3 players in the NBA Finals who definitely should have been Lakers

The Lakers could have drafted Jaylen Brown in the 2016 NBA Draft

One year before the Lakers passed on a future All-NBA player with the second overall pick the team made the exact same mistake, passing on a future All-NBA player with the second overall pick.

Boston didn't pull off a heist of a trade to draft Jaylen Brown in the 2016 NBA Draft but the Celtics still benefitted from the Lakers making what was ultimately the wrong choice. Los Angeles took Brandon Ingram with the second pick, allowing Brown to slide.

Some may argue that the best version of Ingram is better than the best version of Brown but at the end of the day, Brown's style of play has resulted in winning basketball while Ingram has not. Brown is one of the best two-way wings in the sport and he absolutely would have had more success early on in Los Angeles than Ingram did.

There is a world in which the Lakers made the right pick two years in a row, taking Brown and Tatum so the Celtics couldn't. In that world, the Lakers may not have been as desperate to trade for Davis and would have simply waited for him to become a free agent to sign him.

Heck, maybe the Celtics would have drafted Ingram and Ball only to trade them for Davis. After all, the Celtics were involved in the Davis trade rumors back in 2019, and that could have ended up being his home.