Lakers’ Front Office Must Prioritize Patience

When I first sat down to write this article, I originally intended to frame it as “What Would It Take The Lakers To Make The Playoffs?” It’s simply too easy to abandon the patience I’ve preached this last season, and it’s for that exact reason Mitch Kupchak and Jim Buss must avoid that temptation at all costs.

To call this rebuild successful would be a stretch. To call it enjoyable would be an outright lie. As tough as it’s been to watch, though, there is a light – albeit flickering – at the end of the tunnel. This light could be extinguished by a gamble that doesn’t pay off.

-== 11 Players The Lakers Missed On In The NBA Draft ==-

Anytime a player is rumored to be unhappy with is current situation, whether DeMarcus Cousins in Sacramento or Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City, it’s typically only a matter of time until I’ll get a question from a fan as to whether I’d move the Lakers’ top-five pick to acquire the elite talent.

My answer is almost always the same: Only if the pick falls outside the top three would I even consider it, but only for a second.

This rebuild is fairly straight forward. In order to compete year-in, year-out for deep playoff runs during Kobe Bryant‘s prime, Kupchak gutted the franchise of assets for veteran help or big-splash moves. His (in my opinion, fireable) mistake was watching those guys he acquired depart without netting anything but cap flexibility in return.

So, the first half of trying to piece the franchise back together has been acquiring glue, though in the shape of any aforementioned assets he could put his hands on. To his credit, the Lakers will have multiple picks in the upcoming draft and can still acquire others in the same fashion he did with late-draft gem Jordan Clarkson.

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Incoming rookies almost never enter the league as superstars immediately. That’s not the point. Having a core of young players grow together inexpensively allows Kupchak to fill out the roster more evenly than gathering superstars and hoping to find bargains elsewhere. When your “bargains” are talented rookies from the top end of the draft, not only can you acquire top end talent for immediate impact, but the future becomes all the brighter.

Let’s take a look at those trades. I mentioned a “gamble” earlier that would extinguish a bright future very quickly if it doesn’t pay. While it’s hard to imagine guys like Cousins and Westbrook not paying off, the Lakers would be a player-coach flare up or tweaked knee away from once again gutting the organization with nothing to show.

Look, everything could break perfectly this offseason for the Lakers and they still wouldn’t be in a position to make the playoffs. Clarkson could take a step forward. Not only would the Lakers keep their pick, but it could vault to the top of the draft. Kobe and Julius Randle could return at full health. Kevin Love could opt out of his contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers and return to where he played college basketball. Kupchak could turn heel on his outdated ideology towards restricted free agents and somehow pry DeMarre Carroll from the Atlanta Hawks with a godfather offer. Then, with the remaining cap space, the Lakers could fill out the rest of the roster with role players to fill in any gaps.

Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

Oh, and if fans are dead-set on Westbrook to LA, he’ll be a free agent in two years.

That team still won’t contend for the playoffs right away, but they’d have a decent mix of immediate and future impact players. In this scenario, the rebuild would be extremely successful and would mitigate more of the risk associated with the types of “all-in” moves that led to this point.

Now, look at what the roster might look like with one of those moves. That top-five pick and Clarkson would probably go to Oklahoma City for Westbrook. Maybe his arrival cements Love’s decision to also join the Lakers. Kobe and Randle would have to return at full strength. With the flexibility spent on Love and Westbrook, Kupchak would need to find basement bargains to fill out the roster. If everything breaks right, maybe they contend for the playoffs. I can’t see much beyond that.

Given the Lakers’ recent injury history, could you honestly see everything breaking the right way? No, me neither. Instead, everything would probably just break.

The Lakers would have (again) abandoned the future for names and the hope of contention and, chances are, they’d be right back in this current situation all over again in a few years.

As much fun as it’d be to watch Kobe pass the torch to Westbrook as they share the same backcourt, it shouldn’t come at the future’s sacrifice – especially when Westbrook could just come to Los Angeles as a free agent in 2017.

I get it. The idea of returning this franchise to playoff contention and, by extension, title contention is ridiculously tempting. I very nearly fell victim to ignoring my own message. But as the age-old saying goes: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

In this case, the history Kupchak has to learn from are the moves better off avoided.

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