Los Angeles is the entertainment capital of the world. In order to compete in a city full of celebrities, you need a star. The Lakers franchise have been lucky enough to land some of the best players in basketball throughout their storied history. From Wilt Chamberlain to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Magic Johnson to Shaquille O’Neal to Kobe Bryant to LeBron James, the Lakers have had a superstar headliner for the past 50 years.

LeBron is now in the twilight of his phenomenal career. His individual statistics still look good, but he is no longer an elite player. He is 40 years old and his star is slowly fading. The Lakers needed a new box office headliner to lead the Lake Show. Enter Luka Doncic.

ESPN reporter Shams Charania, Adrian Wojnarowski’s protégé, dropped an epic “Woj bomb” shortly after midnight eastern and 9 p.m. L.A. time. The breaking news post said the Dallas Mavericks were trading Luka Doncic, Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris to the L.A. Lakers for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first round pick.

The post, which was viewed by 81 million users, was so unbelievable that Shams had to immediately do a follow-up post just to let everyone know that he didn’t get hacked. It was real.

The multiplayer blockbuster deal that sent Luka Doncic to the Lakers and shipped Anthony Davis to the Dallas Mavericks not only sent shockwaves around the basketball community but it ushered in a seismic shift in L.A. LeBron’s Lake Show residency is expiring soon, and Luka steps in as the new face of the team tasked with keeping the championship window open.

“Luka is a one-of-a-kind, young global superstar who will lead this franchise for years to come. His killer instincts and commitment to winning championships will be a driving force for the team,” Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka said in a statement.

Doncic, who turns 26 this month, is just entering his prime. He’s coming off a season in which he led the NBA in scoring (33.9) and made his first NBA Finals appearance. He was named to the All-NBA first team five times in his seven seasons in Dallas.

Only time will tell if the Lakers’ Luka gamble will pay off and result in an NBA title. Where does the Doncic-for-Davis trade rank in Lakers lore? OMFB examined five blockbuster trades in NBA history involving the Lakers and what were ultimate payoffs.

Lakers traded for Wilt Chamberlain in 1968 — Wilt the Stilt was 31 years old and still in his prime when the Philadelphia 76ers sent him to the Lakers for Darrall Imhoff, Archie Clark, Jerry Chambers and cash. Four years later, the Lakers won an NBA title with Chamberlain teaming up with fellow Hall of Fame Jerry West on a squad considered by many as one of the greatest teams in NBA history. With Chamberlain as the anchor, the Lakers won a record 33 straight games and finished with a then-record 69-13 mark. Bill Sharman’s group capped off the season with a convincing series victory over the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals.

Lakers traded for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1975 — The Kareem trade altered the fortunes of two franchises. The Milwaukee Bucks, which received Junior Bridgeman, Dave Meyers, Elmore Smith and Brian Winters from L.A., would go more than 50 years before winning their next championship. Meanwhile, the Kareem trade was the foundation of the Lakers’ dynasty in the 1980s. Abdul-Jabbar was named NBA MVP in each of his first two seasons in L.A. and never missed the playoffs in his final 13 seasons. Kareem and Magic Johnson became one of the greatest duos as the pair led the Showtime Lakers to five NBA championships and eight appearances in the NBA Finals in a 10-year span.

Lakers traded Shaquille O’Neal to the Miami Heat in 2004 — One month after losing to the Detroit Pistons in the NBA Finals, the Lakers jettisoned Shaquille O’Neal to Miami for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Brian Grant, and a future first-round pick which turned out to be guard Jordan Farmar. The Heat clearly won the first half of the trade, winning a title in Shaq’s second year Miami. But the Lakers might have had the last laugh. The first season without Shaq (2004-05) the Lakers went 34-48 and earned a lottery pick, a pick they used to select center Andrew Bynum. Bynum, Odom and Farmar became part of the core group, spearheaded by Kobe, that reached the NBA Finals three straight years and won championships in 2009 and 2010.

Lakers trade for Pau Gasol in 2008 — In one of the most surprising in-season trades in league history, the Lakers swung for the fences and hit a home run by acquiring Spanish big man Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie, the draft rights to Marc Gasol, and first-round picks in 2008 and 2010. Pau instantly clicked with Kobe, seamlessly fitting in without a hitch. He quickly picked up Phil Jackson’s complicated triangle offense the moment he arrived, and the Lakers went from pretenders to contenders almost overnight. Gasol, Bynum and Odom formed one of the best frontcourts, and the Lakers won 57 games in Gasol’s first four seasons. Gasol, whose No. 16 was retired by the team, will be remembered for his heroic 19-point, 18-rebound performance in Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics.

Lakers traded for Anthony Davis in 2019 — Prior to the mega deal with the New Orleans Pelicans, the Lakers acquired LeBron James in free agency in the summer of 2018. LeBron wanted an All-Star running mate and he found it in AD. The Lakers gave up a big part of their young talent – Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram and Josh Hart – plus three first-round draft picks (one a first-round swap) in order to get AD. But it was worth the gamble. The Lakers went on to win the NBA title in 2020 inside the Disney World bubble in Davis’ first full season teaming up with LeBron. Davis’ six years in L.A. was a mixed bag. He played in only 132 games from 2021-23 due to an assortment of injuries. When he’s healthy, he was outstanding. He played a career-high 76 games in 2023-24, a season the Lakers won the inaugural NBA Cup, and made second team All-NBA.

A big shout-out to NBA commissioner Adam Silver for gifting basketball fans the in-season tournament. It was a smashing success. It created a ton of buzz right around a time when football usually dominates the headlines.

The championship game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Indiana Pacers on Dec. 9 was the most-watched regular-season game — excluding Christmas Day games — the NBA has had on any network in nearly six years, according to ESPN. It averaged 4.58 million viewers on ABC and ESPN2, peaking at about 5.68 million viewers.

The NFL still rules the American sports landscape, but the NBA in-season tournament certainly carved out a nice niche that could be parlayed into something special for years to come. Sure, there are still a few things Silver and his top executives could smooth out. But the NBA certainly hit the jackpot with this out-of-the-box idea that worked because the players bought in, especially the league’s superstars.

LeBron James and Anthony Davis were clearly motivated to win the inaugural tournament. The Lakers’ All-Star duo set the tone by treating every game as if it was the playoffs. After finishing 4-0 in group play, the Lakers eliminated Kevin Durant’s Phoenix Suns in the knockout round, and capped their perfect 7-0 tournament run by sweeping both games at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas to capture the first ever NBA Cup.

LeBron had 30 points, eight assists, and five rebounds in just 23 minutes in L.A.’s 133-89 demolition of the New Orleans Pelicans in the semifinals. Two nights later, it was Davis’ turn to dominate as he authored Shaq-like numbers with 41 points, 20 rebounds and four blocks in a convincing 123-109 victory over the Indiana Pacers in the championship game.

“We have a great 1-2 punch,” said LeBron, who was named in-season tournament MVP. “I took care of the semifinals game and he took care of the finals game, and that’s what it is all about. Hold each other accountable.”

Davis, who showed a lot of grit and fire during L.A.’s impressive run, mirrored what his fellow Klutch Sports buddy said in the locker room while celebrating with teammates.

“Bron carried the torch [in the semifinals] and it was my job [in the finals]. We have each other’s back,” Davis told Spectrum SportsNet’s Allie Clifton. “When one of us is struggling like I was Thursday, he carried the torch. Tonight, he got off to a slow start but I had his back.”

Davis had everyone’s back in the two games in Vegas, putting on a defensive clinic. He “only” tallied six blocks in the semifinals and finals, but he seemingly contested every shot in the paint and his presence was felt by everyone on the Pelicans and Pacers.

