The Los Angeles Lakers have fired their head coach, face huge decisions with their stars, and are running out of options for the future.
After back-to-back sub-50-win seasons for the Los Angeles Lakers, huge changes were inevitable. The team kicked off their 2024 offseason by dismissing head coach Darvin Ham after just two seasons in charge.
But if you thought finding a new head coach would be the Lakers’ only headache this summer — think again. The Lakers are in for an overhaul that could result in a massive shuffling of the deck.
Heading into year 7 of the LeBron James era, the Los Angeles Lakers are in for a long standstill while they wait for James to make his next move. If James makes L.A. wait long enough, the future could take a huge hit.
However, the Los Angeles Lakers have one risky but unique way out of this that can potentially solve their future.
Will James Ditch the Los Angeles Lakers?
When then Los Angeles Lakers President of Basketball Operations Magic Johnson sat down with LeBron James at his house on the night of free agency back in 2018, both parties anticipated a partnership that would easily last until the end of James’ career after he signed on the dotted line for four seasons.
If you’ve followed James for long enough, you probably know that he hasn’t often given his teams a long-term commitment, mostly opting for 1-year deals at a time. So, seeing him sign on for four seasons let everyone know that James was planning on finishing his career with the Lakers.
In six seasons with James leading the bunch, the Los Angeles Lakers have seen a ton of ups and downs. In fact, over the last three seasons, the Lakers are the perfect embodiment of mediocrity, going 123-123 in their games.
They’ve seen highs like winning the iconic Bubble championship in 2020, and they’ve also seen lows like missing the playoffs entirely in 2022.
Roster Instability
In addition to the theme of inconsistency, the Lakers have been unable to keep a roster intact over a period of time.
After James’ first season in Los Angeles, the team traded nearly half the roster to bring in Anthony Davis from the New Orleans Pelicans. Since the Davis trade, the Lakers have seen it all, from bringing in Russell Westbrook to dumping quality talents like Kyle Kuzma, Ivica Zubac, Dwight Howard, and Montrezl Harrell to name a few.
With James facing a player option, he could opt to hit the open market and sign with another team, or he can opt back in for another season, giving the Lakers the green light to make some more win-now moves.
While the Lakers face limited assets, there’s a former Finals MVP across the hall that the Lakers could potentially snag for pennies on the dollar.
LeBron James vs. Kawhi Leonard: The Failed Rivalry
Five summers ago, Kawhi Leonard was this close to becoming a member of the Los Angeles Lakers instead of the Los Angeles Clippers. Though it originally looked like Leonard’s move would spark a fierce inner-town rivalry for years to come, it unfortunately hasn’t exactly been that way.
While the Los Angeles Lakers spent the lion share of the last five seasons in mediocrity, the Clippers have sometimes looked even worse largely due to Leonard’s consistently being unavailable. Excluding the shortened 2019-20 season, Leonard hasn’t participated in more than 64 percent of his team’s games until he finally did it in 2023-24.
After the 2020 Bubble playoffs, neither team has quite been the same. The Lakers never remotely matched the success in 2020 in any season after, and the Clippers haven’t been healthy when it mattered most.
But if the Clippers get sent home tonight by the Dallas Mavericks, whatever happened in the last five seasons won’t matter because the next resort the Clippers would have is to blow up the roster completely, possibly beginning their overhaul by shipping out Leonard for a haul of assets.
How The Los Angeles Lakers Can Swing a Deal for Kawhi
Though fans may have mixed feelings on the status of LeBron James’ future with the Los Angeles Lakers, one thing can’t be argued: neither LeBron nor the Lakers benefit from a split.
If he decides to opt out and look elsewhere, James would be leaving over $50 million on the table — not a wise move for a man seeking to own an NBA team one day.
For the Los Angeles Lakers, LeBron James brings their team massive value in every way, shape, and form on and off the court. Even though it isn’t outrageous from a basketball standpoint to suggest the Lakers explore trading James — moving him now or letting him walk away wouldn’t offer any incentive, especially in the short term.
But here’s a way for both parties to be in lock-step moving forward: trade for Kawhi Leonard.
Bringing in a third superstar would more than pitch James to stay beyond one more season. If the Lakers can manage to get Leonard, you can almost write in stone that The Kid From Akron will finish his NBA career with the purple and gold.
How Can They Pull Off The Trade?
With Leonard being an older, injury-prone superstar, it certainly wouldn’t take what the Minnesota Timberwolves exchanged for Rudy Gobert — but it won’t be a walk in the park either.
The key is to maximize your chances of winning now by uniting Leonard with James, who’s still elite offensively, and Anthony Davis, who is in his prime.
For a deal to go down, the Los Angeles Lakers will almost certainly be parting ways with either Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, D’Angelo Russell, or some permutation of these players to go along with a draft pick or two.
The bottom line is that the Lakers can’t afford to go without making one or two major changes to their roster this offseason. With it being highly unlikely James will opt out of his contract, the Lakers need to do whatever it takes to bring in another big piece without sacrificing huge depth.
Kawhi Leonard might be one of the very few options for the Lakers.
About The Author
Adel Ahmad, 23, is a Senior NBA Writer for the NBA on Total Apex Sports. He is a passionate NBA fan with a deep background in writing across the media, sports debate, and screenwriting for YouTube and TikTok.
Check out all the great content Total Apex Sports has to offer. Check us out on X @TotalApexSports and our other sites: Total Apex Sports Bets and Total Apex Fantasy Sports.
