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Los Angeles Lakers: Grading The Offseason

By Gerald Bourguet

Jun 29, 2015; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard D'Angelo Russell (1), guard Anthony Brown (3) , forward Lanny Nance (7) and are introduced to the media during a press conference at the Toyota Sports Center. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 29, 2015; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard D'Angelo Russell (1), guard Anthony Brown (3) , forward Lanny Nance (7) and are introduced to the media during a press conference at the Toyota Sports Center. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports /
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Los Angeles Lakers
Nov 12, 2014; New Orleans, LA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (24) reacts against the New Orleans Pelicans during the second quarter of a game at the Smoothie King Center. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports /

Overall

Like the New York Knicks, this is one team whose individual moves, decent as they may have been, do not add up to sensibly cumulative grade. If you notice, the Lakers didn’t receive a single score lower than a C, yet their overall grade is a C-. What gives?

Well, for starters you have to factor in what the Lakers missed out on. While it may never have been realistic to expect LA to go to L.A., and while most people with common sense knew the Lakers had little to offer outside their brand and the bright lights of Hollywood, settling for Roy Hibbert as the top acquisition of the summer was a bit of a letdown. Realistic or not, this franchise has never been this bad for this long. They always reload. That’s the expectation, fair or not.

We also have to factor in the top-3 protected pick that is likely heading to the Philadelphia 76ers next summer, since the Lakers are no longer bad enough to have strong odds of nabbing a top-3 selection.

Furthermore, you have to factor in what the Lakers lost. They may have added Hibbert to a rotation that desperately needed some interior defense, but Los Angeles lost a considerable amount of depth with the departures of Jordan Hill, Ed Davis, Wayne Ellington, Wesley Johnson and Jeremy Lin.

None of those players is a crippling loss, but replacing that experience with youth won’t help the Lakers win more games this year, contrary to what general manager Mitch Kupchak believes.

At the end of the day, I keep coming back to the second greatest moment of the offseason, when Bass, Williams and Hibbert were asked if Kobe had reached out to them yet:

Aside from being hilariously awkward, it was a poignant moment if only for the fact that it symbolized the state this organization will remain in until the day No. 24 hangs it up.

He may be one of the greatest Lakers of all time, but the Black Mamba has a death grip on this franchise and his mere presence chokes the life out of prospective free agents. There’s a reason players don’t want to go to Los Angeles; they don’t want to play with Kobe Bryant, who has the body of a 38-year-old but tries to play the game like he did as a 23-year-old.

Striking out on the major free agents made for a depressing summer, but Lakers fans should be transitioning their mindset to the long-term, post-Kobe world anyway. That’s where the good news of L.A.’s offseason lies, since the Lakers now have a possible franchise star in D’Angelo Russell, two other rookies with potential in Nance and Brown, and plenty of cap space preserved for future runs at high profile free agents.

The 2015 offseason was not what most Lakers fans wanted. A quick fix was never on the table, but it’s for the best that the Lakers are rebuilding the right way. Los Angeles is on the right path, but it’s hard to be overly optimistic about this summer’s transactions when most of them won’t directly be involved with this franchise’s long-term rebuild.

Grade: C-

Next: Los Angeles Clippers: Grading The Offseason

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