The Los Angeles Lakers did not start the 2022-23 season as they had hoped. After a sluggish 1-5 preseason, the Lakers continued their poor play on opening night, falling rather easily to the Golden State Warriors.
It quickly became clear that this team needs serious help but it is unclear how long it will take for any help to come. Perhaps the front office should have been more aggressive in the offseason to build a team that could actually get out of the play-in, let alone contend.
Making matters worse is that a rumored trade target for the Lakers from this past summer came out and had an unexpected gem in his first game. It was not one of the potential players that LA could have got in return for Russell Westbrook, either. It was New York Knicks forward Cam Reddish.
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Reddish finished with 22 points on 60% shooting with five rebounds and three steals. He also made 50% of his threes in the game, which is something that would be welcomed on this Los Angeles team.
The Los Angeles Lakers could have potentially added Cam Reddish this offseason.
There was speculative interest in Reddish from the Lakers’ camp which was magnified by Reddish himself reportedly wanting to be traded; although he later refuted that report. Regardless, Reddish definitely was available for the right price and that price was not that high.
Is he going to keep this level of play up all season? Probably not. It would be incredibly surprising if he was suddenly scoring 20 points per game. However, flashes like this show his potential and on a bad LA team, he would have had more of a runway to be close to that 20-point-per-game scorer.
Los Angeles is desperately lacking wings with size and are desperately lacking players who can shoot the basketball. Reddish fits that billing, is a cheap option, and definitely could have been had for Rob Pelinka and the front office this season.
3 alarming observations about the Lakers role players
As expected, the Golden State Warriors dominated the new-look Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA's second game of the 2022-23 season.
Unfortunately, there are so many players in the league that are former Lakers, almost Lakers, or rumored-to-be Lakers that did not quite pan out that will ball out on a nightly basis. Meanwhile, those actually wearing the purple and gold will continue to disappoint, making every fan wonder about what could have been.