The Los Angeles Lakers’ season is all but over except for the final few games left to be played before the postseason begins. For the first time in nine years, there will be no LeBron James in the NBA Finals. What’s worse for the 16-year veteran is that this is the first time in the last 14 years that he will not be participating in the playoffs.
James in L.A. seemed like a dream pairing when the Lakers signed him to a four-year contract worth $153 million. For much of the season, however, it was a nightmare.
Magic Johnson, the team’s president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka will be answering for their misguided presumption that they could tweak their new superstar’s familiar surroundings and expect him to carry the franchise to the playoffs and beyond.
But the duo isn’t the only ones at fault here.
Since coming to the City of Angels, James has had to deal with more scrutiny than he’s ever received. If he was already under the microscope for his entire career while playing in Cleveland and Miami, going to L.A. dissected him and shredded him for evidence of his greatness. He’s playing for a proud franchise now, one that has lifted up championship banners 16 times, a feat surpassed only by the Boston Celtics’ 17. The Akron, Ohio native should have realized that he can’t cruise through the regular season anymore and expect his team to come out near the top of the standings.
James chose to rest on defense a lot this season, something he’s done the past few years, and that’s a no-no for someone who was one of the best defensive players of the league during his prime. Missing out on his defensive assignments, aside from not bringing the Lakers to the playoffs this year, has damaged James’ reputation seemingly beyond repair.
But fret not Laker faithful! James and the Lakers have the opportunity to bounce back from this nightmarish season if they play their cards right from here on.
Here are five ways for both LeBron James and the Lakers to bounce back next season:
5. Player Development or Championship Contender? Choose!
One of the difficulties that the Lakers faced prior to this season was the indecision on whether to become a championship contender this season or to invest on the youngsters and give them room to grow and develop. They thought they could do both and the result was a disaster.
Magic and Pelinka figured out what they really wanted to do this season when they pursued the New Orleans Pelicans Anthony Davis during last month’s trading deadline frenzy. But it was already too late by then. Though they failed in their pursuit, it narrowed down their focus to what they ultimately wanted from this season which is to win a championship.
This time, expect the Lakers to have a more deliberate plan to build a championship-caliber team around James. They have a small window of only three more years before the future Hall of Famer decides where he wants to go next and it might not be in L.A. any longer. That’s especially true if he feels that the franchise isn’t capable of giving him the right pieces to succeed.
It’s time for the Lakers to say goodbye to their young core of Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart, Kyle Kuzma and Brandon Ingram. As good as these kids maybe down the line, they’re not ready to compete for a title just yet and the Lakers can’t afford to wait for them to grow.
4. Fire Luke Walton, Hire Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy
It’s a foregone conclusion that Luke Walton’s time as the head coach of the Lakers is at an end. His tenure at the helm of one of the NBA’s most storied franchises was promising at the beginning but he just couldn’t get this team over the hump. Though he has had to deal with a ton of injuries this season, ultimately, it’s not enough of an excuse to warrant a return to the sidelines next season.
With the Lakers going on coach hunting once the season is over, Johnson should look no further than the ESPN broadcasting booth where former head coaches Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy are currently working. Jackson is credited for much of the success that the current Golden State Warriors team is enjoying and rightfully so. His defensive system set the tone for what would soon become one of the best in the league for the past half decade.
Steve Kerr acknowledged Jackson’s genius during the 2017 NBA Finals after going up 2-0 against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“When I was in TV, I was doing Warriors games for years; every year, they were one of the worst defensive teams in the league,” Kerr said via Kristian Winfield of SB Nation. “Mark came in and made a focus of being a tough defensive-minded team. The year before I got here, the Warriors were the fourth-ranked defensive team in the league — already top-five. We knew what we had. We didn’t change one thing defensively. We started switching more when Draymond [Green] took over that power forward role. But for the most part, our schemes — everything — stayed the same.
“We already knew they had established that defensive identity. Our job was to improve the offense — to get more movement and more flow. And that was my focus.”
His partner in the broadcasting booth, Jeff Van Gundy, was also one of the best defensive coaches during his time as both assistant and head coach of the New York Knicks. He took a Knicks team missing Patrick Ewing to the 1999 NBA Finals on the strength of his defense. He was also the head coach of Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming during some of the best years in the mid-2000s for the Rockets franchise.
If the Lakers can somehow put these two together with Jackson as the head coach and Van Gundy as his primary assistant, the Lakers will have one of the top defenses in the league next season. It’s been a while since James played for a coach who has had an excellent defensive philosophy and with Jackson and Van Gundy working together, he might be playing for the best defensive team he’s ever had.
Oh, and there’s also the side benefit of having Van Gundy causing a lot of laughs in the locker room, too. He’s probably the most hilarious broadcaster in the business and he wasn’t too shabby as a head coach as well. Watch how he tried to be a tough guy during the infamous Alonzo Mourning vs. Larry Johnson altercation in the 1998 playoffs.
