The Lakers Have Options to Win With LeBron James
Heading into this off-season, the Lakers are confronted with the question of whether they can or should be patient. On one hand, they were just swept in the Western Conference finals by a Denver team that showed how steady building can pay off. On the other hand, the Lakers are driven by LeBron James, 38, who wants to win now.
It is a tension that will tug at the Lakers as they decide what’s next.
“We’re incredibly proud of this group, obviously, to get to the Western Conference finals,” Pelinka said Tuesday at a season-ending news conference where he said the team’s goal was always to work toward a championship. “After the trade deadline we had one of the top records in the league. Keeping that continuity is going to be very important. We ultimately got knocked out by a team that has great continuity.”
The Lakers have had a lot of turnover in recent years, but their performance this year showed that they might have a foundation on which to build. Darvin Ham, their first-year head coach, began to find rotations that worked, which helped the Lakers go from the worst record in the N.B.A. to the conference finals.
“It’s just been a hell of a year,” Ham said. He mentioned having the support of Pelinka and the Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, then added: “To go through some of those tough times early, you know, we don’t get that support, we probably don’t make it to this point.”
Source: The New York Times
