Los Angeles Lakers

LeBron James is looking to the future as a disappointing 2021-22 season with the Los Angeles Lakers wraps up.

On an upcoming episode of The Shop (h/t Joe Price of Complex), James said his son Bronny is the "No. 1" person he wants to play with at the NBA level.

James said: "Not too long ago, I asked him, 'What you wanna do with this? You wanna get to the pros? What you wanna do?' He's like, 'Yeah.' I said, 'Why?' He said, 'Because I wanna make a name for myself.' ... That's all I needed to hear."

This is not the first time James has said he wants to play with his oldest son, who will be eligible for the 2024 NBA draft if the one-and-done rule remains.

"My last year will be played with my son," James said during the All-Star break in February, per Jason Lloyd of The Athletic. "Wherever Bronny is at, that's where I'll be. I would do whatever it takes to play with my son for one year. It's not about the money at that point."

LeBron also said Stephen Curry is the top current player he would like to be teammates with, noting: "When he gets out of his car, you better guard him, right from the moment he pulls up to the arena."

Perhaps no player in NBA history could take advantage of the spacing James creates more than Curry, and stopping that combination would be daunting for any defense.

Frank Vogel is clearly on the hot seat after the Los Angeles Lakers were eliminated from the playoffs, and ESPN's Stephen A. Smith had a harsh assessment of the head coach Wednesday on First Take:

"The Los Angeles Lakers quit the last several weeks of the season," Smith said (3:40). "Quit on Frank Vogel."

Los Angeles lost its seventh game in a row to drop to 31-48 on the season, clinching no better than 11th in the Western Conference.

"They're not hustling back on defense, they're not prioritizing team play," Smith added. "They were a bunch of individuals, living in LaLa, enjoying the sunshine. I'm sorry, that's on Frank Vogel."

The Lakers are only two years removed from winning a championship under Vogel. The franchise went six years without a playoff berth before the coach arrived and led the squad to a title in his first season with the team.

Things have gone downhill in the two years since.

Los Angeles barely snuck into the playoffs through the play-in tournament in 2020-21 before losing in the first round. The team couldn't even get that far in 2021-22 after an especially embarrassing late-season slide. The Lakers have won just five of their last 25 games and don't have consecutive wins since Jan. 7.

Injuries have been a significant issue with both LeBron James and Anthony Davis missing time, but Vogel couldn't do anything to stop the bleeding.

It could lead to a change in the coaching staff this offseason.      

Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson downplayed the likelihood of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's criticism of LeBron James becoming a larger issue for the two giants of the game.

"I think they'll work it out," Johnson said to TMZ Sports. "They'll work it out. It's not that big of a deal. They'll work it out."

Speaking with reporters, Abdul-Jabbar praised James' work away from the court, such as covering the college tuition for students from his I Promise School. However, the Hall of Famer added that James "should be embarrassed about" some of his perceived missteps.

"Some of the great things that he’s done, he’s standing on both sides of the fence almost," Abdul-Jabbar told reporters. "It makes it hard for me to accept that when he’s committed himself to a different take on everything. It’s hard to figure out where he’s standing. You’ve got to check him out every time."

Although the former center didn't specify the issues to which he was alluding, he previously criticized an Instagram post from James in which LeBron appeared to compare COVID-19 to the common cold or flu.

Abdul-Jabbar has since apologized for his recent comments, saying on SiriusXM NBA Radio that "it wasn't my intention to criticize LeBron in any way." He added he has "tremendous respect" for the 18-time All-Star:

In the event this becomes a wider source of discord, Johnson would probably be an ideal intermediary to help achieve a detente.

DeMar DeRozan considered joining the Los Angeles Lakers in the offseason, but a poor visit reportedly caused him to change his mind.

"I talked to someone from DeRozan's camp," ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk said on The Hoop Collective (h/t Peter Dewey of Lakers Daily). "When DeRozan was in town in L.A., and he basically stuck it to the Lakers. The impression that I got from his camp was that DeRozan felt that the Lakers were in sort of disarray. They didn’t really have a vision. They didn’t know what they were doing."

Youngmisuk, Brian Windhorst and Bobby Marks provided a further breakdown, noting any deal would have required a sign-and-trade with the San Antonio Spurs:

DeRozan instead signed a three-year, $82 million contract with the Chicago Bulls and has helped the team clinch its first playoff berth since 2017. The Lakers were officially eliminated from the postseason on Tuesday and sit at 31-48 on the season.

Los Angeles certainly could have used DeRozan, who is in the midst of one of the best seasons of his career. In 74 games, he is averaging 28.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game while shooting 50.5 percent from the field.

