carver high

Much respect to the always excellent Henry Abbott and this post over on True Hoop.

In the midst of the Mavs-Warriors spectacle, True Hoop goes into a (suprisingly) long and intriguing examination of what the Lakers need to do to get back to winning the titles that seemed, just a few years back, to be their birthright. It is clear that changes are in order this off-season for the Lakers and any kind of championship "solution" will take more than Kupchak and the various Busses making the right call on re-signing Turiaf or Chris Mihm. The Lakers are not really one player away, unless that player is a time-traveling 29 year-old Shaq or Wilt.

The one piece the Lakers have that other teams seem to want is Bynum, and that is exactly the piece they need to keep. There, I said it. The Lakers HAVE to keep Andrew Bynum if they ever expect to win another NBA title while Kobe plays for them.

Keeping the 19-year old is certainly not a guarantee that they will win a title. The kid may never really develop into anything more than a decent player. If Bynum becomes Olowokandi 2.0 or Kwame with a Tracy Morgan mask on, then this plan goes nowhere. But all the other plans are already at nowhere, so why choose them?

Catching up in the West on Kobe's time table
Most of the discussions about what to do next revolve the miles on Kobe and his ever-closing window. That is certainly a concern, but look at it this way. Right now there are three REALLY tough teams ahead of the Lakers in the West - PHX, DAL and SA. How can the Lakers pass those teams while those squads are at the current high level? What player(s) take the Lakers to a level where they have a legitimate chance at going through all three (or at least two) of those teams in next year's playoffs? Predicting the time-table of how long Duncan or Nash will be dominant is obviously iffy, but no more so that predicting how long Kobe will be at his physical peak.

The Lakers need to get better, but a case can also be made that timing some play-off push for the next couple of seasons in the West is like leaving at 6pm to drive on the 405 freeway with the rest of the stand-still traffic. Why make crazy, "mortgage the future" moves that will make your team better RIGHT NOW, when "now" falls during rush hour?

Bynum for who?
Who is it that the Lakers can get for Bynaum that will make them "better" enough? Garnett? Kidd? Those players would certainly make the Lakers better than the seventh seed, but is that really the goal? The Lakers would win more games during the 07/08 season if they had KG rather than Bynum playing for them - but they still wouldn't be a title contender. Who or what else would the T-Wolves want for their franchise? No Bynum and no Odom would make KG and KB look pretty lonely.

The Lakers had the two best players in the NBA on the same team when they won those three titles. Kobe might still be atop that list but Jermaine ONeal, KG or Kidd is not. Plus, having two guys making huge money is a bad salary structure for a team. It barely worked with the NBA's two absolute best players, why would it work better with #1 and #17? #3 and #21?

Young & Cheap
Teams need to have some young players with spring in their step and cheap, rookie contracts. Dallas is as good as they are because of Josh Howard and Devin Harris as much as any of the veterans. Tony Parker is a bargain in San Antonio and the same goes for Diaw and Barbosa in Phoenix. That is how teams make that leap - they draft someone who turns into a stud. Free agents can help fill in gaps, but FAs are too expensive and too old/injury prone to be the core of a team. Shaq coming to the Lakers happened under the old collective bargaining agreement, the rules are different now.

The reason the Lakers were winning titles was because they drafted a high-school kid who BECAME Kobe. If that draft pick had become Richard Jefferson (a very good player) they Lakers would not have won those titles. The Lakers have drafted too many Devean Georges and Sasha Vujacic's lately. Not every draft pick can be a winner, but only one team wins the title and that is the team that gets something extra-special without having to spend a lot of resources (salary or trading away guys) to get them.

There will be a lot of pressure from the local fans to make a move - any move. Trade Kobe! Cut Kwame! Fire Phil! That is an appealing path, but it doesn't lead anywhere. as a fan, I want the Lakers to be a team that gets better, not one that acts like it is trying to shut up the dudes on talk radio.

Can Bynum be that special player? I don't know. No one does. But if the Lakers really want to win titles (and not just hope to make the Western Semis) they need to bet big AND win big. Drafting Bynum was the bet, now they need to see if it pays off.