Wouldn’t you want Van Gundy to try and pull this off again in a game just for fun? That would make for one hilarious moment for the Lakers who need some light moments like these after a horrendous 2018-19 season.
Jackson and Van Gundy would be the perfect pair to coach James and the Lakers, don’t you think?
3. Ditch the Playmakers, Acquire Shooters
Last summer, the Lakers sought to surround the 15-time All-Star with an enigmatic group of veterans who didn’t quite fit the usual mold of players that work well with James.
JaVale McGee, Rajon Rondo, Michael Beasley and Lance Stephenson weren’t the sharp-shooters that James was accustomed to playing with when he was plying his trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Miami Heat. The plan, as the Lakers brass explained, was to acquire playmakers who would push the ball up and down the court and allow the 34-year old superstar to play more in the post.
Unfortunately for the Lakers, Walton hardly implemented the plan as James would be seen routinely bringing the ball down the court despite the presence of point guards Lonzo Ball and Rondo. What was James doing? Rather than have more time to rest while on the court, he was overextending himself.
Fortunately for James, all four players were only signed to one-year deals which makes them free agents in the offseason though Beasley was already gone before the trade deadline. As good as Rondo is, James needs a point guard who can shoot the 3-ball consistently, someone who’s a threat from deep in case he gets double teamed.
Players such as Tobias Harris, Bojan Bogdanovic, Nikola Mirotic, Wesley Matthews, Tomas Satoransky and Trevor Ariza should be some of the free agents that Pelinka has on his radar by now. If the Lakers play their cards right, their roster should resemble a title contender with a number of shooters all around.
Don’t be surprised if James is the last remaining player from the 2017-18 team before the start of the 2019-20 season.
2. Get Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving
The Lakers will be looking to try and acquire Davis once again this summer and it’s not that far-fetched for them to succeed this time around.
If the Celtics, their primary rival for AD’s services, fail to re-sign Kyrie Irving to a contract this July when free agency hits, there’s very little reason for the Brow to want to play in Boston. Since basketball operations president Danny Ainge will have to send Jayson Tatum as part of a package to New Orleans in exchange for Davis, losing Irving to free agency will be like playing for the Pelicans once again, only worse. The only All-Star left will be Gordon Hayward and it’s not a guarantee that Davis will want to play alongside someone who hasn’t lived up to his $32-million a year deal.
Meanwhile, the Lakers not only have James under contract for a few more years, they also have cap space to sign another one. Don’t be surprised if Irving ends up being that other player. He and his former Cavs teammate have seemingly settled their issues and are now good buddies once again. Would Irving want to play under James’ shadow again? Will he want to play third-stringer to James and Davis in L.A.?
Though it goes beyond what Irving intended for himself when he asked for a trade from the Cavaliers back in 2017, his time in a Celtics uniform may have showed him that his best chance of simply playing fun basketball is to let someone else take on the leadership role he so desperately craved. Irving is a fantastic talent but he may have soured on being a leader after such a contentious locker room in Boston this season.
Davis and Irving will not only put the Lakers back the championship track once again, but they’ll also be considered the number one choice to win a title next season. It’s now up to Johnson and Pelinka to get these deals done.
1. Play LeBron in the Post
After playing from the perimeter for much of his career, James should realize by now that his best position on the court from this point in his career onwards is to work in the post. At 34 years old, he’s no longer the spry young kid who can play with aggression from start to finish.
His aversion to post play is baffling especially after he studied with Hakeem Olajuwon in the summer of 2011, shortly after James’ forgettable Finals performance that June. As the years passed, he has looked uncomfortable shooting over players who are many inches shorter than he is while backing them down. Too often, when he is caught in a mismatch with a smaller player, he tries too much to go inside at the little guy while coming from the perimeter. By the time he gets to the paint, the double team has arrived and he ends up taking a bad shot.
Granted that he does play in the post every now and then, he has to change his game so that his primary instincts lead him there. During last year’s playoffs against the Toronto Raptors, James could do no wrong in the second game of the series when he scored 43 points. In the fourth quarter, he went to the high post more and it was a thing of beauty to see him outplay every player thrown at him by former coach Dwane Casey.
Rather than work on his perimeter shooting or another facet of his game this summer, James should focus on polishing his high and low post game. He’ll find plenty of opportunities for his teammates and for himself, keep him fresh from all the ballhandling duties over the years and free up the rest of his game.
Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, two players that James has been compared to for much of his career, recognized that they had to evolve if they wanted to continue playing at a high level as they aged. The 4-time MVP has to diversify his game and do the same. He already has the tools and the knowledge to work in the post. All he has to do is to continue working on it and to consciously utilize it as part of his weaponry game after game.
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