The huge need the Lakers still need to fill in free agency
By Jason Reed
It does not appear that the Los Angeles Lakers will be trading Russell Westbrook before the 2022-23 season begins. All trade talks have stalled and everything we know about the Lakers’ intentions in a possible Westbrook trade makes it very unlikely that he will be moved.
With that in mind, the Lakers have two open roster spots that they can utilize to improve the team. These open roster spots were important for a potential Westbrook trade but if that is not happening, the team needs to utilize them in other ways.
Los Angeles does not need to rush to fill these roster spots and the team can let training camp play out and see who is deserving. One thing is for certain, though. There is a very particular need that the front office should be looking to fill with at least one of these two open roster spots.
The Lakers desperately need to add more wing depth in free agency.
The Los Angeles Lakers have an unbalanced roster that has a lot of scoring guards and not a lot of wings. The wing depth got even worse when the team decided to trade Stanley Johnson instead of Wenyen Gabriel in the Patrick Beverley trade.
Gabriel might be listed as a power forward but he cannot space the floor and is more of a small-ball five than anything else. That leaves the Lakers with just two players on the roster that people would classify as wings.
That is Juan Toscano-Anderson and Troy Brown Jr., who combined averaged less than 30 minutes played per game for their respective teams last season. That is not necessarily the depth you want when you are looking at the wings on your roster.
Having athletic wings that can produce on both ends of the court is the most valuable thing that a team can have outside of star players. That is what made the 2020 Lakers so good. They had the likes of Danny Green, Kyle Kuzma and Markieff Morris, who all made an impact in the team’s title run.
The options at this point in the offseason are not going to be great but that should not stop the Lakers from addressing the need. If they don’t, the Lakers are going to roll out a rotation that is undersized, cannot shoot and doesn’t have size.
The team can at least make two of those problems better by just making smart decisions and adding to the roster where it deems necessary.