The Compton, California, native had said in November that he thought he was headed to the Lakers this offseason.

"I felt like going to the Lakers was a done deal and that we were going to figure it out. I was going to come home," DeRozan told Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports. "The business side of things just didn’t work out."

Windhorst and Marks noted the guard wouldn't play on the mid-level exemption, which would have been about $20 million less in salary than he is making in Chicago for 2021-22. It meant the Spurs would have needed to complete a sign-and-trade, but the two sides never came to an agreement.

The Lakers instead went after Russell Westbrook, a move that clearly didn't work out.

Los Angeles now has work to do to rebuild the roster while DeRozan appears justified by his offseason decisions.      

After the Los Angeles Lakers were officially eliminated from contention for the play-in tournament on Tuesday, head coach Frank Vogel admitted he's heard the chatter about his precarious status with the organization. 

Speaking to The Athletic's Bill Oram, Vogel said it's "not easy to shut it out" amid rumors the Lakers are going to fire him at the end of the regular season.

"It’s not fun to have those reports hanging over your head or seeing it everywhere you look, especially so early in the season (and) after what we’ve been able to accomplish here. But to me, that pressure of expectation has been here since the day I signed on," he added.

Rumors about Vogel's job status have been swirling for months, as the Lakers continued to fall further down the standings in the Western Conference. 

Oram and Sam Amick reported in January that Vogel was in serious danger of being fired following a 133-96 loss to the Denver Nuggets. 

Last month, Oram and Amick reported the one thing that might save Vogel's job was a deep playoff run. Prior to Tuesday's game, Bleacher Report's Jake Fischer reported the Lakers are expected to part ways with Vogel at the end of the season.

Instead, the Lakers find themselves playing out the final three games of the regular season before getting a start on the 2022-23 campaign. They have lost seven straight, including a 121-110 loss to the Suns on Tuesday that ended their hopes of reaching the postseason. 

Los Angeles has never seemed to put its full support behind Vogel. He was only given a three-year deal when the team hired him in May 2019. His hiring came after the team missed out on Monty Williams, who was hired by Phoenix, and came in with a low offer for Tyronn Lue. 

Per ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk, the Lakers' offer of three years, $18 million for Lue was "far below the five-year, $35-million deal" he got from the Cleveland Cavaliers in July 2016. 

Youngmisuk also noted the Lakers' decision to dictate the rest of the coaching staff prompted Lue to pull out of talks with the team.

Vogel had immediate success in Los Angeles, leading the team to a championship during his first season. The Lakers lost to the Suns in the first round of the playoffs last year after losing Anthony Davis midway through the series to knee and groin injuries. 

Los Angeles only gave Vogel a one-year extension through the 2022-23 season last offseason.

Poor roster construction, as well as injuries to Davis and LeBron James, completely derailed the Lakers' 2021-22 campaign. Their 48 losses are the franchise's most in a single season since going 26-56 in 2016-17. 

Vogel has a 125-97 record in three seasons with the Lakers.     

Los Angeles Lakers legend and former president of basketball operations Magic Johnson said during Monday's Get Up that DeMar DeRozan wanted to join LeBron James and Anthony Davis before the 2021-22 season. 

"DeRozan wanted to play for the Lakers, and when I got the call from his agent, I called the Lakers and said, 'Hey, he wants to come home,' and DeRozan could have been a Laker instead of a Bull," Johnson said (h/t Harrison Faigen of Silver Screen and Roll). "We could have made that deal. But when Russell [Westbrook] and LeBron and them start talking, that's when they nixed that deal and went with Westbrook and he became a Laker instead of DeRozan."

Johnson also said the Lakers should have traded Kyle Kuzma for Buddy Hield, a deal that reportedly was very close to being done over the summer, rather than going after Westbrook. 

On paper, DeRozan is a very obvious upgrade over Westbrook this season. The Chicago Bulls star has averaged 28 points a game for the 45-33 Bulls, playing a huge part in the team's revival after four straight years without a playoff berth. 

Westbrook, meanwhile, has proven to be an atrocious fit on the Lakers, averaging 18.4 points, 7.5 rebounds and 7.1 assists per game, shooting 44.4 percent from the field, 29.4 percent from three and 66.5 percent from the free-throw line. 

Worse, the Lakers are just 31-47 on the year and in real danger of missing the play-in tournament, let alone the actual playoffs. Westbrook has been the team's one constant amidst injuries to James and Davis, playing in 77 games, but he's been unable to elevate the Lakers in any meaningful way. 

But it's fair to question if DeRozan would have been a vastly better fit. He certainly would have handled the scoring issues while James and Davis sat, but he hardly would have addressed the team's issues with spacing and defense. And in Chicago, he's been the focus alongside Zach LaVine. 

