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NBA’s Future: Which Teams Shine Brightest

By Zack Geoghegan

The Timberwolves boast a trio of young stars in Zach LaVine, Andrew Wiggins, and Karl Anthony-Towns. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
The Timberwolves boast a trio of young stars in Zach LaVine, Andrew Wiggins, and Karl Anthony-Towns. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports /
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NBA: Los Angeles Lakers at San Antonio Spurs
NBA: Los Angeles Lakers at San Antonio Spurs /

4. Los Angeles Lakers

The Los Angeles Lakers are absolutely loaded with young talent at pretty much every position.

Jordan Clarkson, who is 24 years old and one of the “older guys”, recently signed a deal with the Lakers for $50 million to keep him in L.A. for the next four years, which may turn out to be an incredibly valuable contract as the salary cap continues to go up.

Julius Randle is in his second (well, technically third) season in the NBA and has already put up two triple-doubles this season. He has the potential to turn into a Zach Randolph or Draymond Green type-player with a spin-move that at times is practically unguardable.

The sophomores, D’Angelo Russell and Larry Nance Jr., give the Lakers a point guard that they can develop a team around along with a man who can jump to the moon if he so chooses to do so.

Rookie Brandon Ingram isn’t exactly off to a spectacular start, as his offense is a huge work-in-progress, but he has shown signs of promise on defense.

It’s too early to tell if Ingram can turn into the shooter that drew comparisons to Kevin Durant, but if he works on his defense first, he could follow the same path players such as Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler, and Paul George took.

Get the defense into lock-down mode, then let the offense come over time.

Even the older guys such Lou Williams and especially Nick Young (who is shooting 43 percent from 3, well beyond his career-best mark), are necessary contributors to the team in their effort to rebuild, providing leadership on the court (unless Russell isn’t snitching).

Head coach Luke Walton is proving himself in his first season as an NBA coach on the offensive end. However, getting so many young guys to play defense for a full 48 minutes is becoming apparently difficult.

The Lakers rank in the top third of the league in second and fourth quarter production (ranking sixth in the NBA in both quarters), but rank in the bottom half of the league in first (20th) and third (19th) quarter production.

The massive deals that Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov signed are what put the Lakers in the fourth spot. Veteran players are extremely valuable, in my opinion, but not when you have to pay them almost $140 million over the next four years with very limited production.

They have a first round pick in either 2017 or 2018 (depending on whether or not the pick to Philadelphia goes in ’17 or ’18), a second round pick in 2017, and two second rounders in 2018.

The draft has been kind to the Lakers recently, adding another young and talented piece for cheap is never a bad thing.

I’m not sure I even understand the reasoning behind signing of Metta World Peace so I’m not even going to try to make sense of it.