When Rob Pelinka and his front office sit down to truly examine not only their postseason run, but the NBA Playoffs as a whole, there should be an obvious takeaway for the Los Angeles Lakers. That would be just how lacking they were in two key departments.
It would actually be easy to find more than just two things that Los Angeles needs to fix in the 2025 offseason. Their list of priorities is long, and the overall questions about the roster are abundant as they shift to molding around Luka Doncic.
Studying their own shortcomings against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round and assessing the two teams in the NBA Finals should make matters crystal clear for Pelinka. The Lakers will need to add plenty of depth and athleticism during the offseason.
Lakers' deficiencies will weigh them down if left unfixed
The Timberwolves were able to reliably deploy, at minimum, an eight-man rotation against the Lakers in their first-round matchup. It gave them a clear and undeniable advantage against a unit that had JJ Redick struggling to find consistent contributors.
Plenty of those games would follow a very familiar script too. The Lakers would get ahead with a strong lead. The much fresher Timberwolves would erase it in the fourth quarter when Redick's group was huffing and puffing for air.
The Lakers were strapped so thin that many of their key players ranked towards the top of the minutes per game averages in this year's postseason. Doncic actually leads the NBA Playoffs in that category (41.6). That is a man coming off multiple injuries in 2024-25.
Looking at both the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers, who are competing for the Larry O'Brien, the value of depth and strong role players shows itself clearly. However it's not just the depth, but the athleticism of both teams that should stand out.
The Lakers had good size, which allowed them to execute a defense that often relied on switching assignments. The problem with that became obvious when the Timberwolves took advantage of the less capable defenders in that scheme, like Doncic and Austin Reaves.
LeBron James still had an easily winnable argument for being the Lakers' most athletic player who saw a significant amount of playing time in the postseason. James is an athletic model, even at 40 years old, but that should paint the picture as concerningly as it may seem.
Depth and athleticism are massive in the modern NBA. If the Lakers do not find a way to bolster their own during the offseason, it would not be shocking to anyone to see them meet a familiar fate in the 2026 NBA Playoffs.