LeBron backed up AD’s monster game with an efficient 24-point, 11-rebound night in 34 minutes. LeBron was locked in throughout the tourney, averaging 26.4 points, eight rebounds and seven assists while shooting 56.8% from the field and an eye-popping 60.6% on 3-pointers (James shoots 34% for his career). He turns 39 years old on Dec. 30. For a man who has accomplished just about everything in the sport, LeBron understood the historical nature of the moment.

“It’s pretty cool to be able to say you were the first to do something,” LeBron told Lakers sideline reporter Mike Trudell. “This will go down in history. We’re the first team to ever win the in-season tournament. I’ll take some history for sure.”

“It absolutely means something,” LeBron added. “Every time you put the Lakers into the history books, it means something and I’m happy to be part of it.”

The Pacers, led by tournament breakout star point guard Tyrese Haliburton, came into the finals as the NBA’s No. 1 scoring team at 128 points per game. They love to play at a breakneck pace. But against the Lakers, their speed and pace were overwhelmed by the Lakers’ size and length.

L.A. had a massive 42-point advantage on points in the paint and outrebounded the Pacers by 23. The Lakers made only two 3-pointers for the game, but their 86 points in the paint more than made up for their lack of threes. The Lakers’ dominance in the paint didn’t allow Haliburton to get a running start, forcing him to slow down and play in more halfcourt sets where the Lakers defense can load up and trap him.

Haliburton, who entered the tourney final averaging 26.7 points and a league best 13.3 assists, was held in check with 20 points and had three turnovers.

The Damian Lillard saga was the dominant storyline of the 2023 NBA offseason. It took three months of back-and-forth drama before the Portland Trail Blazers struck blockbuster deal that sent Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks as part of a three-team trade.

A few days after the Lillard trade, the Boston Celtics took away some of the Bucks’ shine by acquiring defensive stalwart Jrue Holiday. Back in June, the Phoenix Suns made a huge splash by acquiring Bradley Beal from the Washington Wizards. Many basketball pundits have already penciled the Celtics and Bucks in the Eastern Conference finals, and the Suns are the popular pick to come out of the Western Conference.

While all the Dame drama was going on, the Los Angeles Lakers were busy restocking their shelves with the same pieces that reached the Western Conference finals.

Austin Reaves (four years, $56 million), Rui Hachimura (three years, $51M), D’Angelo Russell (two years, $36M), and Jarred Vanderbilt (four years, $48M) all re-signed with the Lakers. General manager Rob Pelinka also added free agents Gabe Vincent, Taurean Prince, Jaxson Hayes and Cam Reddish, and drafted guard Jalen Hood-Schifino. The biggest piece of a potentially championship was the commitment to Anthony Davis. The Lakers and Davis agreed to a three-year, $186 million contract extension that keeps Davis in a Lakers uniform through 2028.

With Davis as the anchor and LeBron James coming back for his 21st season, L.A. has arguably the deepest roster in the NBA, and it’s a nice problem to have if you’re Lakers head coach Darvin Ham. During the Lakers media day aired on Spectrum SportsNet, Ham said he welcomes the healthy competition during training camp.

“I’ve told my team internally,” Ham said, “we don’t want to compete from a mental standpoint saying, ‘I’m better than this guy or I’m better than that guy.’ Compete with your work habits. Compete with submerging with yourself in the information and picking it up and executing in what it is that we’re trying to give to you guys.”

Ham continued: “Naturally, you’re going to have guys going at each other. That’s always healthy as well. But the biggest thing is to make sure that we’re competing in the right areas. When we do put these jerseys on and toss it up and play against the 29 other teams that we can still all be on the same page.”

The theme of the 2023-24 Lakers season is “run it back.” The organization feels it now has the right combination of players to compete for the franchise’s 18th NBA title.

“We have a speed lineup. We have a small ball lineup. We have a powerball lineup from 6-8 to 7 feet that we can put out there,” Ham said. “We’re super duper excited on what we can do with this lineup.

“But first and foremost, everybody has to know that everybody has to be on the same page. We have to trust one another, support one another. Everyone has to have both hands on the rope pulling in the same direction.”

The key to a successful Lakers season hangs on the broad shoulders of AD.

When he’s healthy, AD is one of the 10 best players in the world. He could easily make a strong case for best defensive player. His stellar defense during the 2023 playoffs — he had the No. 1 defensive rating by a wide margin — was a major reason why the Lakers were able to knock off the Memphis Grizzlies and Golden State Warriors. And if AD can replicate those 2023 playoff performances, he could be in the running for MVP in 2024.

Davis said he’s grateful and thankful for the Lakers for being committed to him, and having enough faith and trust in him to be the face of the franchise beyond the LeBron years.

“I owe it to them to go out every night and put my body on the line for this organization,” he said.

The biggest roadblock for AD and the Lakers are the defending champion Denver Nuggets, led by their MVP Nikola Jokic. The Lakers are still salty on how their playoffs ended last season as they were swept by the Nuggets in the WCF. The sweep has given AD plenty of motivation not only to get another shot at Jokic and Nuggets, but to also put his name in the MVP conversation. He added some MMA workouts and boxing training regimen during the offseason in preparation for wrestling matches in the paint with The Joker.

“Whether I’m in [the MVP conversation] or not, it’s the expectation of playing to that caliber because I know it’ll benefit the team. I am my biggest critic,” Davis said. “I am on myself after every game, even in wins. You can’t control wins and losses. You can control energy and effort. This year, I want to come out and build on last year, and hopefully let everything play out, I’ll be in that conversation.”

For the past eight seasons, no one has been able to solve the Golden State Warriors’ perplexing puzzle. Until now.

The four-time NBA champions were finally dethroned as the Los Angeles Lakers eliminated the Warriors in six games in the 2023 Western Conference semifinals. The Lakers became the first Western Conference team to beat the Warriors in a playoff series since Steve Kerr was hired in 2014. The size and length of the Lakers were simply too much for the small-ball Warriors, and the catalyst for the NBA’s top-rated defense was Anthony Davis.

The Lakers’ versatile center was nothing short of sensational against the defending NBA champs. Davis was able to roam freely because the Warriors don’t have a big man who requires AD’s constant attention. The Lakers’ suffocating defense forced the Warriors to play inside the 3-point line and limited their shot attempts by securing defensive rebounds.

First-year coach Darvin Ham brought to L.A. many of the defensive principles he learned from his time with the Atlanta Hawks and Milwaukee Bucks. But the scheme only works if it has a defensive stud patrolling every inch of the hardwood.

Davis is the chess piece Ham frequently uses to check every opponent’s best move.

“The Lakers have a great defense,” said Golden State coach Steve Kerr, whose team was held to 10 points below their season average. “Davis at the rim was a huge obstacle. Not only a shot blocker but a guy who takes up a lot of space and cuts down a lot of passing lanes.”

The Warriors struggled from the field in the close-out game, shooting just 37.9% from the field and making just 13 of 48 3-pointers. Davis attempted only nine shots in Game 6 and finished with 17 points, but his imprint was all over the court. He pulled down 20 rebounds, had two blocks and two steals. His presence was felt throughout the series.

“To me the series came down to games 1 and 4,” Kerr said. “The Lakers outplayed us in key stretches in both games. That’s really the difference. The better team won.”

If one sequence summarized Golden State’s struggles against Davis and the Lakers, look no further than the final frantic minute of Game 4 in L.A. With the Warriors down by a point at 102-101 with 36 seconds left in Game 4, Steph was isolated against AD at the top of the circle with 36 seconds on the game clock. It was only fitting the game would come down to the game’s best shooter against the best defensive center in basketball. You couldn’t have scripted it any better.

Curry was ready to seize the moment, like has for the better part of the decade as the ring leader of the Warriors, but Davis was more than up to the task.

