Lakers Need To Acquire Small Forward for Next Season
By Hannah Kulik
Mitch Kupchak and the rest of the Los Angeles Lakers’ front office has deservedly received praise for a pretty good offseason, all things considered, but if you take a look at the roster, there’s still a sizable hole at a key position: small forward. Take that a step further, and the Lakers don’t have a single, natural, NBA-proven player at the position.
So, while there are plenty of questions about next year’s team, the biggest of all right now is: Can the Lakers find something closer to a long-term solution?
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Let’s start with who’s already on the Lakers’ roster: they have 15 players under some form of contract for next season, if Robert Upshaw is signed in the coming days as was previously reported. This includes eight rookies and second year players from this season’s summer league roster, holdovers Kobe Bryant, Nick Young, Ryan Kelly, and Robert Sacre, and recent signings Brandan Bass, Roy Hibbert, and Lou Williams. Yet of the 15, there is only one natural small forward: Anthony Brown, and no one expects Brown to be the starter. Based on the summer league and draft position, it is unclear what kind of contribution he will be asked to make in the short term.
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Wesley Johnson, who started the past two seasons, is gone. There has been considerable speculation that Bryant might be asked to move from shooting guard to the wing position to take his place. Byron Scott and Mitch Kupchak suggested it could happen, but that was when everyone hoped D’Angelo Russell and Jordan Clarkson would be the starting guards. After Russell’s unexpected poor showing in summer league one must seriously question whether he’ll be ready in three months to be a starting-caliber NBA point guard.
If not, Bryant will have to play the “2” and the Lakers are again without a starting wing player. Even if Russell were to start and Bryant played the “3,” the latter cannot be counted on to play an entire season. Even if healthy his minutes are going to be limited and he will sit out games especially on the second night of back-to-back contests of which there are many in the NBA.
Young, a natural shooting guard, has played some small forward since joining the Lakers. However, this is the same Young whom the Lakers were anxious to trade this summer. He would have been traded but for the reported fact that no other team was willing to take him and his long-term contract. Despite recent comments from Kupchak, if they get a chance to dump Young’s salary before the season starts, one would think they’d jump at the opportunity. Further, under Mike D’Antoni, Young was far more comfortable coming off the bench.
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A small forward could most easily be acquired via free agency, where names like Dorrell Wright, Luc Mbah A Moute and J.R. Smith are the last wings on the market. None of which are what one would consider long-term options, but they could at least fill in if and when Bryant goes down with injury. Wright could still be a target, but Mbah A Moute is only available because of a failed physical and Smith is probably out of the Lakers’ current price range.
The Lakers could look to make a trade; but who is available to acquire at this late date? Many of the best free agents this summer were small forwards, but they were restricted and thus re-signed quickly with their own teams whose max offers exceeded what other teams could pay them. There were some talented rookie small forwards in the draft like Stanley Johnson and Justise Winslow, and if the Lakers had drafted strictly for need they might have chosen one of those two players, but they are unavailable now.
Further, who or what could the Lakers trade in order to acquire a good wing player? They don’t have any meaningful draft choices left in the short term. They would like to part ways with Young, Kelly, and Sacre but what return would those players fetch on the open market assuming anyone wants them at all? If there are no suitors, the obvious answer is the team will have to look to trade one or more rookies or second year players from their summer league squad. It is unlikely the Lakers would part with Russell, Clarkson or Randle unless they got something very significant in return. As for the other players – Tarik Black, Upshaw, Jabari Brown, Brown, and Larry Nance, Jr. – these are solid young players who have upside potential and it is possible two or more could be packaged if it brought the team in return a solid starting small forward.
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No matter what, the Lakers are unlikely to go into next season with 15 players on the active roster. As the front office takes stock of where the team is situated following the draft and free agency, it seems inevitable that a move will be made sometime this summer to trade for a small forward who can make an immediate contribution either as the starter or a key role player off the bench. They will try to use Young, Sacre and Kelly to make that happen, but if it doesn’t work, they will likely have to part with some of their young talent to acquire the player they need. Either way, it looks like Kupchak’s work this summer is not over.