It was a rough couple weeks to be a Lakers fan. I can tell you that.
I'm going to be 100% transparent, I did not care about this season at all. I slept walk throughout the NBA regular season as the Lakers bore me with their inconsistent play. But hey, they won the inaugural NBA Cup, right?
But, the playoffs rolled around and I took the initiative to pay attention a bit more. Clearly, the Lakers were easily dispatched by the Nuggets again, I wasn't surprised. I knew the outcome. If we can't stop Jamal Murray, the season is over. And he burned us...twice...at the buzzer.
I watched the playoffs a bit more, got up to the point of the NBA Finals. Once the Boston Celtics went up 3-0 over the Dallas Mavericks, I decided to watch no more. I knew the outcome was inevitable. Boston would one up on us yet again for the most NBA Championships.
I can only look back at the previous years the Lakers have squandered every opportunity to surpass those leprechauns from the East. After winning the 2020 championship (still disputed to this day), they had every chance to fully return to glory. And each time, they somehow fumble the bag year after year since they acquired LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
This month, it was L after L for the Lakers this offseason. First, their surprise top coaching candidate, UConn's Dan Hurley, spurned them to stay out East in hopes to chase after a 3-peat in the collegiate ranks. An 11th hour surprise ignited some hope for Laker fans. The hope that they can snag a coach that may not have NBA experience, but has experience coaching nonetheless, over another experimental hire like JJ Redick. Turns out, it was never meant to be.
There's pros and cons from picking a coach from the college ranks. They can either be Brad Stevens levels of great or they can be Rick Pitino / John Calipari levels of awful. But the Lakers believed Hurley was the guy that could be their Brad Stevens: a strategic coach and a proven program builder. But the difference is he has a personality that is somewhat over the top, but you just can't help but love his passion on the sidelines. The Lakers were prepared to give him a lucrative offer to make him one of the highest paid coaches in the NBA. And it's no secret Hurley wanted to try his luck on the NBA level. What better way with one of the prestigious organizations?
The expectation was that they were going to offer Dan Hurley $100M for six years. In reality, they only offered him $70M for six years. Lowballing at its finest. But I understand Hurley's decision to stay. He gets a shot to make history for a 3-peat with UConn. Not to mention, the Lakers coaching position is heavily scrutinized. When you coach the best player in the world, a legendary organization, you are under a heavy microscope. But still, this team was prepared to break the bank for him. And the Lakers being the cheap organization they are, pitched a "strong" proposal for Hurley. But they failed to make the money work. Can somebody tell this team, whatever money they pay the coach doesn't go toward the cap? And let me guess their pitch: we're the Lakers? It's LA? We have 17 championships and an IST (in-season tournament) trophy?
Then, sad news broke last Wednesday with the passing of the Logo, "Mr. Clutch", Jerry West. He was already a Laker great as a player. But he was even better as an executive, laying down the foundations of the Showtime dynasty in the 80s and later the Kobe-Shaq dynasty in the early 2000s. You can even make the argument he helped produced the late 2000s roster as well by gifting them Pau Gasol.
Perhaps the tragic part of Mr. West's passing is that he and the Laker organization were at odds with each other, especially with the Buss family. This organization had many years to mend fences with him and bring him back in a front office role. Even Kobe was demanding his return way back then! But too many times, they passed up on hiring him in an executive/consultant role. How the Lakers honored him after his passing was weak. When the Clippers offered a more sentimental statement, you know it's levels of bad. It's unfortunate fences will never be mended. At least he didn't have to see the Celtics win another title as many would say.
Because we have to, sitting through another Celtics finals appearance and championship win. Where do I begin? They showed the Lakers how long-term building is done. The Celtics were a rebuild project 11 years in the making and it all capped off with the franchise's 18th title in their domination over the Dallas Mavericks. Their road to the championship was highly questionable. But it is no excuse to discredit how they got there. They faced what's in front of them and did what they were expected to do.
I've always argued in the past that the Lakers should follow the same blueprint of their rival as well as other well-run organizations like the Spurs or *cough* the Warriors: build through the draft, develop the core, sign veteran players that fit, make the hard decisions when the team feels that it's ready to compete for a championship. But we are fickle and impatient to the core. And this results in too many short sighted results in an attempt to win now. Chase everybody's superstars is the goal, no matter the cost. And it is a blueprint that is very archaic in today's NBA, especially with the new CBA looming that emphasizes on teams to build from the ground up and develop young players.
The thing about this is the Lakers are stuck to this philosophy that they can't get themselves out of. Since the waning days of Kobe Bryant's career, it was always about chasing the stars. And year after year, they swing for the fences and they miss badly on players in their prime. However, it's a different story when they successfully add stars to their roster...when they're past their prime. They draft really promising young players, but are too impatient to develop them because they're too impatient and we're too impatient. I mean could you imagine if you put today's Laker fans in 1996? They'll be calling for Kobe's head, a rookie Kobe I might add, to be traded after firing 3 air balls against Utah.
There is no process to follow, no long-term plan in place for this organization. They whiffed on a promising coach. They never made amends with a legend of their own. They sit there as they watch their biggest rival, the rival they desired to chase, one up them again for most championships. Honestly, the cherry on top for this organization is if they just hire JJ Redick as coach and draft Bronny James all to please LeBron. If LeBron does the funniest thing and leave the Lakers via free agency this offseason, I wouldn't be surprised. You can't "out-nepotism" the biggest Nepo baby of all no matter how much nepotism the Lakers developed over the years. We are truly living in the worst timeline here. The Lakers are making headlines, but it's all for the wrong reasons.
Who's to blame? Maybe it's Jeanie for setting up unrealistic expectations. Maybe it's Rob not putting together strong rosters and hiring the right coach. Maybe it's the Rambis family that keeps giving bad advices from the shadows. Maybe it's LeBron for putting this once proud organization in a choke hold. Or maybe it's us, the Laker fans for expecting too much, being the loudest voices in the room.
But hey, at the end of day, it's just basketball, right?
