Let's be brutally honest here: the 2018-19 Los Angeles Lakers are done. Finito. Caput.
At 31-39 with just 12 games remaining in the regular season, the Lakers are not making the playoffs, and their latest debacle was merely a microcosm of how LeBron James' first year in Los Angeles has gone as a whole.
What was the debacle, you ask? Only the Lakers losing to the all-out-tank-mode New York Knicks, when James was blocked by Mario Hezonja—and then stared down—at the buzzer.
It marked Los Angeles' second loss to the Knicks this season, meaning the Lakers got swept by the worst team in the Eastern Conference.
That is truly saying something.
So, with Los Angeles' season clearly finished, there is only one thing for Magic Johnson and Co. to do: tank.
I don't want to hear all of the platitudes about how you don't need to tank to find a good player in the draft. You know. Jimmy Butler, Manu Ginobili, Marc Gasol, Draymond Green. Blah blah blah.
You can find good players later in the draft. We get it. But the undeniable truth is that you have a much better chance of finding top-tier talent at the top of the draft, and higher draft picks are also a heck of a lot more valuable in trade talks.
Taking that into consideration, what reason do the Lakers have not to tank?
There is less than a month remaining in the regular season, so it's not even like tanking could do damage to the guys on the team moving forward.
It's also blatantly obvious that this Lakers team is very far from contending for anything, so they need to accumulate as much talent and as many assets as possible.
The very idea that this squad could legitimately challenge the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference was always laughable. Forget the Warriors. The Lakers are not even close to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Or the Houston Rockets. Or the Utah Jazz.
Winning a few games over the final weeks of the season would mean absolutely nothing and would only lessen their chances of earning a top draft pick, so Los Angeles might as well just go ahead and try to lose out.
That means intermittently resting LeBron from here on out. Not only would that better serve the purpose of tanking, but it would preserve James going forward. Why add unnecessary mileage to those already taxed legs?
Think about this, too: if the Lakers really want to add a star via trade this summer, they are going to have to come up with better offers, because what they have right now just isn't cutting it.
Teams don't want to deal with the Lakers as it is, and the fact that Los Angeles doesn't really have any top-tier prospects makes the process of trying to acquire a superstar that much more difficult.
We know, LA fans. You think Kyle Kuzma and Brandon Ingram are stars in the making. But, apparently, the rest of the league does not feel that way, and the rest of the league doesn't like your organization very much to begin with.
The only way to truly entice another team into biting on a potential trade is earning a top draft pick. Now, this is not to say that the Lakers have a shot at earning the No. 1 overall pick, because even if they lose every game from here on out, they will still have too good of a record to have a legitimate chance of getting the top selection.
However, there are multiple teams they can jump, and there are also some teams that they can avoid being jumped by in the race for the best possible draft pick status.
I know it sounds blasphemous to suggest that a LeBron-led club should tank. After all, James has made eight straight finals and is still widely considered to be the best player in basketball.
But this year is very different. James certainly isn't making a ninth straight finals appearance, and at the age of 34, he no longer even seems capable of single-handedly carrying a team to a playoff berth; let alone a spot in the finals.
LeBron needs help, and the only way for the Lakers to acquire the help he needs may be by tanking the rest of the way. Sure, they can sign a free agent or two, but it doesn't seem like the top guys really want to go there, which could mean LA may have to settle for B-level stars like Kemba Walker. There's nothing wrong with Walker, but he is not going to turn Los Angeles into a serious contender.
The Lakers need more. Much more, and the route to getting it is a path that no LeBron-led team has ever taken. It might be time to change the status quo.
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