The Los Angeles Lakers missed out on superstar talent this summer. They had LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki, Chris Bosh, and Carmelo Anthony, who was their main target, in sights. None of those guys wanted to play for Los Angeles, forcing the Lakers to fill out their roster with Jeremy Lin, Ed Davis, Carlos Boozer, and some of the players from last season such as Nick Young, Jordan Hill, Xavier Henry, and Wesley Johnson.
Looking at the Lakers roster for next season, they definitely are not championship contenders. They will hardly be playoff contenders. The Lakers barely made any attempts to snatch quality players such as Trevor Ariza, Luol Deng, Spencer Hawes, and Isaiah Thomas when they had the chance. Eric Bledsoe and Greg Monroe are still available, but the Lakers spent their money already. Certainly, any two or three of those guys would have put the Lakers in playoff contention at the very least.
Instead, the Lakers decided that they will take expiring contracts and hand out one-year deals to almost all the players they signed this off-season. With all the one-year contracts, it seems like the Lakers want to have cap space for next summer in hopes to try and land a star talent once again.
However, next year’s costless agency is nowhere near as deep as this year’s was. Kevin Love, LaMarcus Aldridge, Marc Gasol, Rajon Rondo, Tyson Chandler, Tim Duncan, and Manu Ginobili are the big names next season. Kevin Love will soon officially be a Cleveland Cavalier, where he will most likely opt out and re-sign with them long-term. LaMarcus Aldridge has already verbally committed to re-signing long-term with the Portland Trail Blazers. Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobii will most likely retire, but if they don’t, they will probably re-sign with the San Antonio Spurs. Rajon Rondo, Tyson Chandler, and Marc Gasol are the only realistic options for the Lakers, but Gasol has a better thing going for him in Memphis, making it unlikely for him to sign with L.A. Chandler would be a decent pickup and Rondo would be a great pickup for the Lakers, but they will have to fight for him with New York, which may be a more attractive place for Rondo to go to if he indeed leaves the Boston Celtics.
Where does Kobe Bryant stand in all of this? Well, Kobe has two years remaining on his contract. The Lakers do not have a winning team this year, and it is hard to imagine that they have a championship caliber team next year, meaning Kobe’s championship window is coming to a close.
Let’s say Kevin Love and LaMarcus Aldridge decide to test costless agency instead. What makes the Lakers believe they can land any of them? They do not have an attractive roster. It seems like no one wants to play with an aging Kobe Bryant anymore, and that’s the only attraction they are going to have next off-season again. Now, if the Lakers went all out on Eric Bledsoe earlier in the off-season and were able to pry him away from the Phoenix Suns and also signed the likes of Trevor Ariza and Spencer Hawes or Greg Monroe, the Lakers would have been a more attractive place for stars because they would have been a strong playoff team with young, up and coming talent. Understandably, the Lakers would not have cap room to sign a player like Love or Aldridge with the roster mentioned above, but they would be able to execute a sign-and-trade to upgrade their roster even more.
The Lakers have taken a completely different path and if Kobe Bryant only has two more years left in the tank, then he is unlikely to win his sixth ring to tie Michael Jordan, which is what he has wanted for years. Kobe Bryant cannot be the best player on a championship team any more. With all the injuries he endured in the past year and a half, he is going to need more help. Since the Lakers missed out on Carmelo Anthony and other superstars this year, they had the chance to build an enticing team, but they built a subpar team instead and will gamble on star talent next season once again.
It’s unlikely for the Los Angeles Lakers organization to settle for a lottery team for back-to-back seasons. They would usually go big and spend their money on quality players rather than forfeit yet another season. In the meantime, Kobe is wasting valuable years and not getting any closer to winning another title.
Perhaps Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak do actually have something cooking in the near future but at this moment, they seem to be headed for inferiority for a second straight season, leaving Bryant with one final chance to win it all next year, which seems unlikely as well.
Kobe Bryant will be 37-years-old when his contract is done and will be 38 if he plays beyond it. That thought needs to sink in with the Los Angeles Lakers organization because they have forgotten that Kobe is only human, and his time is, unfortunately, nearing an end, and they are far from being contenders.
It will be interesting to see where the Los Angeles Lakers go from here, and how they can manage to potentially build a championship team in a short period of time to give Kobe Bryant one final, realistic chance at winning a ring.