Lakers Rumors: Rasheed Wallace Signing Would Be Horrific Step Backwards

The Los Angeles Lakers need upgrades at two positions: small forward and point guard. They could also stand to add a bit of scoring punch to their bench.

Instead, they're going to add Rasheed Wallace.

Yup.

The news comes straight from A. Sherrod Blakely, a Boston Celtics insider for CSNNE.com. He has it on good authority that Wallace plans to sign with the Lakers, which would be the next major step in Wallace's comeback after a season away from the court.

Appropriately, Wallace's last game was against the Lakers. That was Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals, which Wallace and the Celtics lost. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

In this case, it's more like if they have a wide-open roster spot, join 'em. The Lakers have a 14-player roster right now, meaning they don't need to make room for Wallace. He can suit up and go to town.

There's not a huge role for Wallace to play on the Lakers. Andrew Bynum has the center spot on lockdown, Pau Gasol is still in town at power forward and Troy Murphy has carved out a niche for himself coming off the bench.

Wallace will merely be thrown into the mix, picking up minutes here and there, most likely when Mike Brown feels he needs an extra defensive presence out on the floor.

But that's pretty much it. Not a whole lot to it.

From a strategical and a tactical standpoint, I get it—another big man never hurt anyone, and the Lakers at least know that they're getting an accomplished player.

What the Lakers are really getting, however, is a 37-year-old has-been who hasn't played in an NBA game in nearly two years and wasn't all that great when he was playing last. Wallace is an addition, but the Lakers are going out on a pretty thin limb if they think he's an upgrade.

Plus, the addition of Wallace is going to make an old Lakers team even older. They've played pretty well this season given their collective geezer-ness, but the last thing Mitch Kupchak should want to do is make his team older. He should be trying to make it younger, not to mention more talented.

Ah yes, but things will all change if Kupchak uses this acquisition as an excuse to trade Gasol, right?

Yes, in the sense that he's only going to trade Gasol if he can get a (preferably young) difference-maker in return. No, in the sense that a Lakers team sans Gasol would only need more out of Wallace. That would be a pretty significant roll of the dice.

So, I don't like this move. Wallace is not going to make the Lakers significantly stronger in the short term, and he's not going to make them significantly stronger in the long term. Adding him is not progress.

In the case of the Lakers, no progress is bad progress. The Lakers are good enough to hold on to make the postseason, but that kind of "good enough" is not good enough for this team. It's championship or bust, every season.

If they add Wallace, they'll be trending more towards bust than they will towards championship.