The Los Angeles Lakers enter the new season with tons of questions to answer. After missing out on elite free-agents this summer, the state of the Lakers organization is suddenly in awry position moving forward with marquee players surprisingly snubbing the call of the purple-and-gold franchise.
ESPN NBA analysts Tom Haberstroh, Chad Ford, Kevin Pelton and Amin Elhassan released on Tuesday the NBA Future Power Rankings, which aim to measure every team's competitiveness for the next three years.
The Lakers, who have been in murky situation for the last couple years, are projected to face more misery because of what analysts think the lack of urgency from the organization's front office to build a championship contender along with the salary cap complications created by Kobe Bryant's huge paycheck ($48 million over the next two years).
The purple-and-gold franchise are joined by fellow big market ball clubs New York Knicks, and Brooklyn Nets, who are also enmeshed with problems caused by luxury tax penalties and futile transactions that cost them most of their draft picks.
Known as an expert in advanced NBA metrics, Haberstroh indicated that the current collective bargaining agreement placed to flatten out the competitions between the big market and small market franchises is apparently working as proven by the prevailing landscape in the NBA.
"I think a lot of the front office personnel and GM didn't realize how much the CBA was going to restrict their team roster building mechanisms. All their tools were taken out and harsher tax provisions are basically hammering teams if they spent tons of money," Haberstroh stressed.
"They are not able to flex all their money they have. The Los Angeles Lakers are swimming in money, but no matter how much money, we saw that no one really wanted to go there this year."
The Lakers loaded up their roster with quality players like Carlos Boozer, Ed Davis and Jeremy Lin, but these players were not what Mitch Kupchack and the ownership envisioned to have in place next season. They tried to lure LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh into the bright lights of Hollywood. Unfortunately, they had to settle with second stringer players for next year's campaign.
When asked if the Lakers will contend for a title in the next three years, Haberstroh gave zero chances for this to happen while Ethan Strauss added a closing line that would sum up the future of the franchise and star player, Bryant.
"Well, you heard that folks Tom Haberstroh thinks the Lakers will never win a title and that Kobe Bryant is a loser," Strauss jested.
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