Los Angeles Lakers Bet Big On Lottery And Hit The Jackpot

Los Angeles Lakers fans breathed a huge sigh of relief Tuesday night as the 2016 NBA Draft lottery landed in their favor. While the Lakers didn’t win it, they wound up with the second pick in the draft, meaning they got to keep the selection. The Lakers bet big on the 14 ping pong balls in the NBA’s lottery machine and wound up winning big.

Los Angeles essentially spent the entirety of the 2015-16 season hoping it would finish with one of the league’s worst records. They built the year around Kobe Bryant’s farewell tour and getting their young players valuable experience, all with an eye on the 2016 lottery. If the balls didn’t bounce their way and this year’s pick fell outside of the top three, it would have gone to the Philadelphia 76ers as part of the ill-fated Steve Nash trade. But if the Lakers really wanted to claim a huge win they needed to get one of the first two picks, and ensure that they would land either LSU’s Ben Simmons or Duke’s Brandon Ingram. General manager Mitch Kupchak can now officially declare victory.

Yes Lakers fans, you can stop sacrificing goats to the NBA’s evil lottery gods, your team wound up playing this perfectly. Sure the last three years have been painful as you’ve watched Bryant hobble to the end of his illustrious career. But as a result of those hardships the franchise now has a stout stable of young players that includes Julius Randle, Jordan Clarkson, D’Angelo Russell, Larry Nance Jr. and either Simmons or Ingram. The future is bright.

Any thoughts the Lakers had of trading their lottery pick should be completely dismissed now. Many have said that the franchise “doesn’t want to rebuild” and I have some news for those people: it has been rebuilding for the better part of three years already.

The prevailing wisdom of that group suggests the Lakers will try to package the No. 2 pick and a young player or two in order to land a veteran like Paul George, Jimmy Butler or DeMarcus Cousins. I’ve already gone on at length on why that’s a terrible idea, but here’s a summary: all three of those guys have peaked, and trading picks/assets for veteran All-Stars is what got the Lakers in this mess to begin with. They gave up a ton of picks to get one season out of Dwight Howard and what seemed like six healthy games out of Nash. All of that was because they didn’t want to build something from the ground up.

Many Lakers fans love the idea of getting Cousins, but don’t count me among his fans. The guy is a walking attitude problem who has been pissing coaches off since high school. He’s a good player but unless he goes through some kind of major personal transformation, he will never be the key cog on a championship team. Additionally, other players aren’t going to flock to Los Angeles just to play with Cousins. He’s not LeBron James, Stephen Curry or Kevin Durant (who also isn’t coming to LA any time soon). He’s a guy who clashes with almost everyone around him. The Lakers would be wise to steer clear.

Yes, the Lakers have nearly $60 million in cap space this summer, but that doesn’t mean they have to use it. It’s not going to disappear if they don’t dole out huge chunks of it to this year’s weak free agent class.

No, the smart move for the Lakers is to use the pick on whichever guy the 76ers don’t take, add a rim protector in free agency and save the rest of the cap space for next summer. Then let new coach Luke Walton build something with all that young talent. Yeah, the Lakers might not make the playoffs next year, but in the long run they’ll be better off. If they trade young assets for someone like Cousins, then add, say, DeMar DeRozan in free agency, they might make the postseason next year, but they’ll never win a title with a team centered on those two.

If the Lakers just want to be a middling playoff team in the Western Conference, then yeah, they should trade the No. 2 pick in this year’s draft for a veteran. If they are interested in creating a new dynasty, they should continue the rebuild they accidentally started three years ago.

Kobe Bryant is gone in Los Angeles, and either Ben Simmons or Brandon Ingram could be the franchise’s next superstar. It’s time to give up on the past and embrace the team’s future filled with an insane level of young talent. Sell fans on the rebirth of Showtime and roll the dice with Walton installing the Warriors’ offense. Continuing to build might be ugly for a year or two, but it’s not like the other approach has worked recently.

The Lakers gambled big on the lottery and hit the jackpot, they can’t let this opportunity go to waste.