I’m So Sorry To Tell You This But The Lakers Must Be Taken Seriously

For the majority of the NBA season, there has been an odd, Los Angeles Lakers–shaped hole at the center of the conversation.

Chalk it up to Victor Wembanyama blocking out the sun, the feel-good Detroit Pistons, the feel-bad Los Angeles Clippers, or the gambling scandal that cast a pall over the proceeding five months of hoops, but there simply has not been that much to say about the Lakers, a blessed idyll for anyone who has had to endure national TV broadcasts and podcast segments discussing Rui Hachimura with a tone of grave seriousness. LeBron James, widely expected to hit the exit this summer, has just sort of been hanging around, while Austin Reaves got hurt at exactly the wrong time for what was looking like a fun outsider all-star candidacy. DeAndre Ayton, per an inevitable Dave McMenamin story, is exactly the moody weirdo everyone convinced themselves he wasn't when he signed with L.A. The most interesting thing that happened to them was Rich Paul floating a trade on his bad podcast.

Yet preceding any of these shrug-inducing truths was a caveat, something like Yes, Luka Doncic is amazing, but. Lurking within the striving, flawed Lakers was the most unstoppable pick-and-roll operator in basketball. Not that Doncic's genius with the ball helped the Lakers look like anything better than the least threatening of the six legit teams in the Western Conference (until the Kevin Durant group chat fiasco) or kept Doncic himself from having a pissy, telegenically abrasive season. This year felt like a gap year, the last middling Luka Doncic team until the albatross of LeBron James's contract and stature let the Lakers really build the team around their prize from the Nico Harrison boondoggle.