Curry starts the play with a few crossover dribbles. Davis pokes the ball to disrupt Steph’s rhythm and the Warriors guard was forced to retrieve the loose ball and restart the play. Curry then drove left, but AD cuts him off. Curry resets and tries to drive to his right. AD cuts him off again, and forces Curry to take a difficult one-legged, step-back jumper contested by the 7-foot-6 wingspan of Davis. The shot rattled off the rim.

“I pride myself on defense,” David told Spectrum SportsNet reporter Mike Trudell.

“They wanted, obviously, the switch with me and I took that personally,” he continued. “I know what he gets to like his stepback 3 and I just wanted to move my puppies. As my man, coach would say, I just wanted to move them puppies and keep him in front and make him take a tough shot and that’s what I did.

“He’s a helluva player, there’s no shot that he can’t make. He takes all the tough shots and he makes them. I just wanted to make it tough on him and make him shoot over a contested hand and pray that he missed, cuz he’ll make those. And he missed, got it back, and I just wanted to defend again and make him miss again and we ended up getting the rebound. Big time defense from me, but big time rebounding from our guys.”

The Warriors would get another opportunity with 26 seconds left after Draymond Green secures the offensive rebound. He fires the ball back to Steph, who gets another shot at shaking Davis. This time, Curry settles for a 30-foot 3-pointer that he had to put extra arc because of Davis’ length. The shot fell short, bouncing off the front of the rim. Lonnie Walker IV, who had a huge fourth quarter for the Lakers coming off the bench, grabs the rebound and gets fouled. Walker made both free throws, setting up for the final Davis defensive stand.

Down 104-101 and needing a 3-pointer, Golden State coach Steve Kerr called for the “hammer play” to free up a 3-pointer shooter in the corner. The play was a staple of the San Antonio Spurs offense during the Tim Duncan era, and it’s a play the Warriors have run many times. Unfortunately for Kerr and the Warriors, AD and LeBron James were familiar with the play as well. As soon as AD realized what the play was, he peeled off his man and jumped Klay Thompson’s corner route and intercepted Draymond Green’s pass.

Even though the Warriors would get another short possession after Curry grabbed a loose ball off a jump ball, but inexplicably threw the ball away with a time-out left in his pocket, the Lakers grabbed full control of the series thanks to their superstar center wearing No. 3.

“That’s a big part of the series for sure. Davis is dominant,” Kerr said about the Lakers’ big man.

Davis has been an absolute monster on defense during the 2023 playoffs. He leads all players in the postseason in every major statistical category on defense. He’s No. 1 in blocks (3.3) and rebounds (14.1), and has contested the most 2-point shots through the first two rounds of the postseason. He is also the only center who ranks in the top five on deflections.

AD’s disruptive hands are a big reason why the Lakers own the best defensive rating since the All-Star break. The addition of forwards Jarred Vanderbilt and Rui Hachimura have afforded L.A. more athleticism and size up front to go with Davis’ unique ability to guard one through five.

Despite his defensive credentials, Davis remains an easy target for critics. He still doesn’t get the respect he richly deserves from the media and pundits.

When the NBA announced its All-Defensive Teams, there was one glaring omission. Where’s Anthony Davis?

The first team was comprised of Memphis’ Jaren Jackson Jr., Cleveland’s Evan Mobley, Milwaukee’s Brook Lopez, Chicago’s Alex Caruso, and Milwaukee’s Jrue Holiday. All of them were bounced from the playoffs either in the first round or in the play-in tournament. Jackson Jr., the 2023 NBA defensive player of the year, was matched up with AD in the first round and it was a landslide. Davis was the more superior defender and far more impactful than Triple J.

LeBron let the world know who he thinks in the NBA’s best defender. “He’s the best defensive player in the league,” LeBron told TNT’s Chris Haynes.

“I think the league knows it,” LeBron said. “There aren’t many guys who can protect the rim at all costs and switch out on point guards like Steph [Curry]. We trust AD guarding anybody in the league.”

The Los Angeles Lakers lost 10 of their first 12 games in the 2022-23 NBA season and the vast majority of Lakers fans and some members of the basketball media are losing it.

It’s a rough time for the Purple and Gold. The team is struggling on the court, the value of crypto (team plays at Crypto.com Arena) is eroding faster than Twitter stock, and the hated Boston Celtics are getting close to winning a championship. Lakers Nation is in total panic mode, looking anyone to blame. Much of their venom has been directed at guard Russell Westbrook and general manager Rob Pelinka. They want Westbrook traded and they want Pelinka fired.

Even basketball beat writers appear to going the extra mile to pin the losses on easy targets — and bagging on Westbrook is a low-hanging fruit. Some basketball pundits actually thought the Lakers are a playoff contender if they can find a taker for Westbrook and his $47 million expiring contract. NBA insider Mark Medina said he expected the Lakers to make a deal for Westbrook before training camp starts. Medina was definitely surprised to see Westbrook at the start of training camp.

L.A. Times writer Dan Woike seems to be enamored with the Westbrook narrative as well, finding all sorts of ways to shed light on the former NBA MVP’s shortcomings. In one of Woike’s recent stories, he focused on a couple of bad Westbrook turnovers (and they were bad) in a short stretch in the second quarter that allowed the Sacramento Kings to cut the Lakers lead in half. Maybe the three baskets the Lakers gave up in the first quarter were the sole reason why the Kings won 120-114.

Westbrook’s poor shooting and high turnovers are well documented and well established. It’s like saying Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars was a terrible moment. What’s not so obvious to average basketball observers is the two biggest issues for the Lakers this season are their two leaders: LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

Davis has been unreliable and unavailable for much of his NBA career. Outside of an out-of-body experience inside the Disney World bubble in 2020, Davis keeps disappointing. AD has yet to play more than 62 games since becoming a Laker. Even when he’s on the court he’s MIA in crucial moments. At times, AD looks tired and timid. Whenever he hits the deck, he grimaces in pain while holding some body part. He’ll go through stretches in the second half where he won’t even take a shot. There have been too many fourth quarters when Davis went completely silent. It took a heart-to-heart conversation with first-year Lakers coach Darvin Ham to light a fire under AD.

“Had a real good conversation with [Davis] after our last game, our last loss [against the Kings],” Ham said following the Lakers’ win over the Nets that snapped a five-game losing streak. “And he just said, ‘I got your back, Coach.’ “

Before the contest at home against the Nets, Ham said it was on Davis to remedy the lack of touches on his own. “Just him demanding the ball,” Ham said. “It starts with that.”

If you’re a member of the NBA’s 75th anniversary team, you shouldn’t have to be told to demand the ball. You tell everyone: scrap whatever we’re running because the next play will go through me.

Can you imagine Kobe Bryant being told to demand the ball? Kobe would have demanded the ball from tip-off.

Davis is obviously not the face-of-the-franchise player the Lakers thought he could be. Anyone who has played basketball at any level knows that if the game is close, winning and losing comes down to your best against the opponent’s best. When the opposing team goes on a run, your best player takes charge and stops the bleeding. Regardless of what defense the opposing team runs at you, if you believe you’re the best player on the court, it won’t matter. You’re determined to score, defend, or grab a rebound and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Sometimes being The Man requires something extraordinary, like scoring 40 points and grabbing 15 rebounds or scoring consecutive baskets down the the stretch to close the show. That’s what a No. 1 guy does. AD is capable of doing extraordinary things. How badly does he want to be the best? That question remains unanswered.

The other big problem is a bit more complicated.

LeBron is a basketball living legend. He may not be the same player he was three seasons ago when he led the Lakers to a title, but he still has plenty of pull on and off the court. However, Father Time is winning and LeBron’s hour glass is close to empty. He’s clearly no longer the best player in the game. He’s no longer an MVP candidate. He’s no longer the incredible physical force who can pick up an entire franchise and carry it over the finish line. He’s still got some flicker in his flame, but the fire burns out a lot quicker now and his body is breaking down more frequently.

