5 Goals for the Los Angeles Lakers Following the All-Star Game
The Los Angeles Lakers steer toward the final stretch of the 2017-18 season with no obvious aims ahead.
Their first-round draft pick is long gone, so they won't be participating in what could be an epic/embarrassing race to the bottom. But they aren't even visible in the playoff picture, either, so it's not like they are sprinting toward some photo finish.
Look between the extremes of willful losing and wild winning, though, and you'll find some worthwhile targets. There's nothing too exciting (for now), but rebuilding often requires small but critical steps before franchise-defining splashes can be made.
Consider this next month-plus a continuation of laying the groundwork, then. Even small, seemingly insignificant on-court gains can prove gigantic if they impress the right free-agent recruits.
The Lakers don't have a greater concern than their appeal to potentially available superstars, and these realistic aspirations would all make them more attractive.
Increase Youngsters' Exposure
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The Lakers have a rough outline for how their next chapter should look. But the only portion that's clear is the importance of their prospects.
Former No. 2 picks, Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram, look like long-term keepers. Ditto for freshman Kyle Kuzma, perhaps last summer's biggest steal as the 27th pick. Julius Randle may have forced his way into that discussion with the best basketball of his career (20.7 points, 7.7 rebounds and 3.6 assists in February), while Josh Hart plays with so much poise it's easy to forget he's just a rookie.
These are the primary on-court recruiting tools. They'll either comprise the bulk of the supporting cast if L.A. strikes free-agency gold, or they'll form the organization's nucleus if it comes up dry. Their upside is tantalizing. Their contracts are incredibly valuable. Their trade worth could facilitate a blockbuster deal, should that become the best avenue to top-tier talent.
No one means more to the future of this franchise.
"We have a core of guys that if we all stick together and grow can be really special," Kuzma said, per Dan Greenspan of the Associated Press. "If we can add two more players to that, then I don't know what can happen."
The prospects should all play more. Ball and Ingram aren't hurting for floor time, but they could pick up an extra minute or two per night. Hart should slide ahead of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in the rotation (which has happened so far in February). Kuzma and Randle need 30-plus minutes regularly.
This is an easy goal to accomplish, but it might be the most significant if it fast-tracks this core's development.
Defend at a Top-10 Level
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Entering this campaign, there was little reason to think the Lakers could defend at a halfway-competent level. They had fielded the Association's worst defense for two years running and hadn't finished above the bottom three since 2012-13.
Then, this season tipped and those lowly expectations immediately fell apart. They had the ninth-best defense in October and repeated the feat the following month. They have since sagged to 13th overall, thanks in large part to a dismal December in which their stoppers graded out just four spots from the bottom.
"To me that's the number one thing we've gotta fix," Lakers coach Luke Walton said late in that miserable month, per Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times. "It's what we've been able to hang our hat on all year. We get stops on defense, we get out and run. ... We have to get back to taking pride in being a defensive team first."
If the Lakers don't defend, then their accelerator gets stuck. Nothing kills an uptempo offense faster than constantly having to inbound the ball after surrendering points.
And if L.A. can't run, then it doesn't have an identity. If you look at where this team is most successful, it's running (second in pace) and gunning (second in fast-break scoring). All the pieces accentuated in the open court, be it Ball's vision, the frontcourt's athleticism or having multiple bigs who can initiate breaks.
That's who the Lakers want to be under Walton, and it's a style that should be an easy sell to free agents. Plus, the more they can grind out defensive stops, the easier it should be for top-shelf targets to envision this as a successful supporting cast.
With the offense looking broken (26th), the defense must be seen as an obvious strength.
M.I.P. Votes for Brandon Ingram
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Ingram still needs an elevator to reach his ceiling, but the growth displayed during his sophomore season is staggering.
Remember when he could barely throw a rock into the ocean as a rookie? Well, he's now added six points to his field-goal percentage (from 40.2 to 46.2) and almost nine from the perimeter (29.4 to 38.0). His counting categories are predictably up given his increased workload, but his per-minute production has similarly spiked. His per-36-minute averages jumped from 11.7 points and 2.6 assists to 17.2 and 4.0, respectively.
