The 2023-2024 season ended with a whimper rather than a bang for California’s big three. Kings fans, before you get upset, please know that I consider the Lakers, Warriors and Clippers the big three of existential crises.
Given the perennially heightened expectations for these franchises, and the slowly eroding cores of each team, it feels anywhere from markedly strange to a blatant misread that none of them made meaningful moves in the offseason.
After their tumultuous season, mostly at and by the literal hands of Draymond Green, the Warriors lost Klay Thompson. I say lost because even in a deal that took six teams to complete, with the Warriors getting Buddy Hield and Kyle Anderson in the shuffle, Thompson seemed unhappy and a little lost for much of the season. Certainly, his shooting wasn’t where he or the team wanted it, but the disconnect felt deeper.
By their own admission, Golden State wants to win and continue to put Steph Curry, in his prime career years, in a position to lead them. Where, then, is the support for those necessarily connected and yet ambiguous plans? Hield is a fun addition, he’s fast and makes a scoring dent, and Anderson was instrumental in the Wolves playoff run, but neither steps into the third piece of the trifecta between Curry and Draymond that Thompson held up. There are big hopes for Jonathan Kuminga, but consider the fact that Steve Kerr barely played him last season. For all the urgency the Warriors have signaled, they’re kicking the can – and Curry’s best years – down the road.
Beyond a new head coach and their draft picks of Dalton Knecht and Bronny James, the Lakers team starting the 2024-2025 season looks a lot like the one that made a first round exit in April. The question isn’t whether a team with the duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis is entertaining, but how the flashy lobs, chasedowns, and occasional dunks translate to consistent wins.
JJ Redick has already staked out his coaching strategy to be focused on metrics and analytics, great on paper, but not lending anything to the on-court support James and Davis lack. Asked about the strategy in the preseason, Davis said, “I don’t even know what some of that stuff means.” Without consistency, something the Lakers have lacked throughout James’ tenure in L.A., there’s nothing to build on. We just get the same disparate team of last season.
The Clippers lack of summer moves are easier to parse if only because the Paul George experiment never really clicked in the first place. They aren’t starting from scratch, like the Lakers, or with a glaring absence, like the Warriors, they are simply starting in the same strange existential void they’ve been in since 2020. Kawhi Leonard needs a leading teammate, that is, someone happy in the spotlight who is simultaneously bossy enough to organize the floor without him – and significantly younger. Picture Anthony Edwards on the floor at Intuit and see what I mean. Leonard’s injury is progressive, the time he’ll need to manage it is going to increase, James Harden is hardly the one to take responsibility and as much as the stalwart role players of Norman Powell, Ivica Zubac and Terance Man offer some ballast to this otherwise listing ship, this team is not a competitor.
There is a sweet delusion in California, a sense of being in your own world given its scope, beauty, personality, wealth, and all that sunshine. Maybe that heightens on the coast, given the Kings, by comparison, seem methodical. Whatever the case, the delusions seem poised to come due this season.