The Los Angels Lakers are very much using 2018 to build towards the future. While they have some intriguing young talent in Lonzo Ball and Kyle Kuzma, they’re also in a bit of a cap crisis and need to get some money off the books to achieve what seems to be some lofty goals in free agency.
Finding trade partners for Julius Randle and others might be a step in the right direction, but there have been frustrations. The team, for example, has given up on trading Luol Deng, a necessary step in getting some salary cap space.
This is part of the plan, of course, and Lakers legend Kobe Bryant stressed on Friday that patience is needed to let the team’s “bright future” shine when the time comes. Bryant believe the Lakers can be good down the road, but thinks that giving up on young talent to get to that point could be perilous.
* @kobebryant added this on the Lakers: “They have a bright future. You just gotta be patient. The last thing you want to do is break the team up and then 4, 5 years from now look back and see how great they are someplace else.”
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) January 6, 2018
That bright future will almost certainly involve a lot of new players. And part of that process is getting rid of those that are not part of the future. On Saturday, for example, the Lakers waived Andrew Bogut.
Sources: The Los Angeles Lakers are releasing center Andrew Bogut. With Lakers at 11-27, this allows sides to part ways and Bogut to pivot toward signing with a playoff team.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) January 6, 2018
Bogut had admitted earlier in the season that the team is openly discussing its cap situation, which hasn’t made for the best mood among the players currently on the team. That’s not to say he was being punished, though: The team hopes he finds a playoff team and can be a contributor elsewhere.
These are the growing pains a team trying to get right will have to go through, and Bryant stressing patience is smart. But it takes a long time to fix a franchise that’s in a rut, and it’s often easier said than done.
