3 playoff heroes who easily could have been on the Los Angeles Lakers

2. Alex Caruso

Alex Caruso leaving the Los Angeles Lakers has been well-documented, especially here at Lake Show Life. Every single Laker fan knows that Caruso could have been a Laker this season and wanted to be. Instead, Jeanie Buss and co. got cheap and did not want the added luxury tax payments.

I get it, signing Caruso would have had a massive impact on the luxury tax because of the tiers the Lakers would have climbed with the signing. That being said, the Lakers are a multi-billion dollar franchise that is the second-most valuable in the NBA. I promise they could have afforded the dent in their bottom line.

Los Angeles essentially chose Talen Horton-Tucker over Caruso, which backfired pretty quickly when the team shopped THT at the deadline and realized he no longer had any trade value of merit.

Meanwhile, Caruso did more of the same for the Chicago Bulls in the regular season and has been fantastic for the team in the playoffs. Caruso has had a massive defensive impact on the Bulls, even defending Giannis Antetokounmpo and doing a really good job.

Caruso is getting a lot of love from the national NBA media and this is all just more of the same for Laker fans, who sadly have to remember the days when Caruso and LeBron were the best two-man lineup (in terms net rating) in the entire league.