has shown and I believe he's ready to take the next step towards stardom. Russell seems to play like a better PG when he's playing SG, he's just better without the ball in his hands. Randle even started to show some improvement with his jump shot. The growth of the Lakers towards the end of the season should be enough to entice the fans to want to see more of what's to come after this offseason. Yet, it's not.
Fans would like to see a superstar this offseason but a trade for a superstar could ultimately strip the Lakers of their youth. Not everyone would pull a Vlade and I feel too many of us fans cloud our minds on what a realistic trade would be like. Vlade only made that trade because Ranadive thinks Buddy is the next Curry, even Vlade himself probably didn't want to do that trade with his famous "I had a better deal 2 days ago" quote. So we have to look at what we would have to give up for someone like Paul George or Jimmy Butler. George would most likely cost us Russell, Ingram, and Nance, Butler is more coveted since he's leading the Bulls against the Celtics right now but a trade for him would cost more than George. Getting a Superstar doesn't automatically mean you're in contention, in order to compete right now the Lakers would need 3 Superstars, 2 solid starters, and a good bench unit to compete with the best the NBA has to offer. A trade would only make sense if the Lakers' FO could get a guaranteed signing of both Blake Griffin and Gordon Hayward in order to compete today. That is more than likely not going to happen.
If the Lakers keep their pick, they have a chance at Lonzo Ball who the Lakers have mutual interest with. They could also have the opportunity to draft Josh Jackson and Markelle Fultz. If the Lakers don't retain their pick this summer, is it really such a bad thing? This team has a bunch of young talent and there have been rumors about Paul George wanting to go to the Lakers when he's a FA after next year if Indiana fails to provide him with help. Why not wait that situation out if it means getting PG13 without giving up assets. The team would be more mature and more developed when George would come and any players that are stragglers in their development could be traded for a solid asset to form a better squad. The Pacers may even find a way to keep him long term but other situations could come into play from now until then that could open up doors that may not have been opened today.
All in all, I believe the best way to prepare for next season is to just let things play out with this young team. Going from Byron ball to Waltons system is a complete turnaround from ISO to movement, the players now have a year under their belts and with an offseason with a laundry list of things the team needs to work on, the players themselves know what they have to do to run Waltons scheme a lot better than last year at the time of his hiring.