Getty Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James
LeBron James hurt his groin on Christmas Day, Lonzo Ball isn’t wearing Big Baller Brand sneakers anymore, Carmelo Anthony and Zach Randolph never filled a roster spot in LA and Anthony Davis was never traded to the Los Angeles Lakers.
That was the soundtrack of the 2018-2019 Los Angeles Lakers season.
Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James injury is more complex than what has been initially reported, I’m told.
Per Lakers source: “LeBron could ‘rush back’ and return at the end of January. But he could very well be out until the end of February, or even longer.”
And guess what?
Currently sitting at 32-41 and in 11th place in the NBA’s Western Conference, mathematically the Los Angeles Lakers won’t be making the NBA Playoffs this season.
What happened? “The start of the season,” TNT’s Charles Barkley tells me.
“They put a bad team together. They were trying to figure out if they were a young team or an old team.”
As for Anthony Davis:
Demps told Magic this is what he wanted:
✅Lonzo
✅Kuzma
✅Ingram
✅Zubac
✅Hart
✅KCP
✅2019 unprotected FRP
✅2020 FRP swap
✅2021 unprotected FRP
✅2022 FRP swap
✅2023 unprotected FRP
✅2019 and 2021 2nd round picks
Lakers said: 👎🏽✌🏽✌🏽✌🏽✌🏽✌🏽✌🏽
And now? Come summer, the team may look completely different even with their head coach, Luke Walton.
“They put Luke [Walton] in position to fail,” Charles Barkley told me.
“You can’t be in the middle, you got to be trying to develop those young guys or you got to be trying to win in the [NBA] playoffs. They put [Luke] in a bad situation and it’s unfortunate.”
Back in the fall, a source close to Kidd shared with me that NBA Hall of Famer, Jason Kidd replacing Walton would be a good fit,
It “would be great,” they shared.
The source points out that LeBron James and Jason Kidd have a great relationship. “LeBron James always wanted to play with J-Kidd,” I’m told.
“This would probably be the next best thing to that.”
Luke Walton gone in LA? If Walton were fired, Mark Jackson is a likely candidate. So is Jason Kidd. I asked a credible league source this afternoon whether they thought Kidd would be a good fit.
They told me: “it would be great” and “anything is possible.”
Earlier this month someone else shared that Kidd himself thought that becoming the next coach of the Los Angeles Lakers was ‘just rumors’ and that: ‘NBA language can mean anything.’
Kidd compiled a 139–152 record in his 291 games coached with the Milwaukee Bucks. He was fired last season. Before Milwaukee, Kidd led the Brooklyn Nets to a 44-38 record and a second-round appearance in the NBA Playoffs.
Mark Jackson has also been a person of Lakers interest for some time as reported by FS1’s Chris Broussard back in the fall.
Jackson comprised a 121-109 record as head coach of the Golden State Warriors before he was fired in 2014.
As for the Lakers: they purposely filled their roster with one-year contracts to maintain their salary cap flexibility for the summer of 2019 where several NBA superstars like Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, Jimmy Butler, Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker, DeMarcus Cousins, and DeAndre Jordan are expected to become unrestricted free agents.