LeBron & AD's Team USA Performance Highlights Lakers Incompetence

The 2024 Paris Olympics is over and one of the highlights of the historic event was Team USA's spectacular gold medal win. After breath-taking games against Serbia and France, Team USA won its fifth straight Olympics, with LeBron James winning the tournament MVP award.

Despite Steph Curry's heroics in the last two games, LeBron James was the best overall player on Team USA throughout the tournament. Anthony Davis was also part of the closing lineups when it mattered the most, easily being one of the five best players throughout the Olympics.

Lakers fans were obviously happy for their two stars. Getting recognized in one of the biggest stages in the world is every athlete's dream.

At the same time, Lakers fans have every right to be frustrated with the front office. What this summer showed was that LeBron James and Anthony Davis are two of the greatest basketball players in the world. How can the Lakers not build a true championship contender around two of the ten best players in the league?

The answer is the Lakers' leadership. Almost every single move this front office made since winning the 2020 championship has been somewhere between bad and a disaster. This team had so many two-way elite role players like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Danny Green, Kyle Kuzma, and Alex Caruso. A few years later, they have almost nothing of value next to LeBron and Anthony Davis, except for Austin Reaves.

The Russell Westbrook trade in the 2021 offseason is obviously where it all began. One of the worst trades of all time, the Lakers lost their championship core for an aging, ill-fitting third "star" and were never able to get it back.

Building a winning team around LeBron James is one of the easiest tasks in basketball. He has proven the method for two decades. Surround him with shooters and defenders and he can make you a contender year in and year out.

Yet, Rob Pelinka has been consistently incapable of finding either of those player profiles. The team has lacked shooting for the past couple of seasons and had some of the worst perimeter defenders in the league.

Now, it looks like they are bringing the same team back for another run and they look nowhere near good enough to contend. It's very hard to not be frustrated as a Lakers fan.

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