The Lakers have been extremely aggressive ahead of the 2017 NBA Draft in preparation of next offseason. On Tuesday, Los Angeles shipped 2015 No. 2 overall pick D’Angelo Russell and Timofey Mozgov’s albatross of a contract to Brooklyn in exchange for Brook Lopez and the No. 27 overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft.
The move gave the Lakers a second late first round pick that they are attempting to use, along with either Jordan Clarkson or Julius Randle, to trade for Paul George. Bringing George in this year would give the Lakers extra cap space for 2018, because they would be able to use his Bird rights to go over the cap to sign him if necessary, giving them max space to bring in another star to pair with George. The prevailing assumption is that the Lakers will try to use that space to bring in LeBron James, who is rumored to be at least open to listening to offers outside of Cleveland next summer when he hits free agency.
James’ Los Angeles connection is well known. He owns a home there and his future outside of basketball is with his budding entertainment and multimedia company that is based in L.A. The Lakers being in L.A. is a good selling point for James, but can they offer him enough to entice him to make his final stand in the NBA as part of the purple and gold?
James is entering his final run of his career and has to figure out what he wants out of the twilight of his career. If it’s to continue competing for championships, the Lakers have a long way to go over the next year before they can convince James that they can realistically compete with the Warriors in the near future.
Adding Paul George is the starting point, as it would give James another star to play with, but the rest of the Lakers’ roster will still be extremely young and very raw. James’ history indicates that he’s not all that interested in dealing with trying to drag a super young roster around and wait for them to figure things out. Even if James is the closest thing we’ve had to an unstoppable basketball robot, at some point the 32-year-old’s window will be closing.
For the 27-year-old George, the timeline of Brandon Ingram and presumptive No. 2 overall pick Lonzo Ball is plenty appealing. For James, that might not be the case.
There’s a reason that No. 1 overall pick Andrew Wiggins was dealt to Minnesota for Kevin Love when LeBron joined the Cavaliers. This offseason, Ingram has been kept off limits, and while he projects to have a tremendous ceiling, he still has a long way to go. Lonzo Ball’s father might think he can come in and run point for a championship caliber team early in his career, but you’ll be hard pressed to find much precedent for that — Kyrie Irving might be the best recent example and he was a fourth year guard in his first deep playoff run. Even that required lots of patience and tough love from James.
Few veterans that still feel capable of being stars on championship teams are fond of young players. Young players make mistakes, and in critical moments in the playoffs, mistakes end seasons. The Lakers, to compete, need more than just George. They need to add another high level player to their starting lineup to join James and George in order to battle the loaded Lakers and they will also need a far deeper bench unit than they have that includes some veteran backcourt additions. All of that can’t be done in a year’s time, and it would take one hell of a pitch from Magic Johnson and company to convince James that they can make that happen early in his window.
The Cavaliers have a similar problem in having to make moves to get better as well, as evidenced by their reported efforts so far this offseason to acquire Jimmy Butler or Paul George. The difference is, James knows that, at the least, he can get a crack at the Finals and the Warriors with the group as assembled in Cleveland, even if they likely need some significant tweaks to beat Golden State in a series. Without some other significant moves — which could be possible as the Lakers will have some serious cap room depending on what they can do with the contracts of Luol Deng, Julius Randle, and Jordan Clarkson moving forward — Cleveland remains a better choice for contending in the Finals immediately than the Lakers.
The other option for James’ final run in the NBA is to ride out into the sunset playing in a warm weather city with his friends. James said prior to the NBA Finals that family is the most important thing to him. James’ closest friends in the NBA, the guys that he may consider to be like family, are Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, and Carmelo Anthony. James has plenty of respect for George, and may think the two could do damage together, but George isn’t exactly what one would consider a close friend of James.
The Lakers have already had the Kobe Bryant farewell tour, and, even if they could bring in the banana boat crew — which, James, Anthony, and Wade all could be potentially gettable next summer — that doesn’t fit the desires of Magic Johnson, who wants championships. If playing with his friends in L.A. is James’ desire for his final chapter — and, hey, drinking wine at a beach house and playing basketball with your buddies while making millions sounds like a great time — then Los Angeles’ other team, the Clippers, seems like a far more likely option.
That scenario requires the Clippers to bring back Paul this year and free up space for next year, but Blake Griffin isn’t a stone cold lock to be re-signed and DeAndre Jordan is being shopped around according to reports. If the Clippers are thinking their best course of action is to reload and make a run for a title in the future, while the banana boat crew won’t yield tons of high draft picks in the immediate, they’d certainly be a box office draw for a few years that would make the playoffs and then they could begin a rebuild once the juggernaut that is the Warriors has died off.
The Lakers, on the other hand, are already in that building process and resetting that for a banana boat parade around the NBA makes little sense. Magic Johnson wants to compete and compete soon, but I’m not convinced that their timeline will fit with LeBron’s, who will be 33 by the time he hits free agency next year.
The Lakers can accelerate that with moves made this year, and it’s not out of the question that James would join the Lakers. But Magic and company have plenty of work to do beyond acquiring Paul George to make the Lakers an enticing enough fit for LeBron to bolt his hometown again for the beach.
