Aloha, Michael,
Thanks for commenting. You’re right what we are going to do to improve our roster to try and repeat this season will depend entirely on whether Pelinka continues the plan to maximize cap space to chase a third superstar in the offseason after next season.
Personally, I would prefer that we went all in to win now as we need to get better if we want to win the championship next season because none of our competitors are going to stand pat. I also don’t want to get into the same situation we did last season where waiting for Kawhi cost us opportunities to become an even better team. Finally, having valuable players on good contracts could put us in a better position to land a player like Giannis than just having cap space. We saw sign-and-trades become the preferred transactions among many teams last offseason.
One factor I think strongly favors the Lakers protecting their cap space after next season is the reality that the third superstar plan doesn’t work unless LeBron James is willing to take less than a max contract, which kind of indicates LeBron must be amenable to doing that in the right situation, like Giannis deciding to join the Lakers. I don’t see Pelinka protecting that cap space without at least a token understanding LeBron would be amenable.
Bottom line, while I think Pelinka and the Lakers will still be shooting for the superstar after next season, I also think winning the championship has made taking advantage of the opportunity to repeat more important. Lakers have shown they have the best team in the league right now and it would be foolish not to be in a win now mode to repeat, especially knowing everybody else is going to be loading up to try to dethrone us. We also know some things we didn’t last offseason, including that LeBron is still the King and AD is now the second-best player on the planet.
The result is more of a win now attitude and hopefully an approach that recognizes cap space alone is not the answer. Our overreliance on cap space has at times limited what we were able to do with respect to trades and sign-and-trades. If we can get a player like Oladipo or Turner now, we’re not going to hesitate. If we have to pay to keep Rondo, Morris, KCP, and Howard, we’re not going to hesitate. We’ll still try to keep contracts as flexible as possible but won’t let cap space alone undermine improving the roster to win it again next season.
Excellent ‘5 Things’ as usual, Jamie. Thanks for time and effort. My apologies for editing your title. Just want to make sure it’s searchable by the search engines.
1. Great game by AD. Loved seeing him come out aggressive after a somewhat passive performance against the Raptors double teaming. I also would like to see AD get the ball in more different spots. Just pitching it to him on the left side is getting old and predictable.
2. Good to see LeBron shoot well from deep. Now if our guards could do better than 1 for 9. LeBron is still not looking as explosive as before the hiatus. Not Playoff LeBron. We’re going to need him to elevate his game if we’re going to win the title.
3. Kuz didn’t score as much but I thought he played good D and focused again on high percentage spot up jumpers. Hit 2 of 3 from deep and dished a couple of beautiful dimes to AD for threes.
4. Yes, good bounce back game from Dwight. Even shot well from the line. His best game since the restart. We need him now that JaVale is fading faster than his Vlog is rising.
5. I think the minutes are wasted on JR. Would rather see more Waiters. Dion’s ability to create his own shot and get to the rim opens up our offense. Drive and kick is how teams like the Jazz get so many wide open threes. Dion is the only guard we have who can do that.
No worries LT, but I think you meant to say ‘seed’ and not ‘seen’ which won’t help the algo, either. lol
This was an improvement from the previous game and the kind of game needed for confidence building going forward. Great win to lock up the top seed, too bad it looks like home court advantage will never exist in the Bubble. Great observations regarding the 5 things. I agree with every one of them. As for J.R. Smith, he still looks lost out there. He is dormant like a volcano right now. But then again, great shooters can rekindle their memory lanes and erupt for stretches without notice. So I am not giving up on him just yet. In the end, he scored 20 points a couple of times in scrimmage games even though those games did not count. Maybe the team needs to rally around him and give him emotional support to boost his confidence and morale. Hopefully that will bring him out of hibernation.