What’s next for the Los Angeles Lakers?

NBA
July 21, 2023

After coming short last season and getting swept by the new champs the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finales.

Los Angeles Lakers and its vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka and his crew got to work, once the Free Agency market started on June 30th.

Some say they made the right movies and marked improvements to their roster surrendering LeBron James and Anthony Davis. The team improvement will certainly have an effect on NBA Lines this upcoming season. 

They were able to keep some key players to continue with the purple and gold. PG D’Angelo Russell 27 years old to a two-year agreement, worth $37 million contract.

Rui Hachimura, PF, will return with a new contract of three years and $51 million, the former Wizard player was seeking $15 million annually. But the biggest challenge for the franchise was to keep their surprising star SG Austin Reeves, who got a lucrative new contract for $56 million for four years. They also kept PF Jared Vanderbilt who will make a little more than $4 million per year.

 

New Faces To The Franchise

If there is an area the Lakers need to improve, is their shooting department, ranked 25 in the league with .346 in 3 Point Field Goal Percentage. To help their big men, James and Davis, they brought in 4-year experience point guard from Miami, Gabe Vincent, the California native coming back home and that was outstanding in the Finals, and who had numbers last season of 9.4 points, 2.1 rebounds, 2.5 assistance, 0.9 steals and 25.52 minutes in the court. He will replace Dennis Schroder, the German point guard who went on to join the Toronto Raptors for two years and $26 million. Vincent has a .334 on 3 Point average a little higher than Schroder who had a .329 percentage. Vincent may be a better clutch shooter and also plays the point guard position and small guard.

Also, a newcomer will be Taurean Prince who signed for one year and $4.5 million and was waived by Minnesota. Prince is a career 37.2% point shooter, and can also help in that shooting department.

Also coming to LA, is Cam Reddish, a four-year player from Duke at small forward for $2,314 per year, who played for Portland last season with a .446 Filed Goal percentage and .312 from Long Ranger.

And last to back up Davis at the Center position they hired Jaxson Hayes, 23 years old and four in the league, who played with the Pelicans last season for 47 games and averaged 10.41 points per Game. With these moves, the NBA odds should favor the improved roster.

 

Lakers facing the next season

Their big star will be 39 years old, James only played 55 games in the regular season, has a foot injury that needs to be checked, and missed many games due to back and knee injuries.

On the other side Anthony Davis also límited to 56 games last season, due to knee injuries, Davis has missed between 160 to 180 games in his career, to different injuries.

These two key players will have to play more games and be healthy with this new core of players to see if they can compete against the other favorites, the reigning champs Nuggets, the strong Suns, or the Warriors who will compete against these Lakers.

Also important is that Head Coach Darwin Ham, who will be in his second year with the team, even though he did lose part of his staff, several assistants have departed to the Suns, who previously worked with Frank Vogel. The team hired DeMarre Carroll former player as part of their new assistants Coach with Ham.