LeBron turns 38 in December. After 20 super seasons, he finally looks human. Despite the obvious decline in his game, the Lakers gave LeBron a two-year contract extension that runs through 2025. By that time he’ll be 40. But the Lakers understand cutting off the LeBron cord isn’t that simple. They need him to be the marquee outside the arena. They need him to be the box office superstar fans are still willing to pay to watch even though he’s past his prime.

LeBron’s shooting numbers this season are way down compared to his career standards. His 23% 3-point percentage is one of the worst in the entire league. He’s taking more shots (averaging 21.9 field goal attempts), which hijacks the offense and disrupts flow. When LeBron commented earlier in the season that the Lakers were “not a team constructed of great shooting,” he was probably including himself in that group of non-shooters.

And if you think LeBron’s offensive numbers are below the line, his defense is even worse. He’s guarding shadows.

LeBron has two big boxes to check before riding off into the sunset. He wants to break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring record and he wants to play with his eldest son, Bronny, in the NBA. And the Lakers might be willing to give him one of those wishes.

The other underlying Lakers problem is their relationship with Klutch Sports Group. The sports agency founded by LeBron’s close friend Rich Paul employs half the Lakers roster. Owner Jeanie Buss, Pelinka and the Lakers’ top brass need to carefully navigate this relationship because any misstep could result in losing Klutch clients in the future.

The reality is the Lakers are now rebuilding. Hiring Ham was a clear message that the Lakers are prioritizing developing players and acquiring younger talent. Pelinka was abundantly clear that he’s not going to give up future draft picks just to get rid of Westbrook. “You have one shot to make a trade with multiple picks, so if you make that trade it has to be the right one,” Pelinka said during media day. “So we’re being very thoughtful around the decisions on when and how to use draft capital in a way that can improve our roster.”

LeBron and Davis led the Lakers to a championship in the 2020 bubble season. And that’s no small feat. It cemented their Lakers legacies. But winning a championship in 2023 with LeBron and AD is just a pipe dream. LeBron and AD are simply not good enough to save the Lakers from having another disappointing season. It’s time for the Lakers to start focusing on the franchise’s own timeline instead of bending the knee to LeBron’s timeline.

First impression is the best impression. For his first press conference as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, Darvin Ham hit it out of the park. Now, all he has to do is execute the plan.

Ham was introduced as the 28th head coach of the Lakers on June 6. The 48-year-old former NBA player and longtime assistant with Mike Budenholzer said all the right things while entertaining the mostly L.A.-based basketball media. He addressed the two biggest issues facing the franchise: 1) what to do with Russell Westbrook, 2) how to get the best out of injury-prone Anthony Davis.

If Lakers fans want a hint on what a Darvin Ham-led Lakers team will look like, think Milwaukee Bucks minus the grit.

Lakers Nation should be more than satisfied with Ham’s answers. Westbrook appears to be satisfied with the hiring. He attended Ham’s introductory presser at the Lakers training facility in El Segundo and nodded in approval when Ham talked about what he thinks of the former league MVP, who was the target of ridicule and criticism and got unfairly blamed for the Lakers’ 33-49 season.

“Don’t get it messed up. Russ is one of the best players our league has ever seen and there is still a ton left in that tank,” Ham said in his news conference televised on Spectrum SportsNet.

He continued: “I don’t know why people tend to try to write him off. I’m gonna approach him like I do every player I’ve ever encountered. We’re going to talk about our running habits with the ball, without the ball, and again, the team. The rhythm of the team and trying to establish a rhythm with LeBron, Russ, AD, and again, share the load. Defensively and offensively. Defensively is where you’re gonna see us make our biggest leaps and bounds. We have to commit to the defensive side of the of the ball or we don’t have a chance to do anything. The offense won’t even matter if we don’t get stops.”

Ham basically confirmed that the Lakers intend to bring back Westbrook despite reports — and fan urging — that they’re trading him. Ham said he has already had private conversations with Westbrook and they both agreed on how what it’ll take to make this partnership work.

“Russ and I had some really, really great one-on-one convos, man, and the biggest word I think that came out of that, those discussions, was sacrifice,” Ham said. “I’m going to expect him to be the same tenacious, high-energy player that he’s been all his entire career. A lot of now may have him without the ball in his hand. Most of it now may have it on the defensive end. But, again, we have to sacrifice. There’s no achieving anything without all parties sharing the load, sacrificing instead of one-on-one.”

Ham came from a Bucks system that prioritized defense. He had the opportunity to work with former defensive player of the year Giannis Antetokounmpo and second-team all-defensive guard Jrue Holiday. Ham would love nothing more than to recreate the Holiday defensive model in Westbrook.

Ham told ESPN’s Malika Andrews that he wants Westbrook to be a “pit bull” on the defensive end and channel most of his boundless energy on that end of the floor. “I want [Russ] to set a tone defensively for our team,” Ham said. “I want him to get back to guarding at a championship level.”

Ham won a title in 2004 as a member of the Detroit Pistons, and he was Budenholzer’s lead assisant during the Bucks’ title run in 2021. Ham’s championship pedigree makes him a qualified authority figure when it comes to building a winner, and he clearly identifies defense as the top priority to get the Lakers back to being title contenders.

Last season, the Lakers fell to the bottom of the league in terms of defensive efficiency (ranked 21st out of 30 teams), which is a stark contrast to where they were two seasons ago when they were a top-five defense in their championship run inside the Disney World bubble in 2020.

L.A. underwent a major facelift in 2021-22 and lost its identity. The team greatly missed defensive stalwarts Alex Caruso, Danny Green, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. The addition of offensive-minded players Malik Monk, Carmelo Anthony, and Kendrick Nunn didn’t pan out. Monk and Anthony provided plenty of firepower on offense, but defense wasn’t their forte. Nunn collected $5 million for sitting on the bench. He missed the entire 2021-22 season due to a bone bruise in his knee.

Ham is tasked with rebuilding the oldest roster in the league while developing some of the younger players who showed promise like Austin Reaves, an undrafted rookie who worked his way into the rotation.

“My goal is continue with the development of our younger players, and make those guys comfortable,” Ham said. “Everything has to be a team effort. If there’s mistakes made I have to be able to coach [James, Anthony Davis, and Russell Westbrook] like I do the rest of the roster. We have a saying, facts over feelings. Once you see the film and it’s a fact that you missed your assignment, then that has to be pointed out. If I can’t point that out to one of our big three, then the last man or someone in our rotation won’t take what we’re doing seriously. It has to be consistent across the board.”

Getting the role players to fall in line might be the easiest part of the job. The hard part will be convincing his three highest-paid players to buy into what he’s selling.

“LeBron is going to be LeBron, Russ is going to be Russ, but we need consistency out of Anthony Davis,” Ham said. “We need him to be healthy, we need him to be in a good mental space, and we need him to be as consistent as possible, back to playing that championship-type basketball.”

Keeping Davis healthy and asking for consistency might be Ham’s greatest challenge. It’ll be more difficult than getting Westbrook to play defense or managing LeBron’s workload.

Bill Belichick, the six-time Super Bowl champion head coach of the New England Patriots, famously said that “dependability is more important than ability.” There’s no question about Davis’ ability. Few in the league have his combination of size and skill. But he has proven on multiple occasions that he can’t stay healthy for an entire season.

Davis has played in only 76 games the past two seasons due to an assortment of injures — from his shoulder to his knee to his ankle. And the last time he played in more than 70 games was in 2018. How can the Lakers lean on Davis if he’s not available to play?

Ham knows that the Lakers can’t get back to being a championship-level team without Davis. He says the four-time All-NBA defender is the “key” to how the Lakers want to play on defense.

