Lakerholics

If the Los Angeles Lakers hope to compete for championships in a league where the challenge and financial investment to win titles have dramatically increased, they must be willing to pay the price to be a legitimate contender.

After winning their 17th championship in the bubble eighteen months ago, the Lakers struggled to stay competitive as injuries and Covid battered the roster and poor decisions and cap and tax strategies derailed progress. Suddenly, the NBA’s most storied franchise is facing a series of franchise defining decisions with major short and long-term implications as their usual championship team building strategies no longer seem to be working.

What’s happened is the competitive landscape for the NBA has changed and the price of admission to be a legitimate contender in the league today now requires top teams to accept gargantuan payrolls and mega luxury taxes. The last two years, the Lakers’ personnel decisions were driven by their old school strategies of trading for a third superstar, optimizing cap flexibility by only adding players on short term deals, and avoiding luxury taxes.

Unfortunately, those strategies led the Lakers to trade for Westbrook, build a roster of minimum salary players with no trade value, and lose valuable assets like Alex Caruso and Dennis Schroder to free agency with no return. Unable to find a deal at the trade deadline, the Lakers doubled down on the same outdated approach, positioning themselves to use Russ’ $47 million expiring contract and two first round picks to trade for Damian Lillard.

Lakers must accept the rules have changed. Tradeable players on long-term deals are better than cap space, mega luxury taxes are the new price of admission to compete, and two superstars and depth are better than three.

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1. Tradeable Players on Long-Term Deals Are Better Than Cap Space

The Lakers’ approach to team building has always favored cap space and players on 1-year deals over players on multiple-year contracts. The Lakers need to rethink this strategy as it limits both team talent and continuity.

with 13 of the 15 players on their roster making either max or minimum salaries, the Lakers’ ability to take advantage of trade opportunities to improve their roster are severely limited as we’ve seen the past two years. Cap space is great if you’re trying to sign LeBron James as your centerpiece but filling a roster with nothing but minimum salary players on 1-year deals limits the talent you can sign and your trading chips to get better.

The trade the Clippers made to land Powell and Covington, two players who would have been great fits on the Lakers, was a perfect example of a trade opportunity for which the Lakers simply did not have the assets to pull off. That’s why not failing to re-sign Caruso and Schroder as trading chips was a serious mistake. Standing pat at the trade deadline also did nothing to help the Lakers be in a better position with respect to trading chips this summer.

The key to putting the best possible team on the court and retaining the flexibility to free up cap space or come up with the assets needed to take advantage of trade opportunities is signing players to tradeable contracts. Signing key players you can easily move if necessary is a smarter strategy than turning over an entire roster of 1-year deals like the Lakers did the last two seasons. It gives you better players and a chance to build continuity.

Settling for 1-year deals to pursue cap space flexibility limits the talent a team can put on the court, the continuity teams needs to be a winner, and the trading chips to take advantage of opportunities to improve the roster.

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2. Mega Luxury Taxes Are Price of Admission to Compete for Title

While NBA teams have recently made moves to reduce luxury tax bills, the Lakers are unique among major big market competitors in that they’ve been unwilling to pay mega luxury taxes like the Warriors, Clippers, and Nets.

We’ve seen that in the Lakers’ decision not to re-sign Alex Caruso, a player whom they could have definitely used as a trading chip at the deadline or as a key rotation piece as they struggle to win enough games to make the playoffs. We’ve also seen the Lakers’ refuse at the deadline to accept the Rockets offer of Christian Wood in trade because of the luxury taxes re-signing a young talent like Wood could ultimately cost the franchise.

While the Lakers were never willing to pay significant luxury taxes back in the days the franchise was run by Dr. Jerry Buss, times have changed and big market teams like the Warriors, Clippers, and Nets have raised the bar. While the Lakers may not have billionaire owners like other franchises, they need to continue to invest in building their brand by doing what they have to do to compete in today’s NBA, even if that means mega luxury taxes.

With the salary cap and luxury tax threshold increasing next year, NBA teams as a whole seem to be making moves to limit how much luxury taxes they will have to pay, especially the small market teams who never pay taxes. Unfortunately, big market teams seem intent on raising the bar to compete for an NBA championship. There was a point when the Warriors, Clippers, and Nets were slated to pay over $100 million in luxury taxes.

The Lakers need to wake up and understand that the reason the franchise is worth almost $5 billion is because of the 17 NBA championships they have won. Luxury taxes are the new price of admission to be NBA champions.

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3. Two Superstars with Deep Roster Better Than Three Superstars

The Lakers’ and Nets’ experience with superstar big threes suggests two superstars with a deeper balanced roster could be the better team building model than three superstars for winning multiple NBA championships.

