The Future of the Lakers Rests on the NBA Draft Lottery

The future success of the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the NBA's most storied franchises, shockingly will be determined Tuesday at the NBA Draft Lottery.

Luke Walton Larry Nance Jordan Clarkson Lakers Grizzlies 2017
USA Today Sports

Los Angeles Lakers forward Larry Nance Jr. (7) and guard Jordan Clarkson (6) and head coach Luke Walton look on in the second half of the game against the Memphis Grizzlies at Staples Center.

Luke Walton Larry Nance Jordan Clarkson Lakers Grizzlies 2017

Tonight, representatives from each of the 14 NBA teams who missed the playoffs will shuffle into a windowless conference room at the New York City Hilton Midtown, where they’ll watch helplessly as ping pong balls are drawn Pick 6-style to determine the future of each franchise. The NBA Draft Lottery only lasts about six minutes from start to finish, but that’s more than enough time to dash the hopes of long-suffering purgatory dwellers or to make haves of a lucky few of the league’s have-nots.

This year, no team has as much to gain nor as much to lose as the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Lakers owe the Philadelphia 76ers their first-rounder this season. But that selection— originally dealt to Phoenix way back in 2012 to acquire Steve Nash (ouch)—is top-3 protected, meaning that if Los Angeles earns any of the three slots at the top of the draft they will keep their pick. If that happens, the debt gets carried over to next season, with no protection on the pick. If the pick falls below three, Philadelphia gets it and the debt is satisfied.

Considering that the Lakers are likely to find themselves back in the lottery next season, the pick conveying to Philly this year rather than next year is hardly a death knell for the franchise. However, there’s an important wrinkle in the language of another past trade that drastically heightens the impact of the lottery for LA.

The Lakers owe the Orlando Magic a 2019 first-rounder as a result of the Dwight Howard trade five years ago (double ouch), but that pick is intrinsically tied to the 2017 selection owed to the Sixers. If LA’s obligation to Philly doesn’t convey this June and is instead carried over to next season, the first-round pick the team owes the Magic will convert into just second-rounders in 2017 and 2018.

one thing’s for sure, never before in Lakers history has something so big come down to something so small.

Losing two first-rounders in three seasons, with one falling high in the lottery and the other completely unprotected two years from now, would be catastrophic for a Lakers team that, frankly, lacks the potentially franchise-altering prospects seen on other rebuilding teams across the league—Karl-Anthony Towns, Kristaps Porzingis, Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo… And the Lakers are certainly not blind to this reality. It’s why they shipped away their leading scorer, Lou Williams, at the trade deadline. It’s why they shut down a healthy Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov with a month still remaining in the season. And it’s why head coach Luke Walton trotted out David Nwaba for nearly 30 minutes a night at shooting guard in April.

But despite a late-season tank job that would make even Sam Hinkie blush, the Lakers inexplicably won five of their last six games and slipped from No. 2 to No. 3 in the lottery standings. As a result, they’ll have just a 46.9% chance of keeping their pick.

To understand how the Lakers found themselves here, we have to travel back to the summer of 2012. It was about seven months after a controversial league office veto thwarted a blockbuster trade that would have put Chris Paul in purple and gold. The Lakers were coming off their second straight season getting bounced in the second round of the playoffs, and with Kobe Bryant set to enter his 17th season and the team just two years removed from back-to-back titles, management believed there was still time left to make one last run. So they dealt away Andrew Bynum and four future draft picks—including the first-round picks now owned by Philadelphia and Orlando—in a pair of deals that brought Dwight Howard and Steve Nash to LA. Immediately, they rose to the top of most offseason power rankings, with analysts believing their starting five of Nash-Bryant-World Peace-Gasol-Howard would seriously challenge the LeBron-led Miami Heat for NBA supremacy.

Magic Johnson Lakers Staples Center 2016

Instead, the result was disastrous. As a result of injuries, infighting, and two in-season coaching changes, the Lakers limped to a 45-37 record, earning a first-round matchup against the Spurs that saw San Antonio coast to four straight double-digit victories and a sweep. That season, Kobe Bryant tore his Achilles, in the offseason Howard walked as a free agent, and later the next year Nash retired due to a lingering leg injury. The Lakers were left with a barren roster, an empty asset cupboard, and not even a playoff win to show for it.

In the three seasons that followed, the Lakers did something they had enjoyed the fortune of avoiding for much of their history, they tanked. But thanks to a combination of draft misfortune and the impatience of former general manager Mitch Kupchak, the team has tied up nearly $190 million in Luol Deng, Timofey Mozgov, and Jordan Clarkson while failing to acquire a young prospect capable of one day carrying the torch left by Kobe Bryant last season. With the 2017 and 2019 draft classes shaping up to be two of the better ones in recent memory, the Lakers absolutely cannot afford to lose these picks.

In april, Magic Johnson issued a tongue-in-cheek guarantee to Luke Walton that the Lakers will keep their pick this season. But behind that feigned bravado is a man who knows his team’s future will pretty much come down to a coin flip. And when Magic sits behind the Lakers’ lectern at the lottery, he’ll be sweating.

If you’re under the age of 40, you’ve seen more losing seasons in LA in the past four years than you had over the entirety of your lifetime before that. Simply put, Lakers fans aren’t used to losing, or compulsively checking tankathon.com in February, or having to rely upon the bounce of a few ping pong balls to decide their fate. Perhaps it’s poetic justice for all the years they believed their team would never have to endure the measured rebuilds so familiar to us, the unfortunate plebes who follow the league’s other 29 teams. And maybe Magic is right, and it will all go their way because, “Hey, they’re the Lakers.” But one thing’s for sure, never before in Lakers history has something so big come down to something so small.

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