“We’ve all seen what can happen when he’s healthy, when he’s playing at a high level, when he’s in a good rhythm,” Ham said of Davis. “We saw it in the bubble. His skillset, size, versatility, defensive acumen, his relentlessness. His ability to give multiple efforts defensively is key. It’s going to be the foundation of the type of standard we set within the Darvin Ham era.”

Ham plans to implement a four-out, one-in style on offense. It’s a similar approach the Bucks ran with Antetokounmpo as the primary option. Giannis and AD are both capable of sliding to the center spot, but they’re not the same type of player. Giannis brings the physicality to the party. He overwhelms opponents with his size and strength, often bullying his way to the basket. Davis prefers to stay above the dotted line and likes to shoot over his man instead of playing through his man. The Lakers could alter the offense a bit to fit Davis’ preferred style, but the team may have to look for a legit 5-man to play alongside Davis to keep him from having to do all the dirty work.

When a reporter asked Ham if he felt pressure taking on such a high-profile gig on a high-profile team that’s obsessed about raising championship banners, he had a great response.

“I grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. I was shot in the face by accident, April 5, 1988,” Ham said. “You go through something like that, it is going to do one of two things: It’s gonna make you fearful or fearless. It made me fearless. I don’t feel no pressure. It’s basketball.”

As the losses kept piling up, Russell Westbrook kept saying the Los Angeles Lakers needed to figure things out in order to right the ship. The hope was the Lakers would eventually figure it out and straighten out a disjointed 2021-22 season. Well, any hopes of competing for an 18th championship banner have evaporated.

After 79 games and 39 changes to the starting lineup, the Lakers simply couldn’t figure it out.

The Lakers were officially eliminated from the playoffs on April 5 as the NBA-leading Phoenix Suns put them out of their misery with a thorough beatdown that dropped L.A. to 11th place in the Western Conference and out of the play-in tournament. The Lakers have all spring and summer to figure out how to clean up the mess they’ve created. General manager Rob Pelinka said it was championship or bust. Well, the season was a complete bust and you can bet on a major shakeup this offseason.

“Extremely disappointed,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said after the game. “Disappointed for our fan base. Disappointed for the Buss family.”

Vogel’s job is on the line. There were reports circulating online hours before the Lakers-Suns game that Doc Rivers and Quin Snyder could be the Lakers head coach. Vogel hasn’t even been fired yet and the vultures were already flying over his head.

“This was a season where we just didn’t get it done,” Carmelo Anthony said. Carmelo was one of four Lakers — along with Anthony Davis, LeBron James, and Westbrook — who were named to the NBA’s diamond anniversary team. It’s a distinction reserved for the best and brightest players who shaped basketball in the last 75 years. You would think that having four players on the league’s all-time team would be able to figure things out. Apparently not.

“Our goal was to win a championship,” Davis said in his postgame news conference after putting up 21 points and 13 rebounds in the loss against the Suns.

“Feel like we had the pieces, but injuries got in the way of that,” he continued. “And that was the difference in the season. I think even though we lost games where all of us was on the floor — me, Bron, Russ — I think we’re three great players, but we would have figured it out if we logged more minutes together. But we weren’t able to do that, which makes it tough to be able to compete for a championship when your three best players haven’t logged enough minutes together.”

As much as we’d like to agree with Davis that a healthy Lakers squad would have altered the season, he’s delusional. Davis, James, and Westbrook were on the court together for only 21 games. In those 21 games, the Lakers went 11-10. Let’s extrapolate that for an entire season and it only puts the Lakers right around the .500 mark in terms of wins and losses. So, Davis’ argument that all the Lakers needed was a healthy squad and everything would have been fine misses the mark.

The truth of the matter is, the Lakers were just not that good. The roster was flawed and the team’s most decorated All-Stars simply didn’t get the job done. You can blame the front office, you can blame the coaching staff. But ultimately, it was AD, LeBron, Russ, and Melo who had their fingerprints on what Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke called the most disappointing season in Lakers history. Plaschke said the season was so disappointing, it was comical.

We could revisit the litany of things that went wrong during the season, but instead of listing all of them here a Lakers fan compiled a “One Shining Moment” video on Twitter that summed up the entire season.

The expectations were too unrealistic for a team built around a brittle center who has never proven he can stay healthy for an entire season, an aging all-time great superstar who is finally showing a decline in his overall game after 19 seasons, and a former MVP point guard — who was used to having the ball in his hands — who had trouble fitting in.

Pinning the makeup of a disastrous roster on Lakers management and LeBron’s sports agency, Klutch Sports, would be fair. With the full backing of Klutch Sports, the Lakers’ top brass traded young standouts Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, and multiple unprotected first-round picks to acquire Anthony Davis in 2019. Two years later, the Lakers OK’d another costly blockbuster deal that brought Westbrook in the fold. The Lakers sacrificed the future to maximize LeBron’s prime years, and they got one championship (2020) out of it. Now, the future looks extremely bleak.

The easiest target in the blame game is Lakers coach Vogel. His inability to find the right rotation will ultimately cost him his job. Vogel kept tinkering with the roster all the way up to game No. 79. He played big lineups, small lineups, old lineups, and young lineups. None of them worked.

Vogel tried to implement the system that worked during the Lakers’ championship inside the Disney World bubble, but the problem was he didn’t have the proper personnel to run it. Vogel kept searching for the right combination, but he never found it.

Vogel certainly couldn’t find the correct formula for LeBron and Westbrook. Both players struggled coexisting and Vogel wasn’t able to help either one out. Vogel also yo-yoed with Dwight Howard’s role. For some odd reason, Vogel never fully bought into having a set role for Howard. Even at 36, Howard showed flashes that he can still be an effective center. Howard appeared in only 58 games, started in 25 of them, and averaged a career-low 16 minutes per game. A lot of the Lakers’ deficiencies were on the defensive end, and not getting Howard more involved — especially in the fourth quarter when the Lakers need stops — was mind-boggling. Vogel kept rolling out a small-ball lineup that saw LeBron at center and Carmelo at the big forward. Teams went to town against Bron and Melo like a weekend brunch at a Las Vegas buffet. Everyone feasted against the Lakers.

Firing Vogel could be the first domino to fall this offseason, but a new head coach won’t fix the three biggest problems on the team: Davis, LeBron, and Westbrook. The Lakers’ supposedly three best players and three highest-paid employees are also the franchise’s three heaviest anchors that will keep the team stuck in the port through next season.

Westbrook has one year remaining on his massive contract, and he will most likely opt-in on $47 million. LeBron will be 38 years old next year and entering his 20th NBA season. He has missed a big chunk of the 2021-22 season due to various injuries, and that won’t change as he puts another year on his aging body. And then there’s Davis. Bill Belichick famously said availability is better than ability. In the last two seasons, Davis has missed close to 80 games. That’s equivalent to a full NBA season. And when he tries to play through an injury, Davis looks like a guy held together with duct tape.

Davis likes to play at his own pace and prefers to work in an open space. When he’s forced to be more aggressive, he ends up hurting himself.

When rapper Snoop Dogg, a longtime Lakers fan, poked fun at Davis saying he was hurt more often than Mary J. Blige, Davis shot back and vowed to prove all his critics wrong by working himself into the best shape of his life. Instead of proving his critics wrong, Davis proved his critics right as he once again played half the season (40 games) and had his worst shooting percentage (18%) from 3-point range.

Fixing the Lakers won’t be easy. It’s not like they can hit one button to restart everything. The roster definitely needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. They need to get younger. LeBron and Westbrook are most likely sticking around. LeBron’s business empire is firmly entrenched in Los Angeles, and his son Bronny won’t be draft-eligible yet. Westbrook’s contract will be nearly impossible to move, so the team will have to eat his $47 million player option once he opts in. As for Davis, the Lakers front office needs to seriously consider trading him while he still has value.

The Lakers are going to have to put aside their hopes of raising an 18th championship banner because this rebuilding process will take a good amount of time to be completed.