The two superstar model is just easier to put together. Just look at the potential personality and fit issues a team encounters trying to make three superstars work. There’s something about ’two’s company, three’s a crowd.’ That’s not even dealing with the issue that there’s only two other starters, which makes building a viable two-way starting and closing lineup near impossible, especially if all you can afford are players on minimum salaries.

Right now, the Lakers’ 15-man roster consists of 3 superstars on maximum deals, 2 players in Horton-Tucker ($9.5 million) and Nunn ($5 million) on non-minimum contracts, and 10 players on rookie or vet minimum deals. Being so top heavy, the Lakers other starters should logically be Talen and Kendrick since they’re being paid more. Unfortunately, Horton-Tucker has regressed from his sophomore season and Nunn has not been able to play.

Imagine if the Los Angeles Lakers could replace Westbrook and his $44.2 million salary with three high quality rotation players like Eric Gordon ($18.2 million), Christian Wood ($13.6 million), and Alec Burkes ($9.5 million)? That’s basically the route the Lakers should be looking to take this summer by trading Westbrook to the Thunder for Derrick Favors ($9.5 million) and a $34.7 million trade exception to acquire additional players.

While the Lakers are anxious to find a third superstar to replace LeBron James when he retires, right now they need to focus on finding two or three quality championship caliber players to complement their two superstars.

For a team that needs practices and superstars who need a chance to rest and recover, the All-Star break is Lakers’ last chance to make adjustments for the 24-game stretch run that starts vs. the Clippers February 25th.

If the Lakers have any hopes of transforming what has been a dismal season into a miraculous comeback in the playoffs, then they need to consider major strategic moves to transform the team over the remaining 24 games. The good news is there are major moves on and off the court the Lakers can make to become a much better team. The bad news is there isn’t much time to act and the Lakers have never been an organization to react with urgency.

Here are five strategic moves the Lakers should consider during the All-Star break to optimize their chances of winning 18 of their 24 remaining games to hopefully finish 46–37, which would give them a good shot at the #6 seed.

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1. Consider Firing Frank Vogel and Making Phil Handy Interim Coach

Timing is everything when it comes to changing coaches. The last thing the Lakers need to start this offseason is a lengthy coaching search that delays and derails the team’s plans to rebuild their roster to championship level.

There’s no scenario where Frank Vogel is anything but a lame duck coach when it comes to the Lakers. That’s why the smart move by the Lakers is to fire Vogel after Wednesday’s game and make Phil Handy the interim coach. Promoting Handy would give the Lakers the opportunity to test drive him for the rest of the season and open the door for the Lakers to rethink what’s important and how best to utilize the players they have on the roster to win.

The Lakers as a team need to use the rest of this season to decide exactly what kind of team they want to build, specifically whether they want to chase a third superstar like Dame this summer or better starters and bench. The Lakers also need their next head coach to share a vision of basketball that embraces analytics and the importance of 3-point shooting and versatility when building a roster or constructing lineups and rotations.

Changing coaches now will enable the Lakers to use the rest of the season and the performance under Handy to be in the best position to resolve the coaching issue by end of season so they can focus on upgrading their roster.

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2. Experiment with Starting Lineups Built Around LeBron and AD

After trading for Westbrook, the Lakers learned building winning lineups around three ball dominant superstars is not easy. Going forward, they need to experiment with starting lineups built around LeBron and AD.

The Lakers have struggled all season long to build lineups with all three superstars. The problem has been it was impossible to fit the elite 3-point shooting and perimeter defense the team needed in just two other starters. Building starting and closing lineups around just superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis becomes much easier because there are now three starters from which to get the needed shooting and defense.

For example, a Lakers’ starting lineup of Malik Monk, Austin Reaves, LeBron James, Stanley Johnson, and Anthony Davis would be able to shoot the three and play solid defense. That’s a lineup the Lakers should test. Logistically, the Lakers could also tailor their starting and closing lineups based on the matchups against different opponents. They could even have big lineups with Howard starting at the five against certain NBA teams.

Strategically, the Lakers need to experiment with lineups built around James and Davis and without Westbrook so the team will not start every game by spotting the other team with an early double digit lead.

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3. Experiment with Russell Westbrook off the Bench as Sixth Man

The flip side of experimenting with two superstar starting lineups is the Lakers will get an opportunity to have Russ be their 6th man catalyst coming off the bench with Melo to wreak havoc against team’s second units.

Not unexpectedly, Russ’ numbers when playing without LeBron and AD are positive whereas his numbers with James and/or Davis have been negative. What’s great about Westbrook as a 6th man role is it allows Russ be Russ. Westbrook surrounded by shooters torching other teams’ second units could be a big part of the Lakers matchup strategy the rest of the year. Imagine Russell with elite 3-point shooters like Melo, Monk, and Ellington.

