After half a season of running-in, the Lakers' failures have been completely exposed in the media spotlight, and interspersed with the palace fight plot of the giant team, this Lakers has completely lost the championship. Half a month ago, rumors about the Lakers' trade were rife, from the coaching staff to the players, almost only James and Davis did not appear on the Lakers' liquidation list. It turns out that the Lakers are just "thunder and rain" - players are not competitive in trading, the change of coach is blocked by James, and if there is no accident, the Lakers will quietly spend the trade deadline.
The Lakers tried everything they could to improve the team, but none of them worked. The Lakers' current record is 24 wins and 26 losses, ranking ninth in the West, judging by the lakers' current situation, if the Lakers want to avoid playoffs, then James and Davis have almost no rotations. However, after Davis returned, the Lakers let James take two consecutive games off, and the Lakers lost the game unsurprisingly. The Lakers' current situation is not complicated, if James misses the game, the Lakers led by Westbrook can not even win the Fish belly team, even if James plays, when facing the playoff team, the Lakers have little chance of winning. At this juncture, James is scheduled to take a break, and the Lakers have made their intentions clear.
According to the Lakers reporter, Westbrook's transaction difficulty exceeded the expectations of the Lakers management, and Westbrook will most likely stay with the Lakers until the end of the season. Due to the lack of competitiveness to win the championship, the Lakers have set their sights on the free market and trading market next summer, and the Lakers may choose to strategically abandon this season. Through 50 regular season games, the Lakers have seen very clearly that only by sending Westbrook away can the Lakers return to the ranks of the championship team, but the Lakers cannot take the lakers' future in order to send Westbrook, so the Lakers can only use time to exchange for the improvement of Westbrook's transaction value. In the offseason, Westbrook's contract is only one year left, when Westbrook's transaction will be less difficult, as long as the Lakers' chips are right, they can still exchange Westbrook's $47 million contract for salary space. This is also the Lakers' last chance to remedy.
The Lakers chose to give up this season strategically, not directly to the point of rotting, but to let James and Davis close the game. In other words, let James and Davis recharge in the regular season stage, do not have to risk injury to fight for the next regular season victory, so as to reserve energy for the next season, but they will still play most of the regular season, and will not choose to directly spoil. Even if the Lakers choose to mess up, they won't get any benefit, because the Pelicans hold the right to exchange draft picks, and blindly swinging is cheap for the Pelicans.
If the Lakers can handle Westbrook's contract next summer, then the Lakers' crisis can be lifted, as long as James's competitive status does not show a significant decline, the Lakers can still become a strong team in the league again. But in the past two years, James has seen a visible decline, can the 38-year-old James still maintain this year's competitive state? This is something that even Pelinka cannot be sure of. The Lakers have wasted two years of time, and the reason why the Lakers can be trapped in a dilemma for two consecutive years, the Lakers management needs to bear the responsibility, but James is also hard to blame.
As a giant team, the complexity of the Lakers' management is not comparable to other teams. Any team in the league can bring in Westbrook, but the Lakers with a retro style can't, is James not clear? As the team's home star, as long as he intervenes to stop it, the Lakers management will inevitably take the opinion. Now James has put the business center and family center in Los Angeles, as long as the Lakers do not take the initiative to trade James, James will most likely end up with the Lakers, James who won the fourth crown will not think that the Lakers are also the endpoint of his career.