Los Angeles Lakers: Role playing free agents to watch this offseason
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Lakers’ focus is already on this summer and how the front office can piece together a complicated puzzle that can contend for a title.
The Los Angeles Lakers‘ playoff hopes and dreams have been over for quite some time now, which has given the team (and its fans) enough time to get over the disappointment and begin to look towards the offseason.
Like the last five seasons, Laker fans are getting the year off early and instead will be talking about what the front office can do in July, not what the team can do in April, May and June.
To be fair to LeBron James and the rest of the Lakers, literally everything that could have gone wrong this season has gone wrong as multiple guys went down with untimely injuries and more than half the time the Lakers did not even get to field their best on-court product.
Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise. This team was not going get past the Golden State Warriors regardless and this extra time off could help LeBron and company recover from being banged up this season.
That is if the young core is even intact after this offseason. Leaked trade talks with the New Orleans Pelicans indicated that the team was willing to move on from the entire young core, which created some visible tension.
With the second superstar narrative, the Lakers could be rolling into next year with a completely different outlook.
Either way, with or without the young core, the front office is going to have to fill out the depth and have to do a better job than last year. Here are three role-playing free agents that the Lakers should pursue this offseason.