Lakers: What would they look like if they drafted perfectly during rebuild?

2017 Draft

The Lakers were a part of two draft-day trades that landed them Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart. These were great trade that landed players on the team that were very undervalued picks. This means that the Lakers only have one pick to change in the 2017 draft and that is the 2nd overall pick.

In this draft, they selected the promising UCLA point guard Lonzo Ball. This was a good pick, however, there were more talented players available at this spot. In retrospect, the Lakers should have chosen Jayson Tatum who the Boston Celtics selected with the 3rd overall pick, just one pick after the Lakers selected.

Other contenders for this spot were De’Aaron Fox who was selected 5th overall by the Sacramento Kings, Donovan Mitchell who was selected 13th overall by the Utah Jazz, Bam Adebayo who was picked 14th overall by the Miami Heat, and John Collins who was selected 19th overall by the Atlanta Hawks.

Tatum is a pure scorer and a great defender. He has the size and versatility to guard almost anyone on the court and is seemingly unguardable when in the zone. He was the leading force to take LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers to 7 games in the Eastern Conference Finals.

This season, Tatum has averaged 23.6 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 2.9 assists. The Lakers current starting roster in this scenario would have been Malcolm Brogdon, Josh Hart, Jayson Tatum, Kyle Kuzma, and Paskal Siakam. While this would be a bit of an undersized lineup as Siakam only stands at 6’9″. It is possible that the Lakers could have run Julius Randle or Brook Lopez at the five, bump Tatum to the shooting guard position, Kyle Kuzma to the small forward, Siakam to the power forward, and have Josh Hart come off of the bench.