As you know, the Lakers this season have disappointed.
As of the All-Star, the Lakers have only 27 wins and 31 losses, can only rank ninth in the West, and only lead the 12th Pelicans in the West by 4.5 wins, considering that the Lakers have lost 7 of the past 10 games, thick eyebrows are also injured, in case they continue to lose, let alone the championship, playoffs, they can't even enter the playoffs.
As for the reason for the Lakers' downturn, on the one hand, it is injury, on the other hand, the Lakers' lineup run-in, lineup collocation also has some problems - it may be a little direct, but from the existing results, the introduction of Wei Shao in the offseason last year was indeed a failed decision, and this failure is still a "double loss", Wei Shao played the lowest season of his career, and the Lakers also played less than expected.
And once it comes to "bringing in Westbrook", the Lakers management will be criticized for a wave - many sources say that the Lakers had the opportunity to get DeRozan or Hield in last offseason, but finally chose Westbrook.
Just today, ESPN famous Ramona Shelburne in the "NBA Today" program once again mentioned the Lakers' operation last summer, Ramona Shelburne said that last offseason, the Lakers made a choice between Westbrook, Hield, DeRozan, the reason for abandoning DeRozan, is that the Lakers are unwilling to provide DeRozan with a three-year contract.
Looking at The Current Westbrook and DeRozan, regret is obviously inevitable.
This season, Westbrook averaged 18.3 points, 7.8 rebounds and 7.5 assists per game, 4.4 turnovers, 43.7%/29.9%/66.8% shooting percentage and 50.6% true shooting rate – this was probably the worst season of Westbrook's career, and due to the high exposure in Los Angeles, you can see criticism of Westbrook after almost every game.
For comparison, DeRozan averaged 28.1 points, 5.2 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game for the Bulls this season, shooting 51.7%/34.3%/86.6% from three fields and shooting 60.1% from the field.
DeRozan is currently fourth on the scoring list, and before the All-Star, he has become the only player in history to score 35+ in 50% of the 7 consecutive games, and DeRozan has hardly fallen out of the top ten on the MVP list, and it is not an exaggeration to say that this year is the best season of DeRozan's career.
Looking at the contract between the two, Westbrook's annual salary this season is 44.21 million, there is still one year left for 47.06 million, DeRozan's annual salary this season is 26 million, and there are still two years of 46 million - DeRozan's three-year contract is not even as much as Wei's two-year contract, if the news of Ramona Shelburne is true, then this wave of lake pipe operations can only be said to make people more "admired".
That being said, here, we still have to say something for the Lakers.
First of all, it is certain that last offseason, the Lakers did have the opportunity to sign DeRozan or Wei Shao, but if you turn off the perspective of God and look at DeRozan and Wei Shao from the perspective of the time, how to choose is indeed a difficult problem.
First of all, Wei Shao said that Wei Shao averaged 22.2 points, 11.5 rebounds and 11.7 assists per game last year, which was the fourth time in his career that he averaged a triple-double, and after the All-Star, Wei Shao averaged 23.6 points, 11.1 rebounds and 12.8 assists per game, leading the Wizards to 20 wins and 18 losses, successfully entering the playoffs.
Although the playoffs were eliminated, before the arrival of Wei Shao, the Wizards had missed the playoffs for many years in a row, and after the arrival of Wei Shao, the Wizards not only entered the playoffs, but Also almost won the scoring king - it is generally believed that Wei Shao in the second half of last year still has superstar strength.
As for DeRozan, in the spurs' final year, DeRozan averaged 21.6 points, 4.2 rebounds and 6.9 assists per game, shooting 49.5% from the field and 25.7% from three-point range, the Spurs did not make the playoffs, and deRozan lost 2.3 points per 100 games when he was not on the floor than when he was not on the floor.
So it can be said that last year's DeRozan and this year's DeRozan performance is completely different, when DeRozan was 32 years old, so not only the Lakers, most teams in the league, including the Bulls, do not think he is still superstar level, otherwise DeRozan will not only sign a three-year contract of 82 million, at least an annual salary of 30 million to start.
Not only that, but it wasn't easy for the Lakers to get DeRozan at the time:
1, DeRozan was a free agent last year, the Lakers do not have the space to sign him naked, and the only way to get him is through signing;
2, the player who gets the signed player will trigger the hard salary cap, assuming that DeRozan gets the same contract as now, then his salary with thick eyebrows and James alone will exceed 100 million, and then remove Lor Deng's 5 million, the Lakers only have less than 20 million salary to provide to 12 players, which means that Caruso and Tucker can't stay at all;
3, ideally, the Lakers can keep Pope, but are the Spurs willing to accept Kuzma + Harrell + first-round trading chips? I'm afraid not.
So from the perspective of the Lakers at that time, we can understand the reason why the lake pipe can't get DeRozan - it's not "not getting", but "not getting".
Of course, this is not the Lakers whitewashing, on the contrary, the Lakers' choice of Wei Shao is a bit surprising from any point of view - in the 2020 playoffs, the Lakers once eliminated the Rockets with Wei Shao in the first round, and the Lakers know better than any team how to defend Wei Shao, but they changed Wei Shao to the lineup.
As for DeRozan, whether the Lakers are unwilling to give a 3-year contract or not, any regrets and condemnations today are based on DeRozan's MVP performance, if DeRozan went to the Lakers at that time, it may be another result, for him, now in the Bulls, it is really the best result.