The Los Angeles Lakers were among the most active teams in this year's offseason. They completely revamped their roster as they made a blockbuster trade by giving up Kyle Kuzma, Montrezl Harrell, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope for superstar Russell Westbrook.

After the trade, the Lakers swoop in Dwight Howard, Trevor Ariza, Kent Bazemore, Carmelo Anthony, Wayne Ellington, Malik Monk, and Kendrick Nunn on a very team-friendly deal in free agency.

In the process, they also lost some of their key players from last year's squad. Andre Drummond, who did not seem like a great fit for the Lakers, was gone as he headed to the Philadelphia 76ers.

Markieff Morris, who was a solid midseason pickup last 2020 and then became a crucial piece on the Lakers' title run, went to the Miami Heat.

Dennis Schroder, who was offered an $84 million extension by the Lakers during the course of the 2020-21 regular season but declined, struggled to even get a $10 million contract and settled for around $5 million with the Boston Celtics. When the Purple and Gold acquired Westbrook along with the other guards, bringing back Schroder would not make sense.

The Lakers also re-signed restricted free-agent Talen Horton-Tucker to a 3-year extension worth $32 million. Horton-Tucker showed flashes of what he can do offensively and defensively as he was often part of the rotation last season. He has enormous potential as a defender thanks to his athleticism and 7-1 wingspan.

Despite all of these transactions and decisions made by the Lakers' front office, there has been one big mistake that will probably haunt them, and this is not re-signing Alex Caruso.

Alex Caruso is no doubt a fan favorite and cult legend in the Los Angeles area as he worked his way up from being a two-way player in the G-League to the NBA. The Lakers had every chance to re-sign AC since they had his bird rights but eventually decided to pass on as they were hesitant to pay the tax bill.

But when you have LeBron James in your squad, it's a no-brainer to do everything you can and it means spending every dollar you have to build the ultimate team next to him. Despite LeBron being a freak of an athlete, his window is closing sooner as father time will always be undefeated.

Caruso was the perfect player to pair with James. AC is a non-ball dominant guard who is always at the right place at the right time, this is crucial as a LeBron teammate since he is one of the best passers in the history of the game. Caruso was constantly seen cutting through the backdoor during his Lakers tenure.  He was also a pest against opposing guards.

THT certainly has a higher upside than Caruso since he is physically gifted and is younger than AC, but Alex is more of a win-now type of player as he was their X-factor all along and was a crucial part of their 2020 title. AC was inserted in the starting line-up on game 6 series-clincher against the Heat.

Losing Caruso, who was an All-Defense candidate last season, could come back to haunt them during the season. The Lakers had the NBA's best defense last season, but that relied in part on the excellent play by their guards. Those guards are all gone now, and the Lakers will have to reconstruct their defense around their new players.

Per Brian Windhorst, it was reported that Caruso was willing to come back to the Lakers for lesser than what the Chicago Bulls offered him, but LA was not interested in a reunion with AC. Caruso’s camp reportedly went back to the Lakers to see if they would match Chicago’s offer, but the Purple and Gold declined to do so.

I think the Lakers looked at Alex Caruso and said ‘we’re happy for you, we really appreciate everything you’ve done, we wish we could keep you, but, you know’… He was willing to go back there at three years and $30 million Brian, he actually gave them that option, even at the end — it’s less than what he signed for in Chicago — but even that was more than they were willing to pay… That was as far as they were willing to go. They looked at Caruso and said ‘we can go to $7 million a year, but above that it gets too cost-prohibitive

The Lakers formula for a championship was a defense-first approach. They went all-in on offense this time when they signed Melo, Nunn, Monk and let Caruso, who is a defensive-minded guard, go.

It will be exciting to see how the Lakers' season will go without Alex Caruso.