The Lakers Road Back to Relevance Heavily Hinges on Free Agency

The Lakers latest forays into the free agent market have been doomed from the start.

Armed with flawed priorities and the hubris required to think that elite players would consider joining a floundering franchise, the Lakers front office has struck out repeatedly in free agency over the last few years.

In the first article of this series, readers got  a preview of which players currently on the roster the Lakers need to retain, as well as a more in-depth discussion of the Lakers recent failings in free agency. This portion will focus on the players who compose this year’s free agent class, and discuss whether their additions are realistic and whether they would be helpful.

Although this class of free agents has been hyped for some time, in actuality the group is slightly top heavy. Beyond truly elite players that compose the top three to five, the pickings become much more slim, particularly for a team like the Lakers.

For the purposes of this article, players with almost zero chance of joining the Lakers will be left off the list. This includes Lebron James, who will almost certainly return to Cleveland, and Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol, both of whom already chose to depart Los Angeles in free agency.

It’s also impossible to cover every single player who will be available, with so many players hitting free agency this off-season. So this analysis will cover players who are notable for various reasons, be it their fit with the team or their notoriety from prior accomplishments.

Next: Unrestricted Free Agents: KD and Horford