Los Angeles Lakers' Next Chapter May Not Go According to Plan
When evaluating the Los Angeles Lakers' lusterless state against immediate ambitions, it's important to understand that there is still time for them to change course.
Equally important, though, is admitting their next chapter may not follow the intended script.
Past plans and visions of grandeur have quickly devolved into fluid strategies that change by the year. Ever since Dwight Howard chose James Harden and the Houston Rockets over Kobe Bryant and the Lakers, the latter has been at the mercy of injuries, cap space and the likelihood of first-rate free agents finding purpose in Los Angeles' market mastery and mystique.
Relying on free agency isn't a bad idea either. The Lakers had cap space last summer, they will have cap space this summer and, barring reckless spending sessions, they'll have cap space for the expected salary-cap boon in 2016.
That flexibility has already bought belief amid a 2014-15 campaign overrun with porous defense and mounting losses.
"I told them that I have no doubt that we will win a championship in my tenure here as head coach, because I know this organization," Lakers coach Byron Scott explained to ESPN.com's Baxter Holmes. "But I do know it's going to take some patience. It's a process."
Lottery-bound franchises aren't typically talking about championships. Patience and process dominate the conversation instead. But because the Lakers are the Lakers, Scott sees the light at the end of a tunnel they only just entered.
As does the 36-year-old Bryant.
"I agree," he told Holmes of Scott's comments.
Asked to justify his answer, Bryant responded in kind.
"Faith," he said. "The Lakers' track record. This organization is really good about turning around, period. We don't have many dry years."
Indeed, the Lakers have spent most of their existence planning for playoff berths and contending for championships. They've missed the postseason just twice during the Kobe Bryant era and only three times since 1977, which is why it's widely assumed their recent tumult is temporary.
But this overreliance on cap space—which has become so matter of fact, it's universal knowledge—is not perfect procedure. It puts everything on the team's ability to seduce and capture the game's biggest names, even though they've failed to do just this in consecutive summers.
Howard left in 2013, followed by Pau Gasol in 2014. The latter left more money and a no-trade clause on the table to contend for a title with the Chicago Bulls. Not only that, but the Lakers failed to procure any of the other top talent on the market. LeBron James signed in Cleveland, Carmelo Anthony remained in New York and Chris Bosh re-signed with Miami.
Anthony was the only one who appeared to give the Lakers serious consideration. They were prepared to tender him a max-contract offer, per ESPNLosAngeles.com's Ramona Shelburne, and that, along with the prospect of playing alongside Bryant, put them in the conversation. But only briefly.
"Just me and Kobe on that team, you just had to throw in pieces in there until next year," Anthony said during his free-agent documentary, Carmelo Anthony: Made In NY, via the New York Post's Marc Berman. "So [I] figured why pick up and leave when New York is in the same situation? So I had to really want to get out of New York to come to almost the same situation."
Plenty more top-flight free agents will be available over the next two summers, including Marc Gasol, LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Love, Paul Millsap and Kevin Durant. Marc Stein of ESPN.com and Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated previously reported the Lakers would target Goran Dragic and Rajon Rondo as well. Their plans haven't changed.
Los Angeles hasn't been in the business of signing also-ran players to long-term deals. With the exception of Nick Young and injured rookie Julius Randle, no other players are on the books beyond next season. The roster is wall-to-wall placeholders and short-term pacts—or rather, essential ingredients to rebuilding through free agency.
In hoping that another superstar or two (or three) chooses Los Angeles, though, the Lakers are banking on the distant past rewriting recent history.
Why will summer 2015 be any different than 2014? Or 2013? Why would Durant, Rondo, Gasol and/or Dragic answer the call that Anthony and Howard, among others, did not?
Too much faith is being placed in the Lakers' pedigree. Stars want to play in Los Angeles. That's what we've always heard. But for at least the last two years they haven't. And as Bleacher Report's Kevin Ding points out, that might not change:
"Practically speaking, the Lakers have to take what they can get.
As much as they might see Kevin Durant and Joakim Noah as the prizes of 2016, those guys probably aren't going anywhere if the Oklahoma City Thunder and/or Chicago Bulls win a championship between now and then. Maybe they stay even if they haven't won—and if they do go, brace yourself for insane competition from other clubs with the NBA salary cap jumping perhaps close to $20 million in '16 as the new national TV contracts kick in.
"
If and when the Lakers enter a courtship competition, they're at an inherent disadvantage. They are no longer a ready-made contender. They are not flush with young assets on the cusp of superstardom. They have their market, an aging Bryant and 16 NBA championship banners, the last of which was won nearly five years ago. If they're lucky, they'll also have a newly selected top-five pick who won't be sent to the Phoenix Suns as compensation for the Steve Nash trade, per RealGM.
Selling ringless superstars in their prime—some of whom will be on the wrong side of 30—on what they have to offer will be a challenge. Never mind whether Bryant's persona is a free-agent deterrent. He'll turn 37 in August. If he plays beyond his current contract, he'll enter 2016-17 at the age of 38, with nearly 60,000 minutes—playoffs and regular season—of wear and tear on his body.
And in the event the Lakers can nab that first star, what then? There's no guarantee more follow. Even if they do, winning is still a process. The 2010-11 Miami Heat and 2014-15 Cleveland Cavaliers will attest. So too will the 2012-13 Lakers.
"Here's the inconvenient truth about the Big 3 model: Not all superteams are created equal," Bleacher Report's Howard Beck wrote. "Not all superstars are compatible. Role players matter. Coaching matters. Personalities matter. Talent alone is never enough."
Not every superteam can be the 2007-08 Boston Celtics. Titles aren't won in free agency. They're won in due time, at the end of an oft-grueling and always-complicated process.
The Lakers, then, can still "fail" even if their free-agent pursuits prove successful.
Bringing Bryant within reach of a sixth championship has long been the goal. That's the undertaking the Lakers accepted by signing him to a lucrative extension last season. And it's the war they've continued fighting each and every time a member of their brain trust has come to his defense, when he's being portrayed as anything other than an organizational deity.
Bryant doesn't have forever, though. His clock is ticking, his body deteriorating, his efficiency wilting. What he's doing in his 19th year is equal parts incredible, confusing and sad. He leads the league in usage rate, but the Lakers are losing in excess. He's contending for another scoring title, but he's on pace to have the worst field-goal percentage (39.2) of anyone to ever average at least 26.5 points per game.
Securing the requisite talent to make that last Bryant-included title run will be one thing. Turning whatever talent they acquire, however quickly, into an instantaneous threat with be another.
Bidding farewell to Bryant won't make things easier either. His potential retirement in 2016 gives them even more cap space; it doesn't mean big names will flock to a possibly starless roster that's merely treading water.
Make no mistake, a free-agency coup is not impossible. The Lakers have cap space, and that should give them the means to add multiple superstars over the next few summers. They may even turn means into reality.
But no amount of optimism or possibilities allows them to evade the obstacles that lie ahead. As much as the Lakers are battling two fruitless offseasons, ticking clocks and a polluted reputation, their main strife pits them against logic and its ability to prevent them from moving forward before and after Bryant retires.
Starting the next chapter, at the right time, with the ideal acquisitions, demands they defy it. And though they will have plenty of opportunities to prevail, it's equally likely logic consigns them to an unintended fate that includes neither superstars nor the fitting end to Bryant's career they're supposed to promise.
*Salary information courtesy of ShamSports.
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