Los Angeles Lakers: Winning Could Prove Costly In Draft Hunt
When the Los Angeles Lakers knocked off the Toronto Raptors, the leader in the Eastern Conference, and followed it up with a win at the ruins of what used to be the proud Detroit Pistons franchise, they raised their record to 5-13 (a Wednesday loss to the Wizards would drop them to 5-14).
This record is not the sign of a respectable, playoff-bound ball club. The Lakers have no reason to think they’ll be in the mix come the end of the season, and with their draft pick slipping away from them with each costly win, the team could see itself be just competitive enough not to gain anything from their miserable season.
The team traded away this year’s first-rounder to the Phoenix Suns for Steve Nash, but it’s a top-five protected pick. This means the only way that the Lakers could guarantee themselves that the pick stays in Los Angeles this year is to finish with one of the two worst records in the league.
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Looking around the landscape of the NBA, as of today, there is a ton of legitimate competition for a top draft pick. It’s likely nobody is catching the Philadelphia 76ers, who just nabbed their first win in 18 tries on Wednesday against the lowly Minnesota Timberwolves.
Those same Timberwolves, along with the Detroit Pistons, the Utah Jazz, and the Boston Celtics are the competition keeping the Lakers away at one piece of glimmering hope in the darkness of this lost season.
They will face outside competition from better teams like the New York Knicks, the Charlotte Bobcats, and the Orlando Magic, but those teams have more talent and will likely scrape together a few more wins than the Lakers can muster.
Of course, the goal (in theory) is to win every game. Tanking is a disgusting strategy, but until the NBA implements counter measures it’s one of the most viable.
Winning against teams that should decimate the struggling Lakers only adds more to the possibility of prolonging the rebuild that has begun over the last year for the purple and gold. The victories provide a brief moment of happiness, slight periods of sanity for Kobe Bryant, and seconds of relief for the new head coach, Byron Scott.
For fans, the wins should simply be seen as minor setbacks as the team stays stationary as the doormats of the conference. Each victory pushing the franchise into a hole that will take slightly longer to emerge from.
With few players on the roster that can develop, or are at least healthy enough to develop, only Jordan Clarkson has shown enough to remain intrigued by what he could become. The idea of turning the roster over to younger players and developing them, much like the Orlando Magic have done, is an impossible feat.
Instead, the Lakers are forced to play veterans that have little interest in who’s on tap in the upcoming draft. These guys are focused on winning ball games, and keeping their jobs and reputations in tact. In the short-term, the victories will provide minor celebrations for players and fans alike.
In the long-term, they could prove to be costly to the master plan.