As the sun sets on the Laker’s once hopeful season there have been a lot of subplots, a lot of self-inflicted issues and not quite enough winning. In the end we came up against the best team and lost, again. Yes we got the losing streak over but a season of Lakers basketball is rarely, if ever, defined by the consolation prizes. Especially when we got as much as we did out of Anthony Davis and LeBron James. So as we turn to an early than desired summer of speculation I can think of at least 5 things that need to be addressed.

1. AD. Anthony Davis is here to stay for the foreseeable future unless he demands a trade. He just played in all but 7 games and had one of his best seasons ever. There are some things that AD doesn’t do well but, by and large, it’s hard for me to critique AD after this season. Do I wish he had a little more Kobe and a little less Pau Gasol in him? Sure. But the defense is as good as it is mainly because of his effort and leadership on that end of the court. I think the best thing for AD is to have an honest conversation with management (and to a degree himself) about what his best role truly is. If he wants a banger just to play 15-20 MPG then keeping someone like Hayes makes a lot more sense and I would even encourage them to work out this summer and see how they can best compliment each other on the floor, especially on offense where things tend to get crowded unless you have 2 bigs that can shoot the three ball. If AD were being honest I think he’d see that playing the 5 is actually his best role and just stop complaining about it. Will that happen? I kinda doubt it.
2. LBJ. LeBron has a player option this summer, have you heard? We’ll get into that aspect of it all down yonder. I want to take a moment to appreciate what LeBron has just accomplished which is to have the best season an athlete of his age has ever had in the NBA and probably top 5 in all sport. His work last summer on his three ball translated so well onto the court it’s almost a shame he didn’t shoot it more in the playoffs (although I understand why and it’s because we generate our best offense in the paint which translate well to the free throw line differential). One has to at least wonder what LeBron could do next season with a summer of basically just getting his ankle right and working on his game in the lab. He may not be the LeBron of old, and the debate about what his contract size means to the overall roster quality is a certainly a valid one, but there’s no denying that if LeBron walked away now he’d be walking out while still being capable of playing at a ‘top 20 in the game right now’ level.
3. 6/29/24. The date by which all of our players with player options need to decide whether to pick them up or test free agency. Those players are LeBron James ($51,408,000), D’Angelo Russell ($18,692,307), Christian Wood ($3,036,040), Cam Reddish ($2,463,946), and Jaxson Hayes (also $2,463,946) along with deciding whether or not to sign Max Christie ($2,321,816) and Skylar Mayes ($2,244,249) to a Qualifying Offer. That is a $78,064,239.00 question mark that is wholly out of the hands of the front office and if they choose to sign both Mayes and Christie to their QO’s we’ll have $82,630,304 in player options (if the Lakers offer the QO both players can either walk away and test restricted free agency as the Lakers have matching rights for both). Feels highly likely that Cam and Christian pick their respective options up. They played pretty inconsistently, were injured a lot, and weren’t highly sought after last season. Especially Wood, who comes with a unique set of luggage that I’m not sure this quiet season put behind him. Hayes is an interesting question as he showed a ton of improvement over the course of the season and could probably find a raise on the open market since he’s making bottom barrel money. I can see a lot of teams offering him a chunk of their MLE (no Bi-Annual until next summer) or possibly even their full MLE if they really believe he has room for growth. Those are the small fish, the two big ones are of course DLo and LBJ. It’s hard to say what LeBron will do but my bet is he opts in without an extension and just does 1 year deals after this. He will not take less and I don’t think he cares about any of the questions surrounding anything he does as he knows there are fewer and fewer seasons of them coming. Russell is a true quandary to me. Played about to his earning level this season, in my opinion. You can take snap shots of the season where he played a lot worse and a lot better and therein lies the rub. Inconsistency is the bane of playoff success, however, so it’s hard to see playoff contenders lining up with a bigger offer, at best maybe a similar offer but with more years. If Russell walks it won’t be easy to replace him, we won’t have free cap space to make a splashy free agency signing and so would require a trade, or sign and trade, to make it happen. Probably can’t work a sign and trade, honestly, as it would hard cap us at $172 million (estimated, hard number to come) and if everyone picks up their options it puts us at $178 million. That’s with Prince, Dinwiddie, Mayes and Christie walking. In short, in order to make a splash it will be via trade which means 2-3 players gotta go.
4. Injuries. Yeah, they were a real thing this season as we all heard. A lot. And often. Still, the core of Russell, Reaves, James and Davis played no fewer than 71 games each. Hachimura played 68. So, if the logic is that Vanderbilt and Vincent are somehow such integral pieces that we would have beaten Denver or vaulted towards the top portion of the western conference (+9-10 games), I have to disagree. I’m a huge Vanderbilt fan and Vincent looks like he’s not as bad as Kendrick Nunn but they are not +9/10 game players or series altering against Denver. That is an excuse, not a reason. Fans can use excuses and it’s totally fine. Coaches, management and players cannot. At my job if I get sick the work does not go away. It’s waiting for me when I get back. So if Coach Ham wants to use injuries as an excuse as to why the season went south on the team I expect he’ll be looking for a new job soon.
5. Speaking of Coach Ham. I still got 50/50 odds he’s back to start the 2024-25 campaign. Maybe with new defensive assistant coach Frank Vogel or offensive coordinator Adrian Griffin or some such but I doubt he gets fired. There are baked in excuses already parroted by everyone in the organization. If Denver repeats there will be solace taken in losing to the champs, again. Most of all, for all the “money is no object to THIS team” being paraded around the internet since we got shown the playoff door, true Laker fans know that is utter BS. Money is definitely a consideration which is why we cheap out on training staff. Toss in the fact that, other than Mike Budenholzer, there are no established coaches out there who’ve shown to be better than Darvin Ham. Mike has won a chip, at least, so I guess there’s that. Still, LeBron will not likely want another 1st year “what in tarnation should I do now?!” head coach to carry along with his body and the team. So, yeah it’s possible Coach Ham gets shown the door but it’s unlikely his replacement is all that much better.

