Ss&r: Mitch Kupchak Faces Huge Decisions This Summer

My latest at SilverScreenAndRoll on the massive, franchise-altering decisions that Mitck Kupchak has to make this summer:

The Los Angeles Lakers are heading into one of the most important offseasons in their history, with the team badly needing to right the ship after a 2014-2015 season that featured a franchise-worst 61 losses. While the future is certainly bright thanks to a collection of young talent and the addition of the second overall pick in the draft, there are still a number of very difficult decisions facing general manager Mitch Kupchak this summer.

The choices that he and the rest of the front office staff make are going impact the club long-term, so it's going to be crucial that they choose wisely. To complicate things further, every decision made has implications further down the line, like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book except you can't keep your finger on the page and flip back when you realize that venturing into the dungeon has caused your hero to get eaten by the dragon.

For that reason, the NBA's off-season can sometimes be just as important as the regular season. Summer is the time when general managers have to come up big in the clutch and acquire the assets necessary for their teams to be successful. For Mitch Kupchak, making the right moves can lead to championship parades down Figueroa and purple and gold confetti raining down from the rafters at the Staples Center, while the wrong ones will prolong the misery of the past three seasons.

The Draft

First and foremost, the Lakers need to decide who to use their draft picks on. The nice thing about having the 2nd overall pick is that it brings certainty, as only one player out of a group of 5 or 6 potential candidates will not be available to them. Last year the team had to sweat it out, hoping a highly-talented player would fall to them at the number 7 pick. It worked out, as by all accounts Julius Randle was ranked much higher than 7th on the Lakers board (he may have been as high as 3), but still, it's nice not having to wait through a tense 30 minutes of hoping "the guy" drops far enough.

THERE’S A CONCEPTION THAT THERE ARE FOUR PLAYERS THERE (AS TOP TWO CANDIDATES). I THINK THERE MAY BE MORE.- MITCH KUPCHAK

While it sounds unlikely that Karl-Anthony Towns will be available, the Lakers will have a number of other prospects to choose from, including D'Angelo Russell, Jahlil Okafor, Emanuel Mudiay, Kristaps Porzingis, Mario Hezonja, and Justise Winslow. While it can certainly be argued that one prospect may fit better than the other with the current Lakers squad, the bottom line is that Mitch has to figure out which of the players available to him has the best chance of becoming a superstar. Fit shouldn't be a major factor for a team in the midst of a rebuild like the Lakers are.

The NBA history books are littered with general managers who made the mistake of drafting for need rather than talent (*cough* Bowie over Jordan), and Kupchak would do well to simply take the best player available and worry about fit later.

The Lakers draft decisions don't stop with the second overall pick though; they have the 27th and 34th picks as well. It's also possible that the team is able to move up or down in the draft via trade, which means the front office staff needs to evaluate and rank around 60 or 70 prospects in order to be prepared for the draft.

It's important that Kupchak not only identifies talent but also quantifies exactly what each player is worth so that he can respond appropriately in trade situations. For example, last season the team had Jordan Clarkson ranked much higher than his eventual draft spot of 46th. When they saw him start to drop the decision was made that he was worth a financial investment to acquire his rights, and spent $1.8 million in order to buy a draft pick from the Wizards to select him.

The move ended up being a home-run, as Clarkson finished the season on a tear and made the All-Rookie First Team. While not every decision pays off like that, the importance of diligent scouting and player ranking can't be understated.

While a number of decisions still face the Lakers, the draft is the first domino to fall. Nearly every other decision that will be made for the rest of the summer is going to hinge on what happens here. On June 25th, Woj will tweet who will be donning the Golden Armor about 1 minute before the pick is actually made, and thus the team's direction will be established.

Team Options

The Lakers hold options on 5 players: Jordan Clarkson, Tarik Black, Robert Sacre,Jordan Hill, and Jabari Brown. The team can let any of them go and erase their salaries from the cap, which would give the Lakers more money to play with in free agency. It's on Mitch to decide which players are worth their cap hit and the opportunity cost of adding someone else in free agency.

Read the rest HERE. Hope you like it, I tried to lay out all the major crossroads that will be encountered this summer. Of course there will be some unexpected things coming up here and there, but I think these are the main areas that we are going to be on pins and needles about.

 

There's no other better GM to right this ship than Mitch. I'll take this front office over everybody else in the league and twice on Sunday. Let's just sit back and watch Mitch construct a championship roster.

 

Great article by the way. Very detailed & insightful.

 

Another great read, you've pretty much summarized the summer for Laker fans that aren't following so closely.

If there's one guy I can trust to get us out of the bottom of the well, it is Mitch. He knows exactly what he is doing with what we have and this summer is huge in getting us back into the promise land.

 

Thanks guys, much appreciated. It's going to be an exciting summer for the Lakers and I'm glad I get to write about them during a period like this. With the draft, free agency, and summer league there is a lot to look forward to...and I agree that overall we have to trust Mitch to make the right moves. I'm most-concerned about free agency, I think that's where we have been weak in recent years. We will see if they can turn that around this year or if the promises of being aggressive and making moves end up just being talk.

 

Nice read... I really like the scenario you proposed of moving the 27 & 34 along with Swag's contract to free up enough room for two lower-tier "max" guys like Monroe & Harris, etc... I think those are more manageable & tradable contracts.. We can develop a strong core of young players now & go after the Big Fish when the Cap goes up & Kobe's contract is either gone or greatly reduced.. Plus I'd really like to see Swaggy P gone next year too..