Los Angeles Lakers: How good the Lakers could have been with Chris Paul
Beyond:
I hear what some readers might be saying at this point. “The Los Angeles Lakers would’ve only been serious contenders for one year and even that wasn’t a lock. Why is this such a big deal?”
The reason that most hardcore Lakers fans are still resentful about veto-gate isn’t just because it denied Kobe Bryant the chance at equalling Michael Jordan’s six rings. With Dwight Howard in his prime, a few extra draft picks up their sleeve, and Mike D’Antoni at the helm, a coach that Chris Paul shared success with down the track in Houston, there’s no reason to expect that the Lakers couldn’t have enticed CP3 to re-sign a long-term deal.
It’s hard to project whether that would’ve led to any titles, but with how much of a hot-spot free agency destination the Lakers were at the time, it’s not exactly a stretch to say that the duo could’ve had a lot of success together for many years.
Instead, the reality was that after the 2012-13 season, a combination of a heavily aging roster, some awful contracts (looking at you Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng), and a lack of assets to facilitate rebuilding, led the Lakers to the worst stretch of years in franchise history. This stretch only came to an end this season and was one where the Lakers were tied for the worst record in the NBA over a six-year period.
As for the Clippers? Although they never made it to the Western Conference Finals, suffering from heartbreak after heartbreak while Chris Paul was tenured there, the rise of Lob City led to them being a respectable NBA franchise for the first time in their history.
As a Los Angeles Lakers fan, it’s unfortunate that this happened to coincide with a certain Kawhi Leonard’s playing career, because I hold a firm belief that the Clippers’ reputation as a well-run organization compared to the Lakers heavily influenced his decision to sign with them as a free agent last year.
Veto-gate robbed the wider basketball public of their chance to see two all-time greats together in the same back-court in Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul. It robbed Kobe Bryant of a chance at a sixth title. It spurred the Lakers into making a series of panic moves that led the franchise to unprecedented mediocrity.
Next. Best second superstars in franchise history. dark
And, if you’re a believer in the phenomenon of “The Butterfly Effect“, you could argue that it indirectly led the best free-agent on the market straight into the hands of the Los Angeles Clippers this past offseason. All due to two words that will be firmly entrenched in the minds of Los Angeles Lakers fans for a long, long time: “Basketball Reasons”.