The Los Angeles Lakers are 3-10, haven’t won a single road game to date, have the 3rd worst record in the NBA, and don’t even own their 1st round pick in 2023. LeBron has missed 3 of the last 4 games due to an adductor strain, the club is 26th in the league in points per game, and dead last by healthy margin in 3pt % (30.7%).
So where do the Lakers go from here?
Slow Starts Killing LA
After starting out 0-5 for the first time since the 2015-2016 season, the Purple and Gold turned back a late rally by the Denver Nuggets to get their first victory of the 2022-2023 season with a 121-110 win over Nikola Jokic and company on October 30th. The Lakers trailed by five points after the first 12 minutes and fell behind by as many as 13 points before pulling away late.
While the rare win showcased Los Angeles’ ability to battle back, that game proved to be the exception and not the rule. The Lakers have seen massive deficits in the better part of their contests due to slow starts. Against the Clippers they trailed by 16 and battled back to take the lead before running out of gas. Versus the Warriors they trailed by as many as 27 points before reducing it single digits in the 4th quarter.
Time after time the Lakers are putting themselves behind the 8 ball with their lethargic pace out of the gate. As it currently stands, only the Rockets and Pistons are scoring fewer points than LA (26.1) in the 1st quarter of games this season.
Russell Westbrook Conundrum
Westbrook is currently averaging 16.3pts/5.5reb/7.2ast per game all while playing the fewest minutes per game of his career. While Lakers fans love nothing more than to take out their frustrations on Russ, the reality is he hasn’t been hurting the team this year. If anything, his play off the bench has been a lone bright spot in an otherwise dismal start to the season.
Head coach Darvin Ham has gotten Russ to begrudgingly accept his new role in the early going, but injuries to LeBron and a lack of wings and perimeter shooting has left LA shorthanded most nights.
Westbrook is currently in the final year of a 5yr/$206M contract that will see him paid $47M for his play this season. While that’s a hefty price tag for any trade partner to swallow, the real reason Russ hasn’t been dealt yet is that teams many assumed would be bottoming out this year for Victor Wembanyama are all sitting with .500 or better records.
Washington is 8-6, the Pacers are 6-6, Portland is leading the Western Conference at 10-4 and the Jazz are 10-6 themselves. At some point over the summer each of those teams were linked to LA as a potential Russ trade partner, but with their hot starts, their front offices are likely reconsidering their outlooks for the season.
Lakers GM Rob Pelinka’s reluctance to include any draft capital in potential deals as sweeteners has also put a damper on trade talks as well. And LA’s lack of bench depth means they don’t have any rotation players they can include to entice other franchises either.
Nevertheless, that hasn’t prevented the national media from linking a wide variety of players to the purple and gold since the season began.
Gordon Hayward
Many thought the Lakers would trade Russell Westbrook for a shooter during the 2022 off-season. While it’s unfair to pin the struggles of the Lakers on Westbrook alone, it doesn’t change the fact that the Lakers are in desperate need of a legitimate sniper.
Less than a week into the regular season, Hayward liked a tweet that said the Lakers should trade Russell Westbrook for a package that includes PJ Washington, Kelly Oubre Jr., and Hayward himself.
While it doesn’t mean Hayward necessarily wants to be traded to the Lakers, Hayward in a Lakers uniform would do wonders for Los Angeles’ sputtering offense.
If the Lakers were to acquire Hayward, Washington, and Oubre, it would solve some of the Lakers’ ongoing problems. However, this potential trade would also impact the team’s plans for the 2023 off-season.
One of the things a Hayward-centered trade would solve is the Lakers’ lack of depth on the wings, and of course, the woeful shooting from the three-point line.
Hayward is averaging 17.4 points, 4.1 assists, 4.3 rebounds, and 36% shooting from three- better than the entire Lakers team as a whole.
All three players could help space the floor for LeBron James and Anthony Davis. More importantly, the Lakers would finally be able to solve their Westbrook dilemma and reduce the media scrutiny in at least one regard.
On the other hand, this potential trade would mean the Lakers would have to take care of Gordon Hayward’s 120 million dollar contract that runs through the 2023-2024 season. That would impact the Lakers’ plans for the 2023 off-season, especially in terms of possibly signing a big name free agent such as Kyrie Irving.
It’s also been reported the Lakers are playing the wait-and-see game for the first 20 games of the season before pulling the trigger on anything. For some, the worry is that by that point it may be too late to salvage anything.
Myles Turner
“I know what I can do for a team. Highlight what I can do for a team,”
That’s what Myles Turner of the Indiana Pacers said when asked why the Los Angeles Lakers should trade their two first-round picks for a package that includes Turner and Buddy Hield.
This isn’t the first time Turner’s name has been included in trade rumours with the Lakers. During the 2022 offseason, the Pacers were among the few teams purported to be in the running to land Russell Westbrook via a trade. However, the Lakers’ reluctance to include more draft picks at the time ultimately killed the deal.
