2. The Lakers Depleted Their Assets to Land Davis

There are real concerns regarding what the Los Angeles Lakers will look like in the post-LeBron James era. They had to sacrifice so much to be able to trade for Anthony Davis in terms of young talent and draft compensation that they may be looking bare after James is gone.

With a very depleted cabinet of draft picks, the Lakers won’t be able to select young prospects to develop. They needed to trade so many of them just to be able to land Davis that it makes it difficult to field a team organically around him when James is not in the picture.

The current Lakers’ roster also only features one prospect, Kyle Kuzma, leftover from their rebuild and the results aren’t looking intriguing. In fact, it makes more sense to trade him than it does to view him as one of the building blocks of the franchise.

Most of the Lakers’ key players are certainly not young and won’t be around after James. They also wouldn’t be worthy pieces of competing for a title with around Davis. As long as there isn’t a high-level perimeter playmaker and a solid cast of role players, it would be too difficult to contend.

The Lakers also have only James under contract for the 2021-22 season, so the team will need to re-sign key players in the meantime or find replacements elsewhere. With so much potential for drastic roster turnover, agreeing to a long-term commitment becomes more difficult.

If Davis is still intent on competing for a championship after James retires, it may not be possible with the Lakers. He would probably need to do some serious recruiting to be able to land another star player to form a duo because Los Angeles depleted themselves to land him.