Nor am I saying Russell Westbrook never starts or closes a game. What I’m saying is the Lakers’ major problem all season long, partly due to injuries and Covid and partly due to poorly conceived and ineffective lineups. This is why the Lakers may need to change head coaches for change to work. Frank Vogel is likely not the best choice as coach to experiment with two superstar lineups without Russ and single superstar lineups with Russ.

The Lakers need to find the optimum situation where Westbrook can have the biggest impact for the Lakers. Part of that solution may be lineups with Russ as the lone superstar surrounded by multiple elite 3-point shooters.

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4. Ramp Up Playing Time and Responsibilities for Young Players

After standing pat at the trade deadline, the Lakers need to ramp up the playing time and role responsibilities of talented high-performing young players like Talen Horton-Tucker, Malik Monk, and Austin Reaves.

If the Lakers are going to have any chance of surprising teams and winning in the playoffs, they will need to count on even bigger contributions from this trio of young players, which means giving them more minutes and roles. While the Lakers will seek to bolster their roster with more size and defense from the buyout market, they should give Malik Monk and Austin Reaves starter and closer minutes to accelerate their development.

Beside Monk, Reaves, and Horton-Tucker, the Lakers should also give more minutes to Stanley Johnson in certain matchups and hopefully to Kendrick Nunn when he recovers from his lingering knee injury and is ready to play. Making sure the team’s younger players get minutes and roles to grow and become better is a strategic goal for the rest of the regular season. The Lakers need young players to grow their value as players and trading chips.

Ramping up the playing time and roles for Monk, Reaves, Horton-Tucker, Johnson, and Nunn is one way the Lakers can become a better team over the last 24 games of the regular season and peak heading into the playoffs.

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5. Offer Starting Roles to Recruit Players from Buyout Market

With the Lakers not improving themselves at the trade deadline, there will be pressure on Rob Pelinka to find upgrades via the buyout market, which could prove difficult as the Lakers are no longer among the favorites to win.

The one big advantage the Lakers may have over other NBA teams is they are able to offer a point guard like Goran Dragic or shooting guard like Gary Harris guaranteed starting roles the rest of the regular season and playoffs. Buyout free agents who will be looking for ways to impress teams and land a big new contracts could feel playing with LeBron James and Anthony Davis and starting for the Los Angeles Lakers was gold for their brand.

We know the Lakers successfully used this same exact strategy last season to entice Andre Drummond to sign with the Lakers after being bought out. Unfortunately, they’ll need to be careful not to make that mistake this time. Landing Dragic and/or Harris as starters would certainly be a long shot since both are rumored to be leaning towards the Mavs and Nuggets but an opportunity to showcase their game on the Lakers could be irresistible.

The Lakers should be aggressive in promising top buyout candidates like Goran Dragic and Gary Harris guaranteed starting roles and minutes to entice them to sign with the Lakers as free agents for the rest of the season.

As usual, there was no lack of culprits to blame for the Lakers’ 117–115 loss last night to the Warriors. While LeBron and AD had subpar games and the Lakers missed 11 free throws, the major culprit for the loss was Frank Vogel.

Between his wacky lineups and senseless favoring of veterans like DeAndre Jordan or Avery Bradley, Frank Vogel has obviously lost this Lakers team. The players aren’t listening to him and the time’s finally come to make a change. Vogel may not be the only reason the Lakers have struggled but it’s hard to envision a scenario where he suddenly turns this team around. Frank is already a lame duck coach. The Lakers just need to make it official.

Why should the Lakers make the change now instead of waiting until this summer? Because they need to stop the bleeding now and start winning. Otherwise, they risk losing the chance to re-sign Malik Monk this summer. More importantly, next season is the last season LeBron James is under contract with the Lakers. The last thing the Lakers want is for LeBron James to suddenly start thinking about taking his talent to some other NBA team.

The other reason for the Lakers making the change now rather than later is it will give them an opportunity to test drive Phil Handy as the head coach of the future. In many ways, Phil could be the perfect coach for the L.A. Lakers. He’s a respected former player who’s greatest strength has been his ability to connect with NBA players whether superstars like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, or Kawhi Leonard or young guns like Austin Reaves or Malik Monk.

Of all the Lakers coaches, Phil Handy has the best understanding of the power of offense. Most of Handy’s player development success has been expanding players’ offensive repertoires with new moves and counters. Handy’s approach has always been showing players what to do visually by working with them one-on-one on the court, actually teaching them by showing them exactly what to do. That approach resonates with players.

