You hate this direction? Any decent player will be throwing themselves at the Lakers for pennies on the dollar to play for the Lakers especially if the get Leonard. I know LeBron is getting old but having LeBron locked in for 3 years is not bad. I really don’t see a direction the Lakers could have taken that gave them better odds of contending in the next 3 years. They are not at all good enough right now but they got the most important part If they could pull it off they could’ve ended up with any combination of the guys i mentioned for only money the next 2 offseason and still kept the young guys to have a really complete team with better longevity instead of shorting a window by trading most off to get Kwahi now. Yeah, in an ideal world, you have LeBron this year, bring back Randle and see how the young guys progress. Then bring in another free agent next year. Not sure if LeBron is okay essentially punting on winning a title next year (he should be because they aren’t beating the Warriors next year anyway).