The 2018-2019 NBA season hasn’t played out the way the Los Angeles Lakers had hoped it would. Despite the arrival of LeBron James, they will miss the playoffs for a sixth straight season after suffering under the weight of a never-ending string of injuries.
However, there were more problems with the Lakers than just an extremely unlucky run of injuries. As the roster thinned out, some of the choices made last summer were exposed as mistakes.
On this episode of the LN Podcast, host Trevor Lane breaks down what the thought process was behind these moves and why there are reasons to be concerned moving forward.
After all, the Lakers watched key pieces like Julius Randle and Brook Lopez walk away and sign team-friendly deals elsewhere, and decided to cut the talented Thomas Bryant only to see him earn a massive role with the Washington Wizards.
The Lakers have done an excellent job drafting young talent, but their understanding of how valuable those pieces are and what they can grow into has been severely lacking.
Fortunately, the silver lining to all of this is the fact that the Lakers will have plenty of salary cap space to work with this coming summer thanks to only signing players to one-year deals last year. That will provide them with the opportunity to right some of their wrongs and potentially turn the ship around quickly, though the margin for error is now non-existent.
We dig into what can be done this coming offseason in order to put the club back on track and how they can shake off what was, aside from James, a disastrous stretch for the front office. All isn’t lost but it’s time for the front office to roll up their sleeves and get to work.