Their opening night loss to the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets notwithstanding, the Los Angeles Lakers are one of the front-running candidates to win this season’s world title. It is something that was simply unthinkable nine months ago.
That is when they started to massively remodel their supporting cast around LeBron James and Anthony Davis. They first traded for instant offense forward Rui Hachimura. Then they jettisoned Russell Westbrook for D’Angelo Russell and Jarred Vanderbilt. That second trade acted as the proverbial defibrillator for the Lakers.
They advanced to the Western Conference finals, in which they were swept by the Nuggets, but executive Rob Pelinka was able to retain all of their key free agents while adding a few more this summer. Thus, for the first time in a few years, they have roster continuity from a previous season.
While the Lakers’ offseason was devoid of any big splashes, head coach Darvin Ham told Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson the team would rather win games than make noise in the news (h/t The Cold Wire).
“We don’t want to win the headlines; we want to win games,” Ham stated. “So we had to continue the process of trying to put together the best team possible — not just individual splash. We wanted to put together the best unit possible, and I thought we did it. Kudos to Rob, Jeanie (Buss), everybody — Jessie Buss, Joey (Buss), everybody up there.”
A big part of the core L.A. brought back was Russell, who played very poorly in the Western Conference finals versus Denver. Some believed he would be headed out in a sign-and-trade for a bigger name, but Ham praised him and made it clear how important he is to the team’s success.
“He’s our starting point guard,” Ham continued. “What he brings to the table, what he brought to the table — we don’t get to the Western Conference finals without D’Angelo. Make no mistake about that. His ability to play alongside ‘Bron and A.D., his individual skill set — he’s a former All-Star — very young player still, just now getting into his groove in terms of being in his prime, it was huge for us. Again, continuity — that was the keyword for us. We didn’t want to blow up the team and bring in all these mix-match pieces to have to take three, four, five months to figure things out. We wanted to bring back our same crew, our core crew and add pieces that we knew would seamlessly blend into what we got going on.”
Russell struggled again versus the Nuggets on Tuesday, going 4-of-12 from the field. However, he was 2-of-5 from 3-point range while dishing seven assists, proving he can still help his team even when he’s not playing particularly well.
