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Looking Back/Moving Forward: The Lakers and Process
Process: A series of steps or operations toward a desired result or product.
-Webster’s New Riverside Dictionary
As another spring unfolds with the Lakers’ season once again failing to make it to Mother’s Day, both the obituaries and the prescriptions have come fast and furious as the franchise faces its most tenuous, uncertain, and pivotal offseason since…..last offseason.
I was with friends enjoying the sunshine and barbecue like most Americans last Fourth of July. The onslaught of texts I received in the late afternoon confirmed the speculation that Steve Nash, Point Guard Elite and longtime Laker Nemesis, was putting on the Purple and Gold. At long last, the Lakers’ near quarter-century streak of non-elite point guards seemed about to come to an end. Nash’s arrival of course brought speculation and concern about the Laker defensive deficiencies, but it was hard not to be ecstatic as most felt sure that even though we were getting Nash for his age 38 season, the team was clearly upgrading at the point guard position. Immediately, Laker fans’ Pavlovian yearning for the days of Showtime kicked into high gear, as did speculation that the Lakers were not done making moves. Talk amongst my friends immediately shifted to Dwight Howard. Clearly, the Lakers had won the Fourth of July.
On August 10, 2012, Dwight Howard was officially acquired in a trade that sent Andrew Bynum to Philadelphia. Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak had made the seemingly impossible possible, and talk of single season milestones and June hotel reservations in Miami began in earnest. It didn’t take the shrewdest of Laker fans to see the potholes spread out all along this purple and gold paved path to glory. Word was that Howard was unlikely to be available on Opening Night, and was also unlikely to be at 100% at any point in the season. All of that mattered little, as the Lakers had acquired the leagues’ preeminent defender and one of the three most valuable players (factoring in age) in the league. Other than Kevin Durant or LeBron James, the Lakers couldn’t have acquired a more impactful talent. Clearly, the Lakers had won the 2012 Offseason.
The process of building an NBA champion, let alone a dynasty, or a perennially competitive team, requires many things. Many of those things are within the control of a team, and one of those things is not. Put in very broad strokes, this is how champions are built:
1. Assemble enough talent required.
2. Identify and acquire the coach best suited to maximize the collective abilities of the players.
3. Maintain the health of the talent.
4. Develop cohesion within the pieces of the team.
The Lakers had, by the estimation of most, successfully accomplished step 1 by the time training camp opened. After that, everything went off the rails, some of which was due to their biggest misstep, and the rest of it due to the unilateral lack of cooperation of