Russell Westbrook, LeBron James, and Anthony Davis are tired of hearing the same old question that keeps coming up after every Laker loss. When is this team going to finally find its groove?

Westbrook warned everyone who was listening at the beginning of the season that this version of the Purple and Gold is going to take some time to develop. LeBron essentially said the same thing. Davis keeps preaching patience, that this team can’t be graded until it is fully healthy and have its full complement of players.

But as the NBA’s 2021-22 season crosses its first-quarter mark, the same old issues keep surfacing: lack of effort and commitment on the defensive end, too many turnovers, stagnant offense.

We could point to the well-known fact that this is the oldest roster in the league, with five players over the age of 35 (LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Trevor Ariza, Dwight Howard, Rajon Rondo). But the Lakers’ problems extend beyond having an aging roster. The team’s biggest problems start and end with their highest-paid guys: LeBron, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook. These are the three guys the franchise was supposed to lean on. Instead, they are the main reason why the Lakers are struggling. Here are four reasons why the Lakers are in serious trouble.

LeBron’s game slowly declining

Father Time is undefeated. Unless your name is Tom Brady, Father Time will eventually catch up to you. Father Time has caught up to LeBron. The once undisputed king of basketball is starting to show some decline. Injuries have kept him out of games, and when he does play he appears to struggle as the game wears on. LeBron is indeed human. He turns 37 in December. He no longer possesses the same speed and power that made him one of the 75 greatest players to ever play the sport.

LeBron is relying on jumpers more and more. He’s attempting more 3-pointers (nearly eight per game) and he’s making more 3-pointers (over two per game) than he’s ever had in his career. It’s an obvious sign that he can’t turn the corner and consistently get to the rim, and he can’t overpower guys like he used to.

Dallas Cowboys great Michael Irvin perfectly described how a sports legend fades away as he grows old. He said the flame doesn’t completely go out. You get flickers of flame. That’s what we’re seeing with LeBron. You might get flickers here and there, but the fire is no longer consistently burning. He hasn’t been able to stay healthy these last two seasons, and his best games usually occur when he has a week of rest. His offensive game has become predictable and his defense is nowhere near All-Star level. LeBron remains one of the game’s best players, and might still be good enough to make an All-Star team. But his days as the undisputed king of the NBA are gone.

Anthony Davis is not a center

When the Lakers acquired AD from New Orleans in 2019 as part of a blockbuster trade that sent young studs Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, and Josh Hart to the Pelicans, the idea was the 6-foot-10 All-Star was going to be the centerpiece of the post-LeBron Lakers era. AD was supposed to be next in line to join the Lakers’ great history of centers. But there’s one problem. Davis prefers to play power forward.

“I like playing the four. I don’t really like playing the five,” he said back in 2019. We should have listened to him.

Prior to the start of the 2021-22 season, Lakers head coach Frank Vogel spoke to Davis about playing more 5 (center). LeBron and Westbrook essentially said the same thing to him. So, Davis relented and agreed to play more five. Through the first 20 games, Davis has been ineffective playing exclusively at the center spot. He’s shooting 16 percent from 3-point range, the worst in the league. He’s also shooting just 37 percent in the mid-range, which is supposed to be his money shot.

Defense is Davis’ calling card, but if he has a weakness it’s his inability to secure consistently secure defensive rebounds especially in crunch time. Because AD likes to challenge shots, he often finds himself out of position to secure boards, which allows teams to get extra possessions off offensive boards.

There is no doubt Davis is a phenomenal talent and ranks as one of the top-five big men in the game. But if the Lakers are going to win another title, AD has to be big in big moments and play at an MVP level. So far, he has fallen short.

Westbrook-LeBron conundrum

Russell Westbrook stays true to himself. He never wavers. He plays one way. But one thing he is not is he’s not a point guard. He’s a shooting guard. We’ve known this since his days at UCLA when he played alongside Darren Collison. Westbrook is an athletic 2-guard. He’s a gifted athlete, who can play point but not a true point. When he was drafted in 2008, Oklahoma City converted him into a point guard because that’s what the franchise needed. It worked at OKC because Kevin Durant took the pressure off Westbrook, and James Harden played point to close out games. The Thunder was never able to replace Harden when he left OKC, leaving Westbrook as the main playmaker and taking on more responsibility than he should have.

When the Lakers acquired Westbrook in a multiplayer deal with the Washington Wizards, the idea was to have Westbrook play off the ball and defer to LeBron, who will run the point. That plan immediately went out the door when both guys couldn’t quite get in sync during the preseason. Lakers coach Frank Vogel offered up a solution. Let’s stagger their minutes.

OK, Frank. How’s that working out?

Instead of giving James and Westbrook more time to figure out how to play together, Vogel and the Lakers coaching staff are playing them together even less.

It’s obvious that Westbrook is more comfortable and free when LeBron is not in the game. His best games as a Laker have come in games James missed. The Lakers also play at a much faster pace when Westbrook has the ball in his hands. The problem with having the ball in Westbrook’s hands is he will turn it over a ton. He is among the league leaders in turnovers.

Westbrook, LeBron, and AD have all said it’ll take time for this Laker team to gel, using the excuse of this being a new group. But the Wizards, the Lakers’ trading partner in the Westbrook deal, have just as many new pieces they’re trying to fit in and they don’t seem to be as discombobulated.

Imbalanced roster

The most glaring issue the Lakers are dealing with is the roster imbalance. It is guard-heavy.

L.A. has two centers (Dwight Howard and DeAndre Jordan) and four forwards (LeBron, Davis, Carmelo Anthony, Trevor Ariza). The rest of the roster is full of small guards. Talen Horton-Tucker and rookie Austin Reaves were big guards in college. But on the Lakers, they are forced to play on the wing. Vogel has struggled the find the right combination, inserting and reinserting guys in the starting lineup and dropping guys in the rotation. He’s tried a big lineup. He’s tried a small lineup. He even tried putting LeBron at the five. None have worked. It’s difficult to find balance when you have a gluttony of guards and not enough forwards.

Vogel believes in his system. It worked before in 2020 when the Lakers won a championship inside the Disney World bubble. But the 2020 Laker squad was a big team. That championship unit had long, athletic centers (Howard, JaVale McGee), versatile forwards (LeBron, AD, Kyle Kuzma, Markief Morris), and big defensive-minded guards who can switch to a wing position if needed (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Danny Green, Alex Caruso, THT).

Part of the reason the Lakers have lost their defensive identity under Vogel is due to the simple fact that they were unable to replace the big guards who protected their perimeter defense. KCP, Green, and Caruso are elite defenders and did things on the defensive end that usually went unnoticed. A year ago, the Lakers had one of the best defensive ratings in the NBA. This season, they are closer to the bottom.

Vogel can change the starting lineup or juggle the rotation as many times as he wants. The answers are not in this current group.

Lakers All-Star Anthony Davis spent half the 2021 season in street clothes. (Getty Images)

When Anthony Davis limped off the court with 6:35 left in the first quarter of Game 6 in the L.A.-Phoenix playoff series, the Lakers’ reign as NBA champions came to an end.

Without Davis, the Lakers were unable to generate enough offense to keep up with the Suns and eventually ran out of gas. It was the quickest postseason exit by a defending NBA champ since 2015 when the San Antonio Spurs were eliminated by the L.A. Clippers in the first round. The Lakers’ elimination means the NBA Finals won’t have LeBron James for only the second time in a decade and there’s going to be a new champion crowned.

The Brooklyn Nets are now the overwhelming favorites to win the 2021 NBA championship as their odds are currently listed at +170, according to Sports Betting Dime. The Utah Jazz, the top-seeded team in the Western Conference, has the next-best odds at +320. Brooklyn has one of the most potent offenses in the league — averaging 118.6 points per game — and any one of its superstars, whether it’s Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, James Harden, is more than capable of dropping 50 points in a game.

