Well, that was quite a season. Seismic trades, surprise playoff exits, devastating injuries and a new champion crowned. 9th different champ in the 12 years under Adam Silver (8 in 30 under Stern, I believe). Now comes the mania, the endless clickbait articles proclaiming this master trade can reshape the course of human history if you are willing to suspend all logic and disbelief! For my part, I expect a fairly quiet Laker summer. I’ll be content if we retain Dorian Finney-Smith and fill the center position with a suitable compliment to Luka’s playing style. Still, everyone will try and scream and yell about how anyone can replicate the Thunder’s blueprint for winning and I’m just here to tell you now that’s a giant, steaming pile of…

Dookie.

1. Replicating the Thunder’s path to success is impossible. It was forged in failure, tempered with the kind of patience rarely seen nowadays in pro sport, and was not borne of any single defining philosophy other than not wasting money. From the moment they chose cap space over James Harden and watched their first drafted core walk away one by one, or get traded for the current core, the Thunder have been a model in the one thing most sport analysts and fans seem to abhor: patience. You could argue that moss was growing on the Thunder after Russell Westbrook asked out but all that did was put the final nail in the coffin of the old Thunder that was built around Westbrook, Durant, Ibaka and Harden. Of that core, only Durant and Ibaka have won rings. Sam Presti, and the Thunder ownership, should be commended for the patience and logic they’ve deployed over the last 10 years to get to this exact moment. So, unless you have the organizational patience to wade through several losing seasons, not trade draft picks out of habit, and patiently build a complimentary and affordable roster, nobody will be replicating the success of the Thunder the way they did it any time soon.
2. Same goes for Indiana. I can’t count the number of fake trades I’ve seen here proclaiming that the Pacers have NO CHOICE WHATSOEVER but to trade Myles Turner for a couple of feeble draft picks and 3 broken down players. They ignored all of that noise, also chose to move on from the same superstar talent known as Paul George and, in doing so, paved the way for all of their current success. Trading Sabonis and George were the two catalysts for the Pacers to assemble the roster of talent that they have. They kept the defensive specialist who can, sometimes, hit a three and built around the electric Haliburton with long, gritty, defense first players who can also sometimes hit a three. The defense on both teams, came first and defined their team identity. And, yes, sometimes you need to make a three. Certainly not all the time, though.
3. The three point revolution stalls out in the NBA Finals. Again. Every season you hear it all regular season long…”the three point revolution is here to stay!”, “we need more three point shooting!”, “that guy only plays defense and can’t hit the three…” and so on. Yet every time the playoffs, and especially the Finals, roll around suddenly the midrange game and scoring in the paint return to dominance. I get it, and I even agree to a point: sometimes you need to make a three pointer. But to rely on it as the penultimate offensive option is as foolhardy as relying on backdoor cuts and lobs as your path to a banner. In the playoffs, those long misses lead to opponent fastbreak points and those run you right out of a series. The Lakers saw that first hand as we shot the 5th most three pointers/game at 36.4 our 36.6% accuracy was good for 14th…out of 16 playoff teams. The Timberwolves turned that futility into fastbreak points, often at the rim. The Lakers need to have a better balance on offense as we struggled to get to the rim in the playoffs when the lob game stalled out and our paint drivers were hobbled. The Thunder do not rely on the three ball, when it falls for them they generally blow you out. But they don’t need it to fall, they’re dominant defensively and have several guys who can attack the rim. Sometimes they make a three. More often and not, they pass it up for a better shot.
4. Fewer max contracts. This one is why the Lakers can never be expected to follow the blueprint of the Thunder, they do it The Lakers Way which is big, splashy…and expensive. OKC has zero players on max contracts after Shai who signed his back in 2022-23 when he had fewer than 6 years of NBA experience under his belt, hence the $35 mil (which looks like an absolute bargain and he will definitely make a ton more on his net extension). That alone allowed OKC to retain key drafted players or sign elite role players like Alex Caruso and Isiah Hartenstein. Holmgren is a particularly cheap and effective player (also soon to be due for an extension) who came even cheaper due to past injuries and slow start to his NBA career. The Lakers aren’t ever going to follow this path because they never draft young players if they can avoid it in any way. They trade for their stars, they’re homegrown a lot more rarely. This means we’re often shipping out our own elite role-players, or letting them walk for nothing and having to reform a team every few seasons around one or two massive contracts. In the modern NBA that’s a tight path to navigate smoothly. Rob hasn’t really proved he’s capable of it as he dismantled the team he basically inherited from Magic that won a banner.
5. Luck. Especially in the healthy players department. We just saw how one injury can completely alter a series (but go ahead and tell that to the Bad Boy Pistons who certainly didn’t put an asterisk next to their win against us when our guys all had bad hamstring pulls, a title is a title). The Lakers haven’t had the best luck but they also haven’t maxed out the resources or capabilities of a truly modern training staff and so, with the new owner, perhaps that could start to tilt back in our favor sooner than later. A healthy team is a good team and OKC had good health at the right time and it showed. they also hustled the hardest, played with the most grit, and adapted better than anyone else. So, while luck is certainly apart of it, so, too is toughness and tenacity.
   
   In short I don’t expect the Lakers to be able to replicate anything the Thunder have done and anyone who says otherwise is really just full of it. The Lakers need to do it their way, within the confines of the current CBA. They need to retain their current key contributors and improve around the margins. A lot of money was tied up in players that didn’t really play in the playoffs (Kleber) or have much of an impact (Vincent, Vando, Knecht, Hayes). Some of the guys who were ineffectual didn’t get much run and some didn’t do much with what they got. That’s something for the staff to mull over and figure out. A full training camp with Luka and LeBron and some chemistry could go a long way. Internal improvement from guys like Knecht and Hayes on defense or Vando and Goodwin on offense could go a long way to closing some of the roster gaps we currently have. Regardless, whatever moves we make they won’t be seismic like the Luka trade unless we trade Luka or LeBron which we all know ain’t happening. Getting Luka was our “all in” move.

Trade Proposal Between Lakers And Celtics Looks Like Win-Win For Both Teams https://t.co/5ezRvhO49L— LakerTom (@LakerTom) June 23, 2025