To the surprise of many, the Pacers are shockingly in a playoff position at the moment with a 6-6 record. While Tyrese Haliburton is leading the Pacers in scoring (20.5 points per game), the duo of Buddy Hield and Myles Turners have also been providing decent numbers of late.
Right now, the Lakers have two players listed as centers. While Anthony Davis is a power forward on paper, he’s been playing the center position more than power forward. And with Davis a ticking time bomb when it comes to injuries, the Lakers will need more from their centers moving forward.
Damian Jones has been largely ineffective in the early going, and Thomas Bryant has yet to play a single minute.
That’s where Myles Turner’s production and effectiveness will come into play- assuming the Lakers would revisit the initial deal.
The 6’11” center is averaging 17.9 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 3.1 blocks. He’s also shooting 37% from the three-point line- an area where the Lakers bigs have struggled of late.
At 26, Turner is still in his prime. With Turner as their potential starting center, the Lakers could move Anthony Davis back to his natural position and LeBron to his.
If the Lakers are able to get Myles and Buddy Hield in exchange for a package that would include Russell Westbrook, then sending those draft picks could be worth it. Afterall, LeBron has defied time thus far in his career, but age catches up with everyone eventually. Banking on there being a massive “window to compete” with LeBron seems like a foolish proposition.
Buddy Hield is averaging 18.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 41% shooting from the three-point line. But the more wins the Pacers rack up, the more difficult it will be to convince their front office that they’d be better suited long term to tank and stockpile draft picks.
In all likelihood, Turner and Hield are available, but today’s price tag is going to be higher than it was in the offseason.
Which brings us to an option that would have been unthinkable to Lakers fans only a few months prior.
Anthony Davis
Anthony Davis’ journey to join the Los Angeles Lakers was eventful to say the least. While playing for the New Orleans Pelicans, Davis demanded a trade but had to wait until the 2019 offseason to get what he wanted. To be fair to the Lakers, the blockbuster trade paid off as it led LA to its first NBA championship in ten years after winning it all inside the Orlando bubble in 2020.
Since then, the Lakers only have a first round loss to the Phoenix Suns to show for their efforts. The Lakers didn’t even qualify for the play-in tournament in 2022 despite having a “Big Three” of Davis, LeBron James, and Russell Westbrook.
And after 13 games in the 2022-2023 season, the Lakers stand at 3-10 with no solutions in sight. Many believe the Lakers’ problem lies in Russell Westbrook’s inconsistencies or LeBron James trying to stuff the stat line as he chases Kareem’s scoring record. Yet nobody is pinning the blame on Anthony Davis.
To his credit, Davis is averaging 24.3pts/11.2reb/2.5ast/1.8blk but those seem to be mostly empty numbers as the Lakers continue to suffer lopsided defeats. Most concerning is the cliff that his 3pt percentage has fallen off of late. Since 2020, Davis has shot 26%, 18.6% and 25% from beyond the arc.
If you look strictly at his numbers, one would think trading Anthony Davis wouldn’t make sense for the Lakers. However, if you take a deeper look at LA’s’ problems, they have yet to establish another winning streak since that early two-game run. In other words, they haven’t been a winning team despite Davi’s seemingly decent production.
In their last encounter against the Clippers, Davis finished with 21 points, nine rebounds, one block, while shooting 9 for 15 from the field. Here’s the irony: Davis’ numbers go up in their losses. A decent chunk of Davis’ averages are coming in garbage time when the outcome of the game has already been decided.
The difficult reality is that he’s no longer the same dominant Anthony Davis he was once in 2019 and beyond. Fans hold their breath every time he falls to the floor. Yes, he’s been playing through injury after injury since coming to Hollywood but that’s the thing. Injuries have long-term effects on the human body- more so on an athlete in general. Tying your future to an injury prone big man and a soon to be 38 year old is tempting fate in a big way.
Simply put, the Lakers aren’t a winning team even with a healthy Anthony Davis & LeBron James this season. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to make a case for them even making the play-in tournament this spring.
As mentioned, the Lakers said they would wait until the first 20 games of the new season before deciding on their next roster moves- particularly the one involving Russell Westbrook. But what if Russell Westbrook isn’t the problem after all?
What if Anthony Davis being a shell of his dominant self has been the real underlying problem for the Lakers all along? While it’s unlikely we’ll ever have a definitive answer to that question, the dilemma the Lakers now face is that the longer they let this saga play out, the more other franchises could take notice of Davis’ play as well.
This in turn could lead to diminishing trade value. So should the Lakers sell while they still can and hope to recoup some viable long term assets in return? Or do they take the chance that there’s still enough of a season left to right the ship on the west coast?
Time will tell, but they’re quickly running out of that as well.
-Iggy Gonzales
Photo: Erik Drost. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.