Los Angeles Lakers: Three positive takeaways from this season
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Lakers missing the NBA Playoffs has left a looming negative cloud around the franchise, despite there being positive takeaways.
Expectations around the Los Angeles Lakers instantly skyrocketed when it was announced on the first day of the 2018 offseason that LeBron James was signing to wear the purple and gold. After two years of speculation, the Lakers finally landed that coveted superstar to take the team out of its rut.
The ensuing moves should have been indicative of how the team was actually going to perform in the 2018-2019 NBA season.
The first newsworthy thing that happened with LeBron as a Laker was negative: the Oklahoma City Thunder re-signed Paul George, who had been strongly connected to the Lakers to be the second star alongside James.
Trade talks for Kawhi Leonard sparked interest in the fanbase later in the offseason but never even got close to happening. The front office then signed several one-year contracts to veterans to simply fill out the roster without sacrificing cap space.
The result was the first season in which LeBron James did not make the postseason since the 2004-2005 season. The first two years of LeBron’s career are the only that he missed the postseason.
That has naturally created so much negative discussions and feelings about the Lakers, and rightfully so. We too understand that this year went really sour, really fast.
However, it should not mean that this season was all negative. In fact, there were some positive takeaways from this year, despite the fact that the playoff drought continued.