In L.A. he would have been the third fiddle. 

Plus, DeRozan wasn't exactly coming off his best stretch of basketball in San Antonio, where his midrange game didn't exactly have the Spurs thriving. In his three seasons with the Spurs, the team lost its only playoff series and lost in the play-in tournament last year. 

Choosing Westbrook may have been questionable, but even detractors of the move probably didn't envision it going this poorly, and going for DeRozan at the time would have raised eyebrows too. 

Even Johnson praised the Westbrook trade over the summer:

Yes, DeRozan is the better player in hindsight. That much is basically undisputed at this point. But the Lakers issues run deeper than just Westbrook, and DeRozan wouldn't have cured all—or even most—of them.

Los Angeles Lakers forward/center Anthony Davis is getting closer to returning. 

Per ESPN's Dave McMenamin, the eight-time All-Star "could be suiting up for games by the first week of April, at the earliest" if he continues to progress well in his recovery from a foot sprain. 

Davis has averaged 23.1 points, 9.7 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 2.3 blocks per game this season. He's been limited to just 37 games and notably missed 17 straight from Dec. 19 to Jan. 23 with a sprained MCL in his left knee.

Unfortunately, the four-time All-NBA Team member was forced to miss more time because of an injury suffered right before the All-Star break.

On Feb. 17, the Lakers announced Davis suffered a mid-foot sprain during the team's 106-101 home win over the Utah Jazz the night earlier.

AD rose up to catch a lob from teammate Malik Monk and landed on Jazz center Rudy Gobert's heel. His ankle turned outward as he crashed to the court.

Davis left the game after just 17 minutes and did not return. The Lakers said team doctors would reevaluate him in four weeks.

In addition, X-Rays taken at Crypto.com Arena did not reveal a fracture, but an MRI the next day showed the sprain.

Losing AD has obviously been a big loss for the Lakers, who have been short-handed nearly all season with Davis and LeBron James both missing time because of injuries.

They've struggled to a 31-42 record, ninth in the Western Conference. They are tied with the No. 10 seed New Orleans Pelicans in the loss column (30-42) and are only two games ahead of the San Antonio Spurs in the 11th spot. 

The Los Angeles Lakers are reportedly believed to have their eye on Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder should they decide to make a coaching change after the 2021-22 season.

According to Marc Stein of Substack (h/t HoopsHype.com), Snyder is viewed within the league as a "probable" target for the Lakers if they fire Frank Vogel.

There is no guarantee that Snyder will be available, though, as he signed an extension with the Jazz prior to the 2019-20 season that added "multiple years" to his existing contract.

That means the Jazz would either have to fire Snyder or agree to trade him to the Lakers in order for L.A. to bring him in as Vogel's replacement.

Snyder is widely regarded as one of the NBA's best coaches, as he is about to lead the Jazz to the playoffs for the sixth consecutive season, but postseason success has eluded him.

Utah has not made it beyond the second round under Snyder, and if the Jazz remain the fourth seed and have to face the top-seeded Phoenix Suns in the second round this year, there is a decent chance that trend will continue.

If the Jazz front office grows tired of the lack of playoff results, it isn't inconceivable that they could move on from Snyder despite his .588 winning percentage as the team's head coach over eight seasons.

In that scenario, L.A. would be an ideal landing spot for Snyder, as he spent one year as an assistant on the Lakers' staff back in 2011-12.

Snyder would also be taking over a team anchored by LeBron James and Anthony Davis, although the Lakers clearly aren't without faults.

With Davis missing significant time because of injury this season and LeBron missing some action as well, the Lakers are only 31-41, placing them ninth in the Western Conference.

Los Angeles is just two years removed from winning an NBA championship, however, and it could conceivably win another with a healthy duo of James and Davis, along with some smart additions to the supporting cast.

It is difficult to say the Lakers' struggles this season are largely on Vogel, but if L.A. doesn't manage to go on an unexpected playoff run, it is tough to envision Vogel returning next season even after winning a title two years ago.

A new voice in the form of Snyder could potentially help get the Lakers back on track, but there is no guarantee L.A. would be able to land him.

Stein noted that there is also speculation Snyder could be targeted by the San Antonio Spurs as the successor to legendary head coach Gregg Popovich.

Snyder was the head coach of the Spurs' G League affiliate, the Austin Toros, from 2007-10, meaning he is familiar with the organization.

Snyder should have no shortage of options if the Jazz decide to move on from him, while the Lakers should remain an attractive landing spot for prospective head coaches for as long as James and Davis are in the fold.