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.

Took me a couple days to get to an objective place on this series.  There was a lot the Lakers did right, plenty they did wrong, and some things you chalk up to bad luck.  All in all, only thing that matters is that the 2024-25 NBA season is done for the Los Angeles lakers and they can

Took me a couple days to get to an objective place on this series.  There was a lot the Lakers did right, plenty they did wrong, and some things you chalk up to bad luck.  All in all, only thing that matters is that the 2024-25 NBA season is done for the Los Angeles Lakers and they can only look on in envy and frustration as the playoffs continue without them. So let’s dig in to what did the Lakers in.

1. Cohesion, or lack thereof. Post Luka trade the Lakers went on a run that had them rocketing up the standings and ultimately paved the way to the #3 seed. This led to a mirage, of sorts. Our offense and defense looked great, for a stretch, and then injuries and the league catching up to what the Lakers were doing brought it back down to Earth. In the end, time was not the ally of the Lakers as when it came down to displaying elite execution, focus and determination we weren’t able to fall back on cohesion or chemistry to give us a little boost in the face of united and well-prepared Minnesota squad. The Coaching staff and players did as good a job as one could probably expect to fast track all of that but like any relationship that has worth you can’t speed up that process and expect great, consistent results. Everyone but Randle and DiVencenzo had been a T’Wolf for at least 2 seasons. At least everyone that had a real impact. That chemistry and trust was on full display in this series.
2. Ant Man outplayed LeBron and Luka. Down the stretch of games the Timberwolves knew and trusted that Anthony Edwards would have the ball in his hands and would make the right play. The Lakers faltered in the last 5 minutes while the Timberwolves held steady and executed. This theme played out in every single game except game 2 where Minnesota still got the shots they wanted and when, they just missed. Edwards was a force on both ends and had more than enough in the tank to close out every single game. Luka and LeBron, by comparison, looked tired and old (or both in LeBron’s case). Some of that came from a true lack of an elite supporting cast and some of that came from the elite defense the T’Wolves played but at the end of the day Anthony Edwards looked ready for the playoff primetime moments more than Luka and LeBron did. Coach Reddick touched on this topic in his season-ending comments about conditioning but that was bit overly simplistic to my taste, more on all of that in a bit, though.
3. Timberwolves had a team, we almost had a starting five. Depth was a massive issue in this series and the Lakers lacked it up and down the roster. With Gabe Vincent basically being a non-factor we only had Luka as a PG. Hayes played his was off the floor which left Finney-Smith to man the five against Gobert and the rebounding numbers there aren’t pretty as The French Rejection ran roughshod over the Lakers front court all series long. In 143 total minutes played Gobert grabbed 49 rebounds. By comparison, LeBron (who played 204) only grabbed 45 and the Timberwolves outrebounded us by 24 for the series. That’s actually a testament to the Lakers smaller players committing to rebounding because it could have been a lot worse. It’s hard to say what the Lakers could have changed up rotation-wise because so few players played a meaningful role and the onus of winning was put on Luka, LeBron and Austin Reaves. 8 players on the Timberwolves played 100+ minutes and only 5 Lakers played over a 100 and they all played a minimum of 170 (Dorian Finney-Smith). LeBron and Luka each played 204 and 208 minutes respectively. Only Edwards crakced 200 minutes for Minnesota. We simply were not deep enough or the coach didn’t trust enough for us to truly compete.
4. J.J. Reddick got out-coached. Whether it was his choice to play 5 guys for 24 straight NBA minutes, his lack of trust in his bench, or the predictable offense we ran the Lakers looked behind the 8 ball in almost every area of the game. Gone was almost any off-ball cuts/team movement or sets designed to generate lobs that had been a huge part of our offensive package in the regular season. Minny was ready for the open threes our defense was designed to allow, another issue with a regular season stratagem that not’s a good idea for the playoffs. Toss in him losing his cool on the court, in post game interviews and evidently in the locker room and you have a massive learning experience we can only hope he improves upon vastly next time. I think Coach Reddick did a fantastic job in the regular season. I’d give him a B+/A- for navigating the rigors of the 82 game grind, incorporating Luka, losing AD, and still managing the 3 seed. He was slow to adapt, made really bad “from the gut” calls (there really is no explanation or defense for playing LeBron James 24 straight NBA minutes, of course he’s not going to ask out…c’mon man…) and seemed a little over-whelmed, in general. The good news is he basically owned up to all of it in his season-ending comments by stating several times he needs to be better. He’s 100% right about that.
5. Health was huge. Minny looked relatively healthy. The Lakers did not. With the news coming out that Reaves was playing through a sprained left toe, LeBron being 40+ and nursing a sore groin, and Luka’s calves and overall shortened conditioning build up, the Lakers had a huge issue with having enough steam to play complete game. Vando never seemed to get his legs under him this season as he came back from surgeries on both feet and still ended up as one of our best rebounders on a per minute basis. Toss in the choice to play the same 5 guys for 24 straight minutes and not really even trying to use his bench and the Lakers were really in situation where they had to execute perfectly just to give themselves a real shot. Health is funny, though, hard to control or predict. Still, it was a huge factor in the Lakers early playoff exit.

Lots to think about for the Lakers. I think LeBron James miiiight opt out of his player option but I’m not 100% certain he will. If he does that opens up a TON of potential doors (depending on the amount, it certainly will not be for the vet minimum but it could maybe be as much as 5-10 million…maybe…?). The center position is a huge issue as is the back up guard positions, both of them. Dalton Knecht was a playoff non-factor on account of his defense and inability to hit a shot in meaningful minutes. Jordan Goodwin, too (the Lakers have a Team Option on him). We’ll get into the numbers of the offseason in a different post but the bottom line is the Lakers are going to have some money to play with, some team options to navigate (DFS has one, as well as LBJ) and a new superstar to build around. Should be fun to see what happens next.