5 massive what-ifs that hang heavy over this ugly Lakers season

The Los Angeles Lakers are currently embroiled in one of the worst seasons in franchise history. While there have been worse teams record-wise, the expectations vs. reality of this Lakers team makes it an embarrassment compared to the franchise’s long, prestigious history.

The worst part? It easily could have been avoided. Could the Lakers have “easily” won the NBA Championship? No. Could they have easily avoided being perhaps the biggest laughing stock in the NBA? Absolutely.

There will be plenty of fans thinking “what-if…?” after this horrible Lakers season.

Here are 5 massive what-ifs that hang heavy over this ugly Lakers season:

1. What if the Los Angeles Lakers traded for Buddy Hield instead of Russell Westbrook? 

This is the most obvious one so it has to kickstart the article. The Lakers appeared to be in the closing stages of acquiring Buddy Hield from the Sacramento Kings for Kyle Kuzma and Montrezl Harrell — so much so that Kyle Kuzma was legitimately shocked that he wasn’t traded to Sacramento.

Instead, Klutch Sports got involved and petitioned for Russell Westbrook and the rest is history. Nearly every problem with this Lakers team revolves around this one fork in the road moment by the team.

Buddy Hield is not an elite player and he is not even the best player the team could have traded for (more on that later), but he would have been a much better fit alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis and would have actually allowed the team to spend on depth.

Instead, they got a horrible fit and terrible depth to go with it.