Here’s a list of the free agents this summer. Click here.

It’s not all that great and the ones we’d want are probably out of our price range of what we can offer. Enjoy the summer everyone!

The Alamo, that house in Young Guns, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, and the Lakers’ locker room. What do all these things have in common? A group of people with their backs up against the wall with nothing left for it but to come out guns-a-blazing and see if they can shoot their way out of their worries.

1. Keep forcing action in the paint. The three ball is important but the Lakers are utterly dominating in the paint and that needs to be the theme for the rest of whatever playoff life we have left in us. We can’t let Denver outscore us in the paint or in transition and the second-chance points need to at least be kind of close.
2. Attack their best players on offense. Can’t line change like in hockey so, when they’re on the court, attack Jokic and Murray as a first, second and third option. We got Jokic in foul trouble which did absolutely nothing to stifle his legendary excellence on offense but did mean he played with less, shall we say enthusiasm, on defense which made it easier on our guards and best players to score at the rim and in the paint.
3. Make Murray move. Make him fight through screens. Do everything but sweep the leg (sensei?) because if his hamstring is giving him trouble that’s a weakness we absolutely need to exploit just like Denver did to us last season with LeBron and his foot. Lateral movement is not a hamstring’s friend and neither is contact. Show Murray both sides of that coin.
4. 48 hard. I said it at the beginning and between every single game, this is not a team you can play 44-46 good minutes of basketball, it’s a full 48 of excellent effort or go home. It really is that simple. Whomever is on the court, whatever your role is, play hard and with force. Do not let the Nuggets dictate pace or physicality or you are toast.
5. There’s only one way to stop the Nuggets fans from chanting and we kind of frittered away what may have been our best shot of that in game 2. Win on their floor. Now we gotta do it twice and, no matter what articles are written or what media head says otherwise, all of the pressure is still on us. This isn’t a series until we win at Denver and, since we no-showed game 3, we need to do it twice in a row. Daunting? Yes, absolutely. Impossible? …No? I don’t think so…but nigh impossible. It will require the utmost of focus, execution, and not whining about the officiating. Just go out and play. Hard.

Bonus point: I’m not sure I’d throw Vando into this fire. Dude needed a few weeks to get back to the player we remembered from last season and this really isn’t the time. I’d say 100% no way except for we don’t really get that much out of the bench right now so I suppose he couldn’t hurt. Still, it’s a lot to ask a guy who hasn’t played in 2 months to come into a tense playoff atmosphere and bring his A game.