The Los Angeles Lakers’ dream team if they nailed every draft pick

2021: Lakers traded pick 22 (Isaiah Jackson); Should have been: N/A

The 2021 draft was loaded with stars at the top, but it didn’t have too many surprises at the end. The Lakers selected Jackson and immediately included him in the trade for Russell Westbrook.

The Westbrook experiment was disastrous from the get-go in the most obvious and demoralizing ways, but once LeBron and co. made up their mind, it didn’t matter who was going to get picked here. They were all going to get traded.

Frankly, the Lakers didn’t miss out on too much. There are some rotation guys they could’ve had, including Jackson. Herb Jones is a beastly defender and the best player overall, but his iffy shooting would’ve made him a tough fit around James and Davis. Jeremiah Robinson-Earl is a quality backup big. Ayo Dosunmo is a Swiss Army Knife for Chicago but doesn’t project to be better than an average starter, at best.

It’s hard to get too excited about anybody knowing they would never be a Laker, anyway.

The Lakers eventually were able to extricate themselves from Westbrook admirably, bringing in an array of role players who all contributed in varying degrees to Los Angeles’ late-season run and subsequent conference finals berth. Any opportunity cost is more about which star the Lakers could have had instead of Westbrook (would DeRozan have been a better fit?).

2022: No first-round pick for the Lakers

Couldn’t have done much better with this one!