The Los Angles Lakers were eliminated from the playoffs, after a first round loss against the 6th seeded Minnesota Timberwolves. The Lakers had a rollercoaster ride of a season in 2024-2025, but they somehow still managed to secure the third seed in the West. However, there were a lot of questions about their lack of size, and while they fooled almost everybody into believing that they were still a great defensive team, even after trading away Anthony Davis to the Dallas Mavericks for Luka Doncic, the fact remained that they were too small to compete in the playoffs.
The Lakers, in Game 5 of the first round, were thoroughly outclassed, when it came to their rebounding. Rudy Gobert, Naz Reid, Jaden McDaniels, Julius Randle, were all feasting down the paint, and the Lakers had no answer throughout the series. While JJ Redick accomplished a lot as a head coach in his first season, leading the Lakers to the 3rd seed, it was clear that he’s still a rookie head coach who has a lot of things to learn. Redick has been heavily scrutinized for not trusting his bench players more, and it was evident in this series. This put a lot of pressure and fatigue on the starters, and that was one of the reasons why they lost this series.
This is now the second consecutive year that the Los Angeles Lakers have been knocked out of the playoffs in the first round, and it is clear that the Lakers have to make some significant changes this offseason. So today we’ll take a look at what the Lakers can do in this offseason. Let’s get right into it.
There are a certain number of changes that the Lakers need to make in the offseason, and nothing tops more than the requirement of size and ‘Bigs’ in their lineup. The Lakers need a lob-threat center, similar to what the Dallas Mavericks did, building around Luka Doncic. In Dallas, Doncic had multiple lob targets and that made Mavericks difficult to deal with. The Mavericks gave Luka Doncic; Dereck Lively II, Daniel Gafford, P.J Washington, Derrick Jones Jr., and we all saw how wonderfully that played out, as they reached the NBA Finals last season. The Lakers did try to get Mark Williams earlier this year, from the Hornets, but that trade failed, and the Lakers decided to finish the year with Jaxon Hayes as their center.
The Lakers may also need reliable rotational players, in order to add more depth to their lineup. While the lineup that they currently have, in terms of their role players, isn’t bad by any stretch or means, but it was clear that their head coach JJ Redick did not trust his role players enough, which lead to the starters not getting much rest, and they played the majority of the minutes.
The Lakers had two major problems, and Minnesota exposed them for their same weaknesses;
First off, the Lakers were ranked last when it came to points in the paint in the series against the Timberwolves. The Timberwolves deserve a ton of credit for this, as they shut down driving lanes, and their overwhelming size thoroughly shut down the Lakers from attacking the paint. As for the Lakers, while LeBron James is arguably the best driver we may have ever seen, he is 40 years of age and his matchup was Julius Randle, who can hold his own, and slow down James from driving down the lane.
On the defensive end, the Lakers were the third worst team in the playoffs, when it came to points allowed in the paint. If you watched the series, most of Minnesota’s attacks came from going inside the paint, and they either finished a layup or a dunk, or they kicked it out to the open shooters for a three. Head Coach, Chris Finch outplayed JJ Redick thoroughly, and used the Lakers’ biggest weaknesses against them. For context, Rudy Gobert, who is known more for his defensive ability than his offense, dropped 27 points on the Lakers, in Game 5, and most of his shots were wide open layups and dunks.
The Lakers have a second round pick, but they owe Utah a top 4 pick in 2027. They owe the Dallas Mavericks a unprotected first round pick in 2029. The Lakers are allowed to trade one first in either 2031 or 2032. The Lakers are not allowed to trade a 2026 pick as the NBA has stated that no team is allowed to trade picks in back-to-back years. So what they have is, they can swap picks in 2026, 2028, 2030, 2031 2032. However, they are only allowed to trade in 2031 or 2032, and they have one second round pick available in the future.
We expect the Los Angeles Lakers and their GM/President, Rob Pelinka, to be extremely aggressive in the offseason this year. And while there are rumors about Giannis Antetokounmpo leaving the Bucks, and potentially joining the Lakers, that is just not accurate as the Lakers do not have enough to trade for Antetokounmpo. However, what the Lakers will do is try to acquire front court players, who have great length and can defend the paint. From what we know, Brook Lopez is the only potential target for now.
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