Los Angeles Lakers that may have played their last game in LA

The Los Angeles Lakers are NBA Champions, which means the end of the road for some players.

The Los Angeles Lakers won NBA Championship no. 17 on Sunday night in a routing over the Miami Heat. LeBron James had another vintage performance, Dwight Howard added a ring to his Hall of Fame resume and the team played stellar defense.

Right now we are celebrating. However, LeBron, Anthony Davis, Rob Pelinka and Jeannie Buss are not trying to create one championship-winning team — they are trying to create another dynasty to go down in Laker history.

We know that Pelinka will be back in his office in a few days gauging what the team is going to do this offseason.

Part of the offseason narrative is all of the Laker players that could leave the team. Over 10 Lakers this offseason are either free agents or have a player option and can leave the team. With this essentially being the first day of the Lakers’ offseason, we thought we would break down which players are going to stay and which are going to leave.

Let’s first dive into the non-factor obvious ones.

Minor role players that will leave: Jared Dudley, J.R. Smith and Dion Waiters.

Jared Dudley may not have contributed much to the team on the court all season but he was a veteran that was there all season long and served as a mentor for Kyle Kuzma. He did have an impact on this team.

Now Dudley is a champion and I would not be surprised if this is the last season of his career. Unless another title-contending team comes knocking on his door, Dudley really does not have much more to play for and does not really add anything new to any team.

As for Waiters and Smith, while they were both fan-favorites in their short time in LA, it was clear that they were brought in as depth to help the Lakers get to the NBA Playoffs healthy. Smith won’t be in the league next year and Waiters will get some decent one-year deal with another team that will lure him away from LA.