LOS ANGELES — What’s the big deal? So the Lakers didn’t swing for the fences at the trade deadline. Didn’t find someone who’d magically put them on equal footing with this season’s championship favorites. Didn’t rearrange the deck chairs.
They didn’t do anything.
Didn’t lay down a bunt.
Didn’t plug any holes.
Didn’t get better.
Let the whole trade deadline day go by Thursday, and didn’t improve, not even 1%.
And what if, in a few months, everyone’s asking: What if a minor move back on Feb. 8 might have headed off major consequences?
Because the ninth-place Lakers – a yo-yo-ing 27-25 entering play Thursday against the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets – clung tight to their core.
Inspired perhaps by those Nuggets, who swept them in the Western Conference finals last season, the Lakers continue to embrace the notion of building continuity – and that’s cool, so long as Coach Darvin Ham keeps it in mind when he’s drawing up his rotations.
They didn’t trade D’Angelo Russell just to trade D’Angelo Russell. They didn’t splurge just because.
What the Lakers want you to keep in mind, fans, is that they held on to assets that will help them try to ply a third star – think of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Donovan Mitchell – away from his current team in the offseason, when they can offer a package with potentially three first-round draft picks.
But that cloak of responsibility is concealing their irresponsibility: This team desperately seeking wing defense also didn’t find a way to fill its Jarred Vanderbilt-sized void.
It’s possible they know something we on the outside don’t. Perhaps they have a reasonable expectation that Vando’s foot injury won’t keep him out for the rest of the season. And maybe there is reason for optimism about guard Gabe Vincent’s return-to-competition timeline, too.
But barring their swift and full recoveries, it would have been prudent for the Lakers not to stand pat, but to secure, say, Dorian Finney-Smith. He sure would have helped defend the perimeter, a darn-near necessity in the playoffs if the Lakers don’t want to see, say, Denver’s Jamal Murray shine like a superstar against them again. Or if they have any hope of containing the Clippers’ perennial All-Stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
And yet the Lakers didn’t find a way to get a deal done for Finney-Smith. They didn’t come to terms with a Brooklyn Nets team that was selling, that shipped another reliable defender, Royce O’Neale, to the Phoenix Suns to shore up their defensive shortcomings – and for the very reasonable price of three second-round picks.
The currently fifth-place Suns got a little better, and the eighth-place Dallas Mavericks did too, dealing for Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington, capable frontcourt contributors.
Did those moves automatically launch the Suns and Mavs into the stratosphere of the Nuggets and Clippers? Nope. How about the Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder? Nah.
But those acquisitions did crack open the window another inch or two for those teams’ star duos, worthwhile because when you’ve got Kevin Durant and Devin Booker or Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, you have a chance.
And an even slightly better chance is still a better chance. An incrementally better chance is still a better chance. A moderately better chance is, yeah, you get it. It’s better!
Sending out the signal that you’ll be better off waiting until next season to make a big splashy move delivers another message: You’re taking LeBron James for granted. You’re taking your star pairing of LeBron and Anthony Davis for granted. You’re taking your chance for granted.
That’s quite the gamble, especially because the New York Knicks (and others) could outbid the Lakers for Mitchell this offseason, if he’s traded at all.
Especially risky when James has been sending all of his own signals, smoke delivered via eye rolls and emojis, easily decipherable to anyone who’s become relatively fluent in LeBron these past 21 years.
The everything’s-fine Lakers are playing with fire.
Because what happens when a playoff series is lost in the margins? And what if it isn’t the annoyance of the Nuggets repeating that Lakers fans are feeling this summer, or discontent borne of these Boston Celtics breaking through – but what if it’s finally, actually the Clippers’ year?
What if L.A.’s other team, no longer dysfunctional nor merely aspirational, wins a banner to hang when it opens the dazzling new Intuit Dome?
And then LeBron leaves.
What if the man who would like to maximize the maximum amount of opportunities he has left late in his career takes his talents elsewhere, either in free agency or via trade demand?
Insult on top of ignominy, that’s what.
Imagine L.A.’s other team, its less popular one, the one that didn’t need to make any trades on Thursday, securing its place, on the court, as the city’s premier franchise.
Picture the Clippers defending a championship as the Lakers defend a rebuild.
That’s far from a foregone conclusion, for sure, but the Lakers have left themselves susceptible to a major disaster, one that might have been avoided with a minor adjustment in February.
