Five Major Mistakes That Doomed the Lakers’ Hopes to Repeat as Champions
Anthony Davis’ injury killed the dream but five major mistakes revamping the roster around LeBron James and Anthony Davis will be real reasons the Los Angeles Lakers’ quest to repeat as NBA champions will ultimately fail.
It’s easy to look in the rear view mirror and see what went wrong but in retrospect the Lakers not only ignored flashing red warning signs all season long but also doubled down on two late season major personnel mistakes. They traded for the wrong point guard, signed centers who were poor fits, failed to draft or trade for a volume 3-point shooter, declined to trade for All-Star point guard Kyle Lowry, and signed center Andre Drummond.
Besides dooming their chances of repeating as champs, these five major mistakes may also have derailed the Lakers’ opportunity to fix the problems this summer as the threat of free agency losses and luxury taxes loom.
1. Trading for point guard Dennis Schroder.
The Lakers first mistake was trading Danny Green and their first round pick for point guard Dennis Schroder. The Lakers hoped Schroder could be their point guard of the future and help LeBron James with playmaking duties.
Aside from the fact that Schroder turns the ball over too much, only shoots 33.3% from three, and has a barely acceptable 2.1 assists-to-turnovers ratio, Dennis wants more money and a bigger role than the Lakers have to offer. Since Schroder’s an unrestricted free agent, the Lakers will have to either dramatically overpay him to convince him to stay or pull off some form of a miracle sign-and-trade to prevent losing him for nothing to another team.
The ultimate irony of the trade is Danny Green had a great season with the Sixers and shot over 40% on 6.3 threes per game while Schroder reverted to being a below average 3-point shooter and inefficient starting point guard.
2. Signing centers Marc Gasol and Montrezl Harrell.
The second big mistake the Lakers made was not trading for a modern center like Myles Turner who could protect the rim on defense and stretch defenses on offense rather than signing rent-a-centers Harrell and Gasol.
Trading defense for offense is essentially what the Lakers did when replacing JaVale McGee and Dwight Howard with Marc Gasol and Montrezl Harrell, but the moves left the team defensively challenged without rim protection. The result was a poor fitting Lakers center tandem that featured an over-the-hill stretch five in Gasol who could no longer jump or dunk and an undersized small ball, low post center in Harrell who could not defend.
With Davis relegated to playing the five less than 10% of the time compared to over 25% of the time last season, the Lakers production from the center position, especially when it came to rim protection, took a big step back.
3. Failing to draft, sign, or trade for 3-point shooters.
For whatever reason, the Los Angeles Lakers continue to ignore the longtime acknowledged formula for winning with LeBron James, which is to surround him with elite high volume, high percentage 3-point shooters.
Last year, the Lakers ranked 23rd with 11.0 made threes on 30.6 shots per game for 34.9% vs. league average of 34.1%. This year they ranked 25th with 11.1 made threes on 31.2 shots per game for 35.4% vs. league average of 34.6%. The Lakers’ 3-point shooting has taken a major step backward in the playoffs as they rank second worst in the league with just 9.3 made threes on 31.8 shots per game for 29.1%, a fatal drop from last year’s 35.4% in the playoffs.
The Lakers continued rejection of the importance of high volume, high percentage 3-point shooting and abject failure to fix the problem when building this year’s rosters is one of the team’s biggest mistakes.
4. Declining to trade for point guard Kyle Lowry
The biggest major mistake was failing to add a third superstar so they could not only weather the injuries to LeBron James and Anthony Davis but also have enough firepower to match the Brooklyn Nets in the NBA Finals.
That’s the decision that left the Lakers without the star depth to survive the injuries to LeBron and AD and left them vulnerable to what’s looking more and more like a possible first round flame out to the upstart Phoenix Suns. We saw how important a third superstar was for the Brooklyn Nets whose superstar Big Three with Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving allowed them to overcome significant injuries to all three superstars.
The Lakers blew an opportunity at the trade deadline to land veteran point guard Kyle Lowry, who would have given the Lakers a third superstar and allowed the team to weather the current injuries to LeBron and AD.
5. Signing free agent center Andre Drummond
After declining to trade for Kyle Lowry and failing to make any moves at the trade deadline, the Lakers made their fifth and final fatal mistake by signing the enigma center Andre Drummond from the buyout market.
A seriously talented but flawed 27-year old center who had never played for a winning team, Drummond proved to be the Laker final fatal roster mistake, throwing the team’s center rotation and team chemistry into total turmoil. Worse, the addition of a third center left Frank Vogel without enough time to integrate Drummond into the Lakers style of play, especially defensively, with the result that signing Andre was subtraction by addition.
The result was lineup and rotation chaos as the Lakers tried to integrate Drummond while re-integrating James and Davis returning from injury as the team prepared to defend their championship in the playoffs.
While these roster mistakes will likely cost the Lakers the chance to repeat as NBA champions, the bigger issue is how the mistakes have acerbated the challenge the Lakers will face this summer to repair the damage.
The Lakers have a serious cap space issues next season. They are likely to lose Andre Drummond, Montrezl Harrell, and Dennis Schroder to free agency and could even lose fan favorites Alex Caruso and Talen Horton-Tucker. They will also only have the $5 million taxpayer MLE to use to pursue free agents and, should they lose to the Suns in the first round, could turnover the entire roster except for superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
The Lakers are just one game away from facing their first real elimination playoff game in the last two years. Suddenly, they’re facing a first round flame out that will be more embarrassing than the Clippers departure last year.
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