With his team at a crossroads between rebuilding for the future and adding established veterans to win now, Los Angeles Lakers head coach Luke Walton says it makes no sense to compete for a championship in the near future.
Luke Walton says the Warriors’ dominance makes this the perfect time for the Lakers to rebuild
The Lakers have a slew of young players and their own pick in this year’s draft. Why rush the rebuild to face a goliath Warriors team?
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Why? Because the Golden State Warriors are here, and it’s their time to shine.
”I joke a lot. I said ‘if there’s a time to be rebuilding, this is the time to do it,’” Walton said on The Full 48 Podcast with Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck. “The Warriors don’t look like they’re going anywhere for a while. They’re pretty darn good right now.”
The Lakers have been in rebuild mode since before Walton arrived. Los Angeles hasn’t won more than 27 wins since the 2013-14 season and has a 91-237 record over the past four years. They couldn’t even tank correctly at the end of the season, though it worked out for them in the end.
But that rebuild got jumpstarted when the team hired franchise legend and Hall of Famer Magic Johnson as president of basketball operations mid-season. The focus quickly shifted to restoring the long legacy of Lakers’ championships, an idea that would require tons of star power to execute.
The Lakers have been linked to Paul George, an All-Star wing who grew up just outside of Los Angeles and becomes an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2018. George reportedly grew up a fan of Magic Johnson’s and the belief has been he will attempt to return home to play for his hometown team. For that reason, it’s believed the Pacers would trade George now instead of losing him for nothing in the future.
For Walton, the Lakers are going to work with what they have unless the front office pulls the trigger on a trade.
”For me and my coaching staff down here, our mindset is to train and act and develop these young players as if these are the only players we’re going to have and we’re not going to make any trades, because that’s the scenario that’s the reality right now. Everything else is hypothetical,” he said. “The mindset we have is this is our group, these are the guys we have to get great to become contenders.
“If the front office makes a move or whatever, then the game plan changes a little bit. But for right now, the most important thing is developing a foundation, developing that culture for these young players to grow to their highest potential.”
The reality is also this: The Lakers’ rebuild has been fruitful. Los Angeles drafted D’Angelo Russell second overall in 2015 and Brandon Ingram — a player Johnson deemed “untouchable” — No. 2 overall last summer. They have talented young forwards in Julius Randle and Larry Nance Jr., and Los Angeles fortunately owns its own No. 2 pick in the upcoming 2017 NBA draft.
So even if they don’t land a star player in the near future, the Lakers are in a good position. Because while the Warriors dominate today, Los Angeles prepares for tomorrow.
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