What’s Missing For The Los Angeles Lakers To Have A Happy 2024 Year?

With a 17–16 record and 9th place in the West, the Lakers’ performance on the road against the West-leading Timberwolves was a microcosm of the team’s encouraging and frustrating first 33 games of the 2023–24 season.

The encouragement came from the continued good health and dominating play of superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis and the Lakers’ ability to compete at an extremely high level against the best teams in the league.
The frustration came from the never-ending injury parade and inconsistent play from the Lakers’ role players and the head coach’s struggles to figure out how to build starting lineups and rotations with shooting and defense.

As the Lakers close out 2023 with a New Year’s Eve game in New Orleans against the Pelicans, they’re looking forward to the new year and to a January where they’ll play 10 of their 15 games at home in Los Angeles.
Then there’s January 15, when player who re-signed using Bird rights become eligible to be traded. Rui Hachimura and Austin Reaves are the Lakers players who will become eligible to be traded on January 15.

New Year’s Eve’s the perfect time for individuals and organizations to pause and reflect where they’ve been, where they are, and where they’re going. Let’s look where the Lakers have been, are now, and are headed in 2024.

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Not How L.A. Season Was Supposed To Start

After miraculously making it to the Western Conference Finals last season and enjoying a supposedly ‘elite’ offseason, the L.A. Lakers and their fans expected the first 40% of the 2023–24 season to go a lot better than it did.

That’s not to say this team did not have it’s moments. For better or worse, they did champion and win the inaugural In-Season Tournament though maybe soiling their ‘Championships Only’ ID by hanging the ISL banner.
And LeBron James continues to dominate Father Time and prove he’s still a superstar at age 39 while Anthony Davis has been the heart and soul of the Lakers and has now become the alpha player L.A. must have on the court.

At their best, the Lakers have shown glimpses of the team that made it to the conference finals, especially against the best, but injuries and their inconsistent play and coaching have hamstrung them so far this season.
While injuries ravaged the role players, Gabe Vincent became the new Kendrick Nunn, DLO and Reaves’ defense became unplayable at times, and Ham continued to play defenders who couldn’t shot, the Lakers survived.

That’s all that matters right now. Last year, it took the Lakers until March 30 to reach .500. Right now, they’re already over .500 and in a dramatically better position to rise than they were at the end of December last season.
The Lakers have the league’s 22nd offensive rating, the 9th defensive rating, and 19th net rating this season. That’s a solid improvement over last season’s 17th offensive rating, 21st defensive rating, and 25th net rating.

What the Lakers learned from the first 33 games is that a healthy and engaged LeBron James and Anthony Davis is still all they need to compete for an NBA championship. Now they just need to upgrade a few pieces.

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Lakers Are Win Streak Away From 4th in West

As frustrating this season has been so far, the Los Angeles Lakers should nevertheless be grateful for where they are and the health and great play of James and Davis. The Lakers are just 3 games away from 4th in the West.

While the deep West is going to be a challenging every game, the Lakers are just a big winning streak away from catapulting themselves out of the 7–10 Play-In Tourney grouping and into the top-6 guaranteed playoff teams.
After tonight’s game in New Orleans vs. the Pelicans, the Lakers will face a more friendly schedule that has them playing 10 of 15 games in January in Los Angeles. The Lakers’ goal should be to be 4th seed by end of January.

With James and Davis dominating like during the 2020 championship run in the bubble, the Lakers just need their head coach to stabilize the starting lineup and rotation and their role players to come through and perform.
Right now Ham wants to prove the Lakers can win with a starting lineup that boasts two elite defenders who are non-shooters in Cam Reddish and Jarred Vanderbilt. For a change, that lineup was great against the Wolves.

To his credit, since the lineup change where Reddish, Vanderbilt, and Prince join superstars James and Davis, the Lakers have competed at a high level despite playing the league’s best. Ham’s not likely to backtrack now.
But the need for a trade soon is growing as Ham leans more and more on James and Davis. If what they want necessitates trading Rui Hachimura or Austin Reaves, the Lakers will then have to wait until after January 15.

Meanwhile, the Lakers hope their recent improved 3-point shooting will continue as they pray and hope they can push the ‘Go Bigger’ philosophy to win games until they can pull off a desperately needed blockbuster trade.

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What’s Missing For Lakers to Have Happy 2024?

New Year’s Eve’s the perfect time for individuals and organizations to pause and reflect where they’ve been, where they are, and where they’re going. Embracing that, here’s what’s missing for the Lakers to have a happy 2024.

1. New Starting Point Guard
   The Lakers are committed to trading D’Angelo Russell, which means they must also bring back a new point guard via trade or play James at the point guard. The best solution may be to trade Russell and draft capital to the Atlanta Hawks for point guard Dejounte Murray.
2. New Starting Power Forward
   The Lakers also need to find a second big to pair with Anthony Davis who can provide better 3-point shooting and offensive spacing than Jarred Vanderbilt. The ideal solution to giving the starting lineup more firepower and playmaking would be to trade for Kelly Olynyk.
3. New Backup Center
   The Lakers need to double down on their winning blueprint of winning points-in-the-paint and free-throws-made by investing via trade in a quality rim protector to play center when Anthony Davis rests. Top solution to fill that role would be a trade for Wizards’ Daniel Gafford.

Below is a the result of Lakers trades for Dejounte Murray, Kelly Olynyk, and Daniel Gafford. Hawks would get Lakers 2029 pick and 2028 & 2029 swaps, Jazz no protection on 2027 pick, and Wizards 2 second rounders.

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Lakers Depth Chart After Trades:

PG: Dejounte Murray, Austin Reaves, Jalen Hood-Schifino
SG: Taurean Prince, Cam Reddish, Max Christie
SF: LeBron James, Jarred Vanderbilt, Maxwell Lewis
PF: Kelly Olynyk, Christian Wood
CE: Anthony Davis, Daniel Gafford, Jaxson Hayes