For all the media coverage around Ball, Ingram has operated as the featured franchise player. He leads the team in clutch minutes and ranks second in average floor time and field-goal attempts. Since Ball has been sidelined with a sprained MCL, Ingram has seized control of the offense and averaged 18.9 points (on .504/.500/.706 shooting) and 5.3 assists over his last 10 outings.
"Ingram has received a lot of (justified) praise for his work as a de facto point guard during Lonzo Ball's absence," ESPN's Zach Lowe wrote. "He entered the league as a savvy playmaker, and he's more confident knifing deeper into the paint."
Ingram is making the kind of strides Lakers Nation needed to see. He has the most potential of any player on the roster, and thus plays such an outsized role in the organization's future. He must continue growing—his 13.3 player efficiency rating falls shy of league-average—but his progress has been reassuring.
The Lakers just need him to make enough noise down the stretch that his maturation catches the attention of the Most Improved Player award voters.
It'd be foolish to even hope for the actual hardware—Victor Oladipo should have room cleared in his trophy case by now—but garnering any level of support would be critical with so many up-and-comers breaking out this season.
2 All-Rookie Selections, (At Least) 1 First-Teamer
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The 2017-18 rookie class was supposed to be special, and it hasn't disappointed. Even if the Rookie of the Year race is down to two sprinters—Ben Simmons and Donovan Mitchell—the competition for the 10 All-Rookie team spots will be ferocious to the finish.
Earlier, it seemed the Lakers could set their sights on a pair of first-team selections. After all, only Simmons and Mitchell are averaging more than Kuzma's 15.7 points per game. And Ball is the only freshman besides Simmons with top-10 rankings in both assists (7.1, second) and rebounds (7.1, third).
But Ball's nagging knee problem probably pushed him out of the first-team running. Despite being second in average minutes, he's just 11th in total floor time because he's already missed 21 games. The field looks too talented to overcome those absences, although a second-team nod seems possible. More importantly, that would almost certainly mean his post-All-Star run wouldn't include any hints of his previous injury woes.
Kuzma is far more likely to receive first-team honors, although his case isn't ironclad. He's been a top-five first-year performer in points and rebounds (5.9, fifth). That said, advanced stats don't see him as favorably. He slips to eighth in win shares (2.6), ninth in player efficiency rating (14.5) and 13th in box plus/minus (minus-1.5).
If Kuzma can improve that second batch of statistics, it would mean his impact is spanning more areas.
"The Lakers want him to play better defense and become more of a playmaker who creates opportunities for teammates when defenses are focused on stopping him," ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk wrote. "They want to see Kuzma do some Lonzo Ball-like things."
Win 13 More Games
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Ambition is nothing new for the Lakers—their offseason shopping lists are always heavy on stars—and it's been a trait of this team. Playoff talk has been rampant throughout the year, and it still hasn't died off entirely.
That makes this goal a tough sell inside the locker room. Adding 13 victories would only push the year-end win total to 36, a number that won't come close to sniffing the postseason. Aiming for this number, in some ways then, might lower the bar.
But this is about setting a target that is both challenging and realistic. It would also continue an encouraging trend of tangible improvement.
The Lakers limped into 2018 with an abysmal 11-24 mark. Their .314 winning percentage was worst in the Western Conference and second-lowest overall. But it's been a different story since the calendar flipped, as L.A. has gone a tidy 12-10 in the new year—ninth in the West and 14th overall.
"I think we've gotten better every single game, every single night," Ingram said, per Ganguli. "I think we found different ways to win different games that we couldn't do earlier in the season. We definitely got better. ... But overall I think we know we can be even better for the second half."
Think about where the Lakers would sit if they went 13-12 the rest of the way.
They'd be riding a wave of three-plus months of winning basketball, a wildly successful stretch for a squad that won just 27.7 percent of its games the previous four seasons. They'd also have this upswing—which already includes victories over Boston, Oklahoma City (twice) and San Antonio—as concrete proof of their potential.
If L.A. ever had a playoff bubble, it burst a while back. But there's still a way to make wins matter over the final stretch with an appropriate objective.
Unless otherwise indicated, all stats are from Basketball Reference or NBA.com.
Zach Buckley covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @ZachBuckleyNBA.
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