The Los Angeles Lakers have received a whole of praise for their moves in free agency so far. The Lakers ended up spending $190.7 million on seven players and have been viewed as one of the winners of this free agency period.
Tim Bontemps of ESPN, however, doesn’t believe the praise is warranted, as he thinks they haven’t really improved a lot from last season.
“To me, the Lakers didn’t materially get better,” Bontemps said on Get Up. “… The Lakers didn’t add anybody that materially moved the needle closer, because if they’d gone and gotten Donte DiVincenzo say right, instead of Gabe Vincent, I would’ve said that’s a real significant addition. A guy who’s clearly better than what they had. Maybe Gabe Vincent is this much better than Dennis Schroder, he’s essentially the same and otherwise, the roster is essentially the same.”
Bontemps stated that the Lakers did play better in the second half of last season, but he felt their three-point shooting from the 2023 playoffs is unsustainable. He isn’t sure that it will carry on to 2023-24.
“Everyone’s acting like they had the greatest offseason of all time… I’m talking about championship equity, I just don’t think they got closer,” Bontemps concluded.
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Bontemps makes some valid points in the sense that there have been no major additions as such, but this offseason was never going to be about that. The most important thing for the Lakers was to bring back their key players from last season and except Schroder, everyone is back. He has been replaced by Gabe Vincent and while Donte DiVincenzo would have been a bigger upgrade, the difference isn’t as big as Bontemps might believe.
Evaluating The Lakers’ Offseason
Ultimately, you’d judge the Lakers’ offseason based on one simple parameter, which is just how close they were last season. They made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals but were, of course, swept by the Denver Nuggets.
If there is anything such as a close sweep, though, it was that series. The Lakers certainly weren’t completely outclassed, as the Nuggets just executed better down the stretch for much of that series.
The expectation would be that with the likes of Rui Hachimura and D’Angelo Russell having a pre-season and one full campaign under their belt with the team, they’d be better in 2023-24. You’d also expect Austin Reaves to keep improving as he takes on a bigger role.
An addition like Taurean Prince is a very good one, too, as he brings some size and shooting (38.1% from three in 2022-23) that the Lakers lacked on the wings last season.
All of them have been signed to great deals, too, with Reaves being the best of the lot at $56.0 million for four years. Hachimura got $51.0 million over three years, while Russell is on $37.0 million for two years.
They acquired Gabe Vincent at a solid rate of $33.0 million over three years, too, and Taurean Prince just has a one-year deal worth $4.5 million.
The likes of Cam Reddish and Jaxson Haynes might not amount to much, but the other moves have been fairly good ones and none were too expensive. LeBron James certainly seems to be happy with the job the front office has done and you can’t blame him for that.
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