Back during the 2020-21 season Rob Pelinka and the Los Angeles Lakers made a pretty favorable offer to Dennis Schroder. Los Angeles reportedly offered Schroder a four-year, $84 million contract extension that the point guard turned down.
Schroder was betting on himself and it did not pay off. He became a Taxpayer MLE signing that offseason with the Boston Celtics, was traded to the Houston Rockets, and at the time of writing this is still a free agent.
Schroder is likely going to be a minimum free agent signing before the 2022-23 season begins, proving that he fumbled the bag more so than any other player in the NBA. If he signs the minimum this year and the following two years he would have cost himself over $70 million.
Because of this, many Lakers fans view this as a massive dodged bullet for the franchise. However, in reality, the front office made a comedy of errors following this almost error to Schroder that ended up being even worse than a Schroder extension.
The Los Angeles Lakers would have been better off if Dennis Schroder signed his extension offer.
Yes, the Lakers would have been overpaying Schroder at $21 million a year but all things considered, that is a manageable contract for the team. That is certainly more manageable than the contract the team ended up trading for in Russell Westbrook.
Schroder would have had two more years under contract than Westbrook did but still would have made less overall than Westbrook has in LA. Plus, if we are being honest, Schroder probably would have been a better point guard for the Lakers last season.
Schroder is not great but he would not have actively hurt the team in the same way that Westbrook did. While he cannot step up as the second-best player on the team, he at least showed he could play third fiddle behind LeBron James and Anthony Davis without blasting the coach and organization.
Most importantly, Westbrook probably would not have been a Laker. Sure, there is a chance that the Lakers simply included Schroder in a Westbrook trade but it is unlikely. If Schroder was at point guard, it is much more likely that the team would have traded Kyle Kuzma and Montrezl Harrell for Buddy Hield, which almost happened anyway.
Whether or not a draft pick would have been included in that package is unknown. Regardless, the overall team dynamic would have been so much better in this alternate reality than it currently is.
The starting five would have been Schroder, Hield, LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Dwight Howard with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope also still being there on the bench. In a perfect world, the team would have re-signed Alex Caruso as well, but we all know that still probably would not have happened as they would have been in a similar spot financially with these two.
While that team has its flaws and we cannot change the injuries that happened last season, it definitely would have been better than last year’s actual team and would have been able to at least give the Lakers a chance to make a run in the playoffs.
And who knows? A healthy LeBron and AD with that supporting cast may have been able to beat the Golden State Warriors in the playoffs. It is not like Golden State was this unstoppable force. The title picture was definitely wide open.
Lakers’ best-case starting 5 in 2022-23 without Kyrie Irving
The Los Angeles Lakers may not get Kyrie Irving this offseason after all. If not, here is the best-case starting five the team can build.
Then this offseason during the Kyrie Irving trade talks the Lakers would have more options to get a deal done if they did want to bring Kyrie in. Instead, their only option is Westbrook and picks.