Los Angeles Lakers: Three key improvements for the second half
By Keith Rivas
For the Los Angeles Lakers, there are some serious move to be made in the second half of the regular season ahead of free agency.
It’ll truly be a game-changer if the Los Angeles Lakers can find a way to lure a top-tier free agent to their team in the off-season. Before we can get ahead of ourselves on that end, though, they’ve got to make sure that they go into the second half of the season with plenty of optimism, room for growth, and actual, measurable difference.
Kyle Kuzma has been the best rookie on the team thus far this season, out-playing rookie point guard Lonzo Ball despite being drafted at the end of the first round as opposed to second overall. This has been a good silver lining for Los Angeles, but the drama with LaVar Ball has a chance to really boil over down the stretch if they’re not careful.
How the Lakers pull themselves out of the constant riff-raff off the court is totally up to Magic Johnson. If he decides to take a firmer stance against the comments of the elder Ball, handling Lonzo the right way becomes much easier.
Especially when Johnson is faced with an awkward scenario that is so close to becoming a reality. LaVar Ball has threatened that his oldest son won’t re-sign with the Lakers if the team decides to not sign LiAngelo or LaMelo Ball.
The Lakers will have their first opportunity to take a real stand on the family and the comments over the summer, with LiAngelo likely trying to enter the league as a free agent after his time in Lithuania comes to a close.
That is just some of the scenarios that they’ll have to deal with sooner than later. In the mean time, here are the three things the Lakers need to do in order to have a progressive, worthwhile second half of the season.