The Los Angeles Lakers will soon receive one of the biggest roster-boosts any team in the NBA will get all season.
And that should embolden the front office to pursue further additions in an effort to secure the franchise’s first title since 2020.
The central figure in that title run, by the way, is the same one they’re about to get back: LeBron James, whose season debut has been delayed by sciatica. The 40-year-old is apparently on the precipice of his return, though, with ESPN’s Shams Charania reporting James “will be a full participant at Lakers practice on Monday.”
James’ impending return is, perhaps obviously, a great thing for L.A. Even with the “there’s only one ball” concern regarding the touch distribution between him, Luka Dončić and ascending star Austin Reaves, that’s an uber-talented trio with enough skills and smarts to figure out how to make this work.
It just needs to have the right supporting cast around it to do so. And that’s maybe not in place at the moment, despite what the club’s impressive 10-4 record—again, sans a single second from James—might suggest.
The way the stat sheet sees it, the Lakers are fortunate to have stockpiled that many wins to this point. Because while that’s an elite mark (a .714 winning percentage is the league’s fifth-highest), none of the team’s other metrics meet that standard.
For all of the fireworks authored by Dončić and Reaves, this team only sits 16th in offensive efficiency, per NBA.com. There are different elements at play in that ranking, but a general lack of outside shooting (29th in made threes, 24th in three-point percentage) is a major culprit.
It’s also something this front office should be able to tackle on the trade market, especially if these struggles persist. It might force L.A. to be less tight-gripped on some of its more valuable trade chips, but that’s a price worth paying for anyone who (reasonably) believes that James, Dončić and Reaves can comprise a contending-level core.
That this roster ranks 14th in defensive efficiency can probably be held as a pleasant surprise, given the makeup of this group. Saying that, though, history holds that it typically takes a top-10 defense to make a title run.
While James will clearly make his presence felt in myriad areas, long-range shooting has never been the most potent part of his arsenal. And while he can be a stingy defender in spurts, his age and NBA odometer (59,041 career regular-season minutes and counting) have clearly cut into his consistency at that end.
In other words, for all the different ways James can help elevate this team, he won’t solve some of their biggest issues. Just like he couldn’t offer an alternative should L.A. seek out a change at the center spot, where Deandre Ayton has been statistically solid as an individual but still a net negative in his floor time (minus-4.6 net differential).
James isn’t a miracle-worker. Not at this stage of his career, at least. There are gaps in the Purple and Gold’s championship plan that he, Dončić and Reaves can’t cover up.
It falls on the front office, then, to fill those voids. And in a perfect world, it will have no hesitation about making that happen.
While the Lakers certainly aren’t the most asset-rich team in the Association, they’ll have enough to go chasing quality role players. They can put one future first-round pick on the table (2031 or 2032), and they have up to five first-round pick swaps to dangle. Plus, they have expiring contracts of nearly all sizes to make the math work in almost any deal.
They can be a primary player in this iteration of trade season, and they should be. Their foundation is elite, but it needs more help around the margins.
Given its quality of shot-creation, this offense might be unguardable with the right amount of shooting. And while defense never figured to be a massive strength of this squad, it could certainly grow stingier with another stopper or two added to the mix.
Assuming things don’t go sideways in the next month—most free agents signed this offseason won’t become trade-eligible until Dec. 15—the Lakers should plan on being busy and aggressive on the trade market. Because with Dončić on top of his game, Reaves playing better than ever and a healthy James hopefully rejoining the group soon, this team might be realistically just one or two trades away from being a heavyweight title contender.