On April 30, the Lakers were eliminated by the defending champion Nuggets 1-4 in the first round of the playoffs, and their season came to an end. Summer is just around the corner, and the Lakers still have a lot of questions to answer -- where does James go from here? Will the Lakers pick James' son Bronny? Who will replace Ham when he leaves class? Will Russell stay with the Lakers?
Although this season's results are not as good as last season, the Lakers' combat effectiveness and performance are far better than last year's performance on the whole. Among them, the 39-year-old James still maintains a relatively strong performance in the 21st year of his career, which is amazing.
While James is no longer the player he used to be able to change the game on his own, he's still competitive enough to remain one of the league's top players. How long will James still play? This is also a topic that the outside world has been paying attention to for several years.
James said midway through the season: "I still love basketball, I love the game, but I don't have a lot of time on the court. At the end of the season, James faced a similar question again, and he replied: "I can't answer this question now, I need to discuss the future with my family and my agent." After that, my energy will be on the U.S. men's basketball team. ”
By the end of June, James will have the right to exercise his one-year contract worth $51.4 million with the Lakers next season, and he can also jump out of his contract to become a free agent or choose to end his career. Of course, the last option is something that all fans don't want to see. But at the same time, the Lakers have made it clear that they are willing to continue to offer James a big three-year, more than $100 million contract, and it is now up to James to choose in the summer.
Many people predict that whether his son Bronny can be drafted by the Lakers and where he goes will have a direct impact on whether James continues to play in the NBA. James has publicly stated on several occasions that he wants to fight alongside Bronny, and this desire is even more urgent than winning a championship. But James has changed his stance on this in the last year, saying he would support Bronny's decision anyway.
Not long ago, Bronny decided to participate in this year's draft. But before the draft, it was assessed that Bronny, if selected, would most likely be a second-round pick. Interestingly, the Lakers happen to have a second-round pick. As a result, many predict that the Lakers will be able to draft Bronny. Bronny's agent, Rich Paul, who is also James' agent, said they wanted to join a team that would give Bronny playing time. By that standard, the Lakers aren't the first choice.
In addition to James' whereabouts and this year's draft, the Lakers will also make a series of important decisions this summer. For example, if head coach Ham leaves, who will take over? Ham has been coaching the Lakers for two seasons, if you evaluate as a novice coach, in fact, he can lead the team to a decent performance, but the problem is that the Lakers are in the spotlight, and they are determined to hit the championship, and they have failed to meet the target for two consecutive years, so it is inevitable that they will be dismissed. In fact, after the end of this season, many media outlets in the United States wrote that Hamm would most likely be out of class. So, who will coach the Lakers? The Lakers need to make a careful choice about this.
In addition, will Russell stay with the team? Russell signed a two-year contract last year, with a player option for the final year. Russell previously signed a contract extension with the Lakers for a reduced amount, and he hopes to prove himself again this season. Overall, Russell's performance was significantly better than last season. In the playoffs with the Nuggets, except for the third game, which was extremely crotch-pulling, the other games were still good. But the problem is that if the Lakers don't improve their backcourt, then their performance ceiling will still not be very high.
Compared with the Nuggets in the past two seasons, the backcourt is the biggest shortcoming of the Lakers, and it is also the position that needs to be improved the most. Even Russell, who is in excellent form, is not the Lakers' first choice for this position. But at the same time, even if the Lakers are interested in improving their backcourt, will they be able to trade for their favorite? The Lakers have been thundering and raining little in the past few years, and they must bring in strong reinforcements in the backcourt to make the team truly capable of competing for the championship.
Text/Beiqing Sports Song Xiang