Los Angeles Lakers: 5 steps to building a contender with Kyrie Irving

1. Stay healthy

The Lakers had an injury-riddled season, and that was probably the biggest reason it turned into a failure and the team’s sixth straight season of missing the playoffs.

Ingram is recovering from a blood clot that was caused by deep vein thrombosis, and it’s natural to be concerned about him having another blood clot. Ball is clearly injury prone and needs to build enough strength in his lower body so that he will withstand a full NBA season without getting hurt.

LeBron may have had the first major injury of his career this season, but there’s no indication that he is now injury prone, although as I mentioned earlier, his load needs to be lessened to reduce his risk of any new injuries and allow him to age gracefully.

If the Lakers do stay healthy, their roster would look like this after all the steps in the article:

PG: Ball, Irving, Alex Caruso

SG: Bullock, Josh Hart, Irving

SF: Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, shooter

PF: LeBron, Kuzma, shooter

C: McGee, other C, Wagner

Ingram and Kuzma can share duties as that third star or scorer who lays in the weeds so to speak and makes defenses pay for keying on LeBron and Kyrie. Caruso has proven he can play and should be a real solid third-string point guard. Hart seems like the kind of rugged role player that every championship team needs.

If that’s the Lakers’ roster come October and they stay relatively healthy for the whole season, it’s not the least bit unreasonable to say that come June 2020, they will be hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy at Staples Center or some arena back east.