Phil Handy is going to be part of the next wave of new NBA coaches. He was a finalist for the Washington Wizards head coaching gig last season and has been one of the most highly sought after assistant coaches in the NBA. Firing Frank Vogel and promoting Phil Handy to Interim Head Coach could be the only potential game-changing move left for the Lakers’ front office to deploy to try and get the attention of this frustrating, disappointing roster.

Wasting the last 25 games left in this season by allowing Vogel to continue to replicate the same mistakes that have plagued the team all season would be senseless. Time for Lakers to fire Frank Vogel and give Phil Handy a shot.

After striking out at the trade deadline, the Lakers should aggressively pursue Orlando shooting guard Gary Harris if he gets bought out. The key to getting him to sign with the Lakers could be a promise he would be a starter.

Harris is a 27-year old, 6′ 5,” 210 lbs veteran shooting guard who averaged 11.7 points, 2.2 rebounds, and 1.9 assists in 29.5 minutes per game and will likely be one of the highly sought players in this season’s buyout market. Used to playing off the ball and reliably good on defense, Gary shot 44.4% from the field, 38.8% on 4.9 threes per game, and a sterling 84.4% from the line. He would immediately be the best two-way guard on the Lakers’ roster.

The competition to sign Gary Harris if he’s bought out will be intense and the Lakers are not the post-season favorite they were the previous two seasons when they signed buyout players Markieff Morris and Andre Drummond. Offering Gary a chance to start for the Los Angeles Lakers and compete for an NBA championship alongside superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis could be intoxicating for a young player heading into free agency.

For a young player like Gary, a chance to start and play for the big market Los Angeles Lakers could be the best brand marketing move he could make to raise his value as a player. No other team can the visibility the Lakers can. Harris would be a great fit on the Lakers both short and long-term. He could even earn a rotation role and a new contract with the Lakers. Even though this is his ninth season in the league, he’s still only just 27-years old.

The Lakers should prioritize looking for buyout players who could be viable starters alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis and then using the opportunity to start as their primary pitch to get them to sign with Lakers.

For the second straight year, the Lakers failed to make a move at the trade deadline, declining opportunities to improve the current roster and saving their 2027 first round pick to package with Russ for a third star this summer.

In a move designed to transform the failed Westbrook experiment into a home run opportunity, the Lakers are willing to write off the rest of this season to position themselves to trade for Damian Lillard this offseason. Best case scenario, the Lakers could package Russ’ $47.1 million expiring contract, Nunn’s $5.0 million expiring contract, Horton-Tucker’s $10.3 million contract, and unprotected 2027 and 2029 first round draft picks.

Leave it to the Los Angeles Lakers to try to turn a failed Westbrook experiment into a home run opportunity to trade for a legitimate third superstar who’s a more complementary fit with superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Not only are there no longer any untradeable contracts but there’s also an amazing transformation that happens whenever a significant player contract becomes an expiring contract.

That’s the game the Lakers are now playing and LeBron James and Anthony Davis both agreed to as Rob Pelinka turned down possible trade after possible trade because he would not give up their 2027 first round pick. Having the ability for two possibly unprotected post-LeBron James’ draft picks will give the Lakers the capability to trade Westbrook in a package that will bring back a third superstar who really fits LeBron and AD.

How the Lakers finish the season continues to be paramount. In many ways Los Angeles is still betting the house they can make the Russ experiment work and even rehabilitate Horton-Tucker’s and Nunn’s value as players. Knowing LeBron and AD had to be supportive of the decision, we can expect the Lakers to come together as a team and recommit to finishing the season strong and competing for a championship. Could that possibly work?

To start with, I don’t see any scenario for the rest of the season where the Lakers start winning without Russell Westbrook and Talen Horton-Tucker playing way better and Kendrick Nunn actually getting back on the court. Without question, I don’t see that happening with Frank Vogel as head coach. Coaches often have a shelf life with players and I think Frank no longer inspires and motivates this team. With 26 games remaining, the time may have come for the Lakers to fire Frank Vogel and promote Phil Handy.

The Lakers showed last night against the Blazers that Russell Westbrook was not their only problem. It’s also clear to everybody that Frank Vogel is not going to coaching Lakers next season. Lame duck coach is not answer. Lakers need to pull the plug on Frank and make Handy the Interim Coach for the rest of the season. That’s a move that would give the Lakers a chance to turn around the rest of this season so they’ll be in good stead this summer.

Lakers cannot leave Frank Vogel in charge of the franchise’s destiny the next 26 games. Time to change coaches and give this team its best chance to salvage what has become a nightmare season for the Lakers and their fans.