It was an incredibly taxing season for the Lakers as they had less than months to prepare after a long stint in the Orlando bubble. The 2020 NBA Finals ended in October and the 2021 season started in late December, giving the Lakers and the Miami Heat — the two finalists in the bubble — just 71 days to recover in the middle of a global pandemic. It’s the shortest offseason in league history.

“From the moment we entered the bubble to today it’s been draining. Mentally, spiritually, emotionally draining,” James told reporters after the Lakers were eliminated in the first round.

“Every team has to deal with it, obviously, but with us and Miami going long-haul in the bubble and coming back on short notice, it’s been very draining,” James added.

Three of the last four teams in the bubble are out of the 2021 playoffs. The Lakers fell in six games, the Boston Celtics lost to the Nets in five games, and the Heat was swept by the Bucks. Denver was the lone team that made a deep run in the bubble to escape the first round, but the Nuggets lost point guard Jamal Murray to an ACL injury for the rest of the season.

The quick turnaround was compounded by a myriad of injuries to L.A.’s two superstars. The injury-prone Davis played in 36 of the 72-game schedule, missing a month due to a calf injury. LeBron also missed 27 games because of a sprained ankle, which clearly bothered him in the playoffs. The Lakers were 21-7 when Davis and James were both healthy. After Davis injured his calf on Feb. 14 against Denver, the Lakers began sliding down the standings and fell all the way down to the seventh seed at the end of the regular season.

“I think health played a big part in the position we were in,” Davis said. “Me missing 30 games, Bron missing an extensive amount of games; we just weren’t healthy. We were very healthy last year, it just wasn’t the same this year. And we couldn’t have our full product on the floor.”

When Davis was on the court, the Lakers led the Phoenix series 2-1. Davis dominated the Suns in games 2 and 3 (both Laker wins), and L.A. appeared headed for the second round. But Davis hurt his groin in the first half of Game 4 and couldn’t finish the game. He missed Game 5 (a Suns blowout) and tried to give it a go in Game 6 but lasted just five minutes.

AD went back to the locker room after going down. pic.twitter.com/Z3POnG4Qws

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 4, 2021

“The one thing that bothers me more than anything is we never got an opportunity to see our full team,” James said. “We could never fully get into a rhythm, we could never see the full potential of what we were capable of.”

After the Lakers signed center Andre Drummond in March following a buyout by the Cleveland Cavaliers, L.A. thought it added the final piece to another championship contender. But the vaunted lineup of Drummond, Davis, James, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Dennis Schroder was on the court for just six games, including the playoffs. They didn’t have enough time to gain chemistry.

The Lakers enter the offseason with a ton of uncertainty. Davis, LeBron, Kyle Kuzma, Caldwell-Pope, and Marc Gasol are the only players under contract for the 2021-22 season. The team’s big free-agent acquisitions (Schroder, Drummond, Montrezl Harrell) are all unrestricted free agents and are likely not going to take less money to stay in L.A. Cap space will also be a problem. The Lakers are already near the $109 million salary cap and won’t have much flexibility when the free agency period begins.

Schroder had an eventful season with the Lakers. He turned down an $84-million contract extension, but didn’t quite improve his stock. He averaged 15.4 points during the regular season, which was three points below what he averaged in Oklahoma City, and struggled in the Phoenix series on both ends of the court. He averaged 14.3 points, shot 40 percent from the field, got lit up by Devin Booker in the series clincher, and drew the ire of Lakers legend Magic Johnson.

“I don’t think he’s a Laker,” Johnson told AM 570 L.A. Sports. “I don’t think he brings the winning mentality and attitude we need.”

A lot was expected of Schroder, a finalist for Sixth Man of the Year before he signed with the Lakers. But he far from the only disappointment.

Harrell, the player who beat out Schroder for the 2020 Sixth Man award, had a season he’d like to forget. Harrell couldn’t find a consistent role during the regular season, and his playing time took an even greater hit when the Lakers acquired Drummond. Drummond was immediately inserted as the starter at center, pushing Gasol and Harrell deeper in head coach Frank Vogel’s rotation.

Vogel struggled to find continuity with his three centers, and Harrell suffered the most in the playoffs as he was reduced to 39 minutes in the Phoenix series. Harrell could exercise his player option and come back for another season, but the relationship may be permanently damaged.

LeBron James and Anthony Davis celebrated an NBA title in 2020. Getty Images)

Each year OneManFastBreak.net ranks the five best players in the NBA. Let’s call it the “OMFB Furious Five.” It’s paying homage to the five styles of Chinese martial arts: snake, crane, monkey, praying mantis, and tiger.

The ranking system is based on one man’s opinion and does not follow or conform to any standard format, with more emphasis placed on how each player performed in the postseason. Stars are born during the regular season, but legends are made in the playoffs.

Last year’s OMFB Furious Five featured Anthony Davis (5), James Harden (4), LeBron James (3), Giannis Antetokounmpo (2), and Kawhi Leonard (1).

The list relatively stayed the same except for one addition and the return of a king. Without further ado, here are the five best basketball players in the world.

5. LUKA DONCIC
Dallas Mavericks, Guard-Forward

Luka Doncic enjoyed a breakout performance in the 2020 playoffs. (Getty Images)

Luka Doncic officially arrived as a bonafide superstar in 2020 when he gave us one of the memorable moments inside the Disney World bubble. The Dallas Mavericks’ young superstar, playing on a badly sprained ankle, put up 43 points on the vaunted Los Angeles Clippers defense, including the dagger step-back 3-point shot at the buzzer to give the Mavericks a 135-133 win in Game 4 of a Western Conference first-round playoff series. After burying the game-winning jumper, Luka starred into the camera and spewed a primal scream so loud the bubble nearly burst. It was a major statement from the then 21-year-old Doncic. He announced to the whole basketball world that he has arrived and he’s not going any time soon. “My goal is to win a championship,” said Doncic, whose Mavs were eliminated by the Clips in six games but not before putting together one of the most spectacular playoff debuts. The Slovenian sensation averaged 31 points, 9.8 rebounds, 8.7 assists and posted two triple-doubles against one of the best defensive teams in the league. Oh, by the way, he was also the youngest player to ever hit a game-winning shot in the postseason. “He is one of the toughest players that I have ever seen in this league, and that goes back 35, 36 years,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said of Doncic, who is up for Most Improved Player this year after winning Rookie of the Year in 2019. “[Luka] is a great young player that is getting better each year,” Carlisle said. “He has an irrepressible enthusiasm for the game, for his teammates, for winning. We’re so fortunate to have him. Now we have to get our roster healthy and get the right players around him.”

4. ANTHONY DAVIS
Los Angeles Lakers, Forward-Center

The center position has evolved over the years. Anthony Davis came into the NBA in 2012, one year after MDE (most dominant ever) Shaquille O’Neal retired. Davis led the University of Kentucky to the NCAA championship and was the unanimous No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft. Davis walked into the league as a skinny 19-year-old big man with guard-like skills but with a 7-6 wingspan. He was a hybrid. If Shaq was the last true back-to-the-basket dominant big man in the NBA, Davis was the future. He is the “center” most teams covet. He can post up. He can face up. He can step back and shoot 3-pointers. He can handle the ball and be able to get to his spots. But more importantly in today’s game, he can defend all positions — including perimeter players. The Brow is the total package.

