Laughing at the Lakers is never not fun

Of all the things that Kevin Durant got blamed for on NBA Twitter on Tuesday, I found one tweet extremely entertaining because the truth is always the funniest.

The only team with enough arrogance to trade for Kyrie Irving and think it’s a good idea is the Lakers, and now, the day after Kobe Bryant’s birthday, aka Aug. 24, aka 8/24, aka Kobe Day, we get news that Smush Parker reincarnate, Dennis Schröder, might be rejoining the Lakers.

DeOK, OK, I give, Marc Stein shared that rumor Tuesday, but it works better for the purpose of this post — to have a guttural laugh at the expense of LA — if we just pretend Rob Pelinka is celebrating Kobe Day by bringing back Schröder. Honestly, though, of all the offseason acquisitions that have been rumored for the Lakers, this one is the least delusional.

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The only Los Angelenos that are happy about the Lakers’ “moves” are the 13 people who support the Clippers and the other 40,000 extras that Steve Balmer pays to fill the stands. If you’re not aware of the Lakers’ summer, let me recap it for you (in sentence form, as opposed to a sad gif or a ????emoji).

On July 1, the opening day of free agency, they inked Scotty Pippen Jr. and Cole Swider to two-way deals, and brought in Juan Toscano-Anderson, Troy Brown Jr., and Damian Jones. On July 6, they took flyers on Lonnie Walker IV and Marvin Bagley III. Other than re-upping LeBron James to a two-year, $97 million extension a couple of weeks ago, that’s it.

I doubt the average NBA fan has heard of Swider or Jones. The only reason people know Toscano-Anderson is because Draymond Green once went viral for saying he sides with Juan T. And the Jrs, IIIs, and IVs are only on people’s radars because either they’re draft busts, a son of an NBA player, or Walker, a serviceable role player.

The Lakers’ stagnant offseason is kind of par for this year’s free agency period as the holding period for a domino to fall never actually kicked off a chain of events. However, the only reason LA hasn’t completed a deal is no one wants Russell Westbrook.

We know they’ve been trying to strike a trade, which has gone about as well as you would expect for a guy who is getting $47 million a year and is openly antagonized by his own team, fans, and front office. Buddy Hield and Myles Turner are a pipe dream that won’t get done until draft picks are thrown in by the handful. Pivoting to Donovan Mitchell at this juncture is like me pivoting to supermodels. Shams Charania named New York as an interested team, and… well that tracks.

I remember when LA offered Schröder a four-year, $84 million contract because I giggled and thought he would be way overpaid. Then his bet on himself immediately caught COVID, the Lakers got bounced by Phoenix in six, he played awful, and wound up in Boston on a one-year $5.9 million deal. His tenure as a Celtic lasted 49 games before he was shipped to Houston.

Going off that string of events, you would think LA had avoided disaster by Schröder turning down their offer. Do you think Jeannie Buss would’ve rather had Dennis at $20 million for four more years, or two years of Westbrook at $44 million and $47 million?

I don’t know if Schröder could’ve been part of the swap with Washington because of the rules around trading a player so soon after signing him. And it’s unclear if the team would’ve had the cap flexibility to do the deal had the German guard signed their offer. That said, LA still had the assets to make the trade, so I hope there’s a multiverse where the Lakers have Schröder and Westbrook under contracts totaling nearly $70 million this upcoming season.

As it stands, though, Pelinka could reunite the dream backcourt who pissed off Damian Lillard and then got waved off national TV in five at the bargain bin price of $48 million per year.

Hey, gotta look for the purple-and-gold linings where they exist.