Los Angeles Lakers: Three prospects to target after tanking
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Lakers’ sudden tank to end the 2018-2019 season has been quite interesting to watch as the 2019 NBA Draft is loaded with talent.
The expectation for the Los Angeles Lakers heading into the 2018-2019 season was to at least make the playoffs. Some people (hand up, including myself) expected the Lakers to be better than expected and make it all the way to the Western Conference Finals.
The Lakers were playing good basketball and when LeBron James, Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram and Kyle Kuzma were all healthy, the team was pretty good. However, the Lakers peaked on Christmas when the team defeated the Golden State Warriors and LeBron suffered a groin injury.
The young Lakers struggled and even once LeBron returned the team was missing the huge impact of Lonzo Ball, who ended up missing much more time than expected with what seemed to be a simple ankle sprain.
That has launched the Lakers out of the playoff spot and into tanking mode and surprisingly this is the one good thing the Lakers have done. The team is 1-9 in their last ten and currently, have the 10th-worst record in the league.
However, the team is just one game back of being tied for the eighth-worst record in the league and 2.5 back of being tied for the sixth-worst.
The Lakers currently do have a 13.9 percent chance of landing in the top four and a 1.3 percent chance of getting the top pick. Those odds move to 34.8 and 8.3, respectively, if the team gets to the sixth-worst record.
The chances of the team getting in the top-four are slim and the chances of the team even drafting someone seems slim as the pick is probably going to be used as trade bait.
However, if the Lakers do want to use this pick, they better start looking at prospects. Here are three prospects the Lakers should be interested in that the team can draft at either the sixth, eighth or tenth overall selection.