Anthony Davis is regarded as one of the best defensive players in the NBA. (Getty Images)

Being able to contain guards for a 6-10, 253-pound big is a luxury most teams don’t have. The game has become so pick-and-roll heavy that big men must be able to hold their own against guards on switches. As good as Davis is offensively — he’s a career 52 percent shooter from the field and averages 24 points per game — his defense is what sets him apart from his peers. He averages 10 rebounds per game and 2.4 blocks. He is one of the league leaders in blocked shots year in and year out, and has been named to the All-Defensive team multiple times. “He does everything,” said LeBron James, Davis’ L.A. Lakers teammate. “He’s able to protect the rim, he’s able to guard in the post, he’s able to switch out to guards,” James added. “He’s able to block shots when guys are shooting floaters and runners. Get steals. I mean, he does everything defensively for us.”

3. GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO
Milwaukee Bucks, Forward

Giannis Antetokounmpo led the Bucks to the Eastern Conference finals in 2018-19. (Getty Images)

Giannis Antetokounmpo is well aware he’s far from being a finished product. Sounds ridiculous to even suggest that the NBA MVP, who averaged 27.7 points per game, 12.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists, shot 58 percent from the field and led his team to the best record in the Eastern Conference during the 2018-19 season, still has plenty of room for improvement. But that is the case with the 24-year-old Greek Freak, who is only scratching the surface of his prodigious talent. “I always think that I can improve,” Giannis told NBA TV. “That’s the one thing I have been doing, and I’m gonna keep doing it. There are going to be times that I’m not going to improve anymore. But as long as I keep working hard, keep believing in myself, I think I will keep getting better. I can tell you right off the top of my head five things I could do better,” he added. “I could shoot more threes, catch and shoot threes so I can help my teammates space the floor better. I could be able to playmake more. I could improve my handles. Make my handles more tight. There’s a lot of things I can improve.” To hear an MVP talk about all the things he needs to improve on is very refreshing. Giannis strikes a good balance of high level of confidence and humility. He has great confidence in his ability, but he’s also well aware of his weaknesses. With Giannis leading the way, Milwaukee is a championship contender in the East. “We try to get better each day. We try to compete at practice and create a habit that can carry over to the game,” Giannis said. “We know teams are going to come and try to win games against us. But we gotta be ready. We gotta do what we did last year. Defend together. Move the ball offensively. If we keep doing that we’re gonna be fine.”

2. KAWHI LEONARD
Los Angeles Clippers, Forward

Back in July 2015, Kawhi Leonard signed a multi-year contract with the San Antonio Spurs with the intention that he’ll be the face of the franchise for years to come. Leonard was coming winning his first NBA championship with the Spurs and was named Finals MVP in 2014. Fast forward to July 18, 2018. That was the day when the Spurs and Kawhi parted ways after an ugly divorce where both sides dug in their heels and stood their ground. The Spurs traded their cornerstone to the Toronto Raptors, along with Danny Green, for DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poltl and a 2019 first-round pick. The Spurs felt their relationship with Kawhi couldn’t be repaired. The core issue centered around Kawhi’s thigh injury. The Spurs doctors gave a different diagnosis than Kawhi’s doctors. Leonard played just nine games in the 2017-18 season and wanted out. Leonard’s reputation and status as one of the game’s greats took a severe hit. He needed to repair his rep and image while he was in Toronto. And did exactly that. Kawhi best on himself and put together a historic season with the Raptors. He clawed his way back to the mountain with a playoff performance worthy of legendary status. He averaged 30.5 points per game in the playoffs playing nearly 45 minutes. He delivered one of the greatest moments in NBA playoff history when he knocked off the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals with a dramatic game-winning, buzzer-beating 3-pointer that bounced off the rim four times before falling in the basket.

It was one of the craziest finishes you’ll ever witness. “Game. Series. Toronto has won,” play-by-play commentator Kevin Harlan said. But Kawhi wasn’t done. In the next round, he went head-to-head with 2019 NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. After dropping the first two games, Kawhi locked in and shut down Giannis and the Bucks the rest of the series to push the Raptors to their first NBA Finals appearance. Waiting for the Raptors in The Finals was defending two-time champion Golden State. It was supposed to be a massive mismatch. The Warriors had four future Hall of Famers in Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green while the Raptors limped into the series with a battered and bruised Leonard. In the end, it was the Warriors who were left battered and bruised and limped off the court with  a depleted roster after Durant went down with an Achilles tear and Klay injured his ACL. The Raptors celebrated Canada’s first pro basketball championship and Kawhi was named Finals MVP.

And now, the No. 1 player in the world. Drum roll please . . .

1. LEBRON JAMES
Los Angeles Lakers, Forward

“I’m LeBron James, and I ain’t got no worries!” This was LeBron’s message to his detractors after leading the Miami Heat to a championship in 2013. Years later, LeBron’s doubters are still trolling the internet. LeBron has been historically great we tend to overlook or even dismiss his greatness. His resume is about as complete as any legendary hooper. He doesn’t need to prove anything. He took a below-average Cleveland squad to the 2007 NBA Finals, but he got swept by San Antonio. He won two championships in Miami, but he lost to Dallas and San Antonio. He ended Cleveland’s 52-year championship drought in 2016, but he lost three out of four times in The Finals to Golden State. It doesn’t seem to matter what LeBron does. It is never enough to shut down the haters. And that’s fine with him because it is the very thing that fuels his thirst to strive for greatness. Add winning a championship for basketball’s version of Camelot to LeBron’s outstanding resume. James ended the worst six-year period in Lakers history after winning the 2020 NBA title inside the Disney World bubble. When you bring home the Larry O’Brien trophy to L.A., you elevate your GOAT card from gold to platinum. He is now firmly in the top five, joining Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kobe Bryant. “I told [Lakers owner] Jeanie [Buss] when I came here that I was gonna put this franchise back in the position where it belongs,” James said during the postgame ceremony shortly after securing his fourth NBA title with his third franchise and winning his fourth Finals MVP. He’s the first player to win Finals MVP with three different teams. He won it twice with the Miami Heat, once with the Cleveland Cavaliers and L.A. Lakers.

“For me to be a part of such a historical franchise is an unbelievable feeling,” James said. “Not only for myself but for the organization, for the coaches, for the trainers, for everybody here. We just want our respect. Rob [Pelinka] wants his respect. Coach [Frank] Vogel wants his respect. Organization wants their respect. Laker Nation wants their respect. And I want my damn respect, too.”

His crowning achievement was leading the Cavs to their first NBA title, ending a five-decade championship drought in the city of Cleveland. James was sensational during the 2016 NBA Finals. He averaged a Finals best 29.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, 8.9 assists, 2.6 steals, and 2.3 blocks. He made The Block in the final minute of Game 7 at Oakland’s Oracle Arena when he chased down Andre Iguodala and prevented what could have been the dagger layup that might have ended the Cavs’ championship hopes. Instead, with one super-human rejection, he lifted the Cleveland curse and set up Kyrie Irving’s game-winning 3-pointer that will be forever be known in northeast Ohio as The Shot. LeBron’s 2016 Finals performance was a stark contrast to his infamous “shrinking” in an embarrassing 4-2 series loss to Dallas in the 2011 Finals.

James said the loss to the Mavs in the 2011 Finals humbled him. He learned an important lesson. It made him make some significant changes on and off the court, including adding a post-up game with the help of Hakeem Olajuwon. LeBron reduced the amount of 3-point attempts and made a concerted effort to take the ball to the basket. He put together one of the most dominant and efficient regular seasons in league history, and earned his fourth MVP award. LeBron and Co. authored a historic 27-game winning streak and finished with a league-best 66 wins.

LeBron will always have his critics because of the way he left Cleveland the first time. But he returned to Ohio in 2015 and delivered on his promise by bringing a championship to The Land in 2016, cementing his basketball legacy and finally silencing his critics. So we thought. For someone who will go down in history as one of the greatest to ever play the game, LeBron has endured a ton of criticism. He has risen to the challenge, proving to the whole world he is fit to be basketball’s king.

Joel Huerto is the editor and publisher of OneManFastBreak.net. Follow him on Twitter @onemanfastbreak.