This has been a very disappointing offseason for the Los Angeles Lakers, needless to say. They haven’t signed a single outside free agent or made any trades, and in fact, after they lost Taurean Prince and Spencer Dinwiddie, their roster may actually be weaker than it was a month ago.
There is a sense, at least to some, that the franchise is more focused on making LeBron James happy than on winning. It drafted his son Bronny and hired his friend and podcast partner JJ Redick to be its next head coach, which has caused critics to accuse it of becoming a circus.
Howard Beck, who has covered the NBA for decades, wonders if the Lakers even care about winning the world championship anymore (h/t ClutchPoints).
“Are the Lakers even trying to win another championship with LeBron James on the roster? Because I don’t think it’s clear that they are,” said Beck, per the “Rich Eisen Show” on YouTube. “…They needed more, they needed more fire power, they needed more help on the wing, they needed more defense, they need more shooting. This team is not built to contend, it wasn’t built to contend last season, and they’ve done absolutely nothing to change that… Lakers exceptionalism is a thing, but their actions have not shown that this offseason. They’ve done absolutely nothing to indicate that they can or expect to compete for titles.”
The Lakers do have a good roster, and if they didn’t fool around during the first half of this past season, they could’ve easily won more than 47 games and finished fourth in the Western Conference. Doing so could’ve been enough to allow them to earn a second straight Western Conference Finals appearance.
But of course, making it to the conference finals isn’t enough. This is a franchise that proudly hangs a dozen championship banners, plus another one to honor the five titles it won in Minneapolis. While it also claimed the NBA Cup in December (and hung a banner to commemorate that win), the only thing that matters or should matter to the organization is winning the Larry O’Brien Trophy.