The Lakers did basically nothing this offseason, but is that clouding the projections for them next season?
The Lakers offseason was about as anticlimactic as one could have possibly imagined. As I write, only three teams have not signed a free agent this offseason: the Celtics, the Cavs and the Lakers.
Boston and Cleveland have either re-signed or extended players on their roster. Both were teams that made it to at least the second round of the playoffs and the Celtics, allegedly, went even further than that.
However, after being bounced from the first round by the Nuggets, the Lakers responded by replacing Taurean Prince and Spencer Dinwiddie with Dalton Knecht and Bronny James. Sure, they fired their head coach, but they replaced him with a first-time coach.
Likely riding off those vibes of the offseason, ESPN released it’s predictions for the Western Conference standings next season and had the Lakers as the No. 11 seed, not even making the play-in game. Granted, the separation between sixth-seeded Kings and 11th-seeded Lakers was three games, but the fact remains they view the Lakers on the outside looking in right now.
I consider myself a more optimistic person, particularly when it comes to sports. I think JJ Redick will be a good head coach, but I have nothing to base that on other than feelings. I think the Lakers’ offseason wasn’t as bad as others do, but I also acknowledge that this is the same flawed team that lost a frustrating series to the Nuggets last season.
But even if the feelings on this team aren’t great right now, there are still factual reasons to believe this team will be good.
Even as flawed as they are, the Lakers were one of the best teams in the league for the final three months of the season. After inserting Rui Hachimura into the starting lineup, the Lakers became the third-best offense in the league through the remainder of the regular season.
Once the playoffs came around, the Lakers led the Nuggets for three-quarters of the series. If not for a set of circumstances as anomalous as has happened, the Lakers would have walked into the second round of the playoffs.
Instead, a pair of game-winners from Jamal Murray — either of which bounces another direction and the Lakers might have been looking at a Game 6 in Los Angeles and potentially more — sent the Lakers home and into this underwhelming offseason.
Even if you are pessimistic about the current state of the Lakers, this is still a team that, for the better part of last year, was a competitive team. Set aside the post-IST stretch when they went 2-9 and this was a team on a 52-win pace, a mark that would have had them top-four in the West.
This is a lot of arbitrary stat-picking mixed with some “what if,” but what remains is that this is still a good Lakers team. If Redick is any sort of upgrade on Darvin Ham, then the team takes another step forward.
Ultimately, I’m not going to get too bothered about ESPN projecting in mid-August that the Lakers won’t make the play-in. However, no matter how bad the offseason may have been for the Lakers, this is still a good team and it doesn’t take too much squinting to envision this team being out of the play-in game in the other direction next season.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.
