Los Angeles Lakers: Role playing trade targets that fit alongside LeBron
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Lakers’ front office did a poor job of surrounding LeBron James with the right pieces and must amend that this summer.
The Los Angeles Lakers had the biggest win that the front office could have had when it was reported on the first day of free agency last summer that LeBron James was heading to Los Angeles. All of the speculation and hope seemed to be coming into focus.
The Lakers were unable to land the coveted second star and did the smart thing of signing several players to one-year contracts to keep cap space for the following summer. Where the Lakers messed up is who they signed.
Out of all the signings that the team made, which consisted of Rajon Rondo, Lance Stephenson, Michael Beasley, JaVale McGee and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, McGee was the only real standout.
A large part of this is because there is a certain type of team that has to be built around LeBron James and none of these guys really fit that blueprint. You have to surround LeBron with some shooters and some solid defenders in order to succeed.
The only free agent that could help in that department was Caldwell-Pope, although Laker fans knew from the year prior not to get the hopes up.
While the goal is obviously to get another superstar this offseason, the Lakers front office still has to surround LeBron with the right role players. If that does not happen, the team can only go so far.
We have explored free agent options in a previous article. Today, we are exploring three potential trade targets that would fit on the Los Angeles Lakers.