Better Luck Next Year: Los Angeles Lakers edition

As NBA teams are officially eliminated from title contention, theScore NBA freelance writer Andrew Unterberger takes a look back at the highs and lows of their season, along with the biggest questions ahead of 2018-19. The tenth edition focuses on the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Good

Everything about Lonzo Ball's rookie season except for, well ... One of the most unusual rookie campaigns in recent NBA memory has resulted in a whole lot of box score stat-stuffing: 6.9 boards, 7.2 assists, 1.7 steals, and even nearly a block per game in 52 appearances from Lakers point guard of the future, Lonzo Ball. Not empty stats, either: Ball is rated as a top-25 point guard by ESPN's RPM - higher than Miami Heat All-Star Goran Dragic or Denver Nuggets breakout sophomore Jamal Murray - and has been particularly dominant on the defensive end, rating top five for his position. There's that other part of the box score we haven't mentioned yet - more on that to come - but even if that part of his game never comes around, he's done enough to show he'll be a factor in this league for some time.

KOOOOOOOOOZ. Consolidate Kyle Kuzma and Ball's strengths and you'd have the perfect rookie. Kuzma hasn't displayed Ball's all-around prolificness or game-changing defense in his first season, but the guy can score. With a smooth 16 points a game - second-most among rookies to Donovan Mitchell thus far - on an efficient 55 percent true shooting, Kuzma is a threat from nearly anywhere on the court. Rarely do you see an overachieving Summer League performance from a late-first-round rookie extended for his full NBA debut season, but even after hitting the rookie wall a little bit before the All-Star break, Kuzma has bounced back to end the season as strong as he began, averaging 18.7 points and 8.5 rebounds on 48 percent shooting in 14 games in March.

The TNT win over the 76ers. There were a number of big wins for L.A. this season - a comeback win in San Antonio, a Kuzma-powered stolen game in Houston, multiple moral victories against Golden State - but the biggest might've been a much-hyped TNT game against Philadelphia, in a matchup between two of the league's most exciting up-and-coming squads. The Sixers had taken the first matchup of the season behind a 47-point Joel Embiid performance, but in the nationally televised rematch, the Lakers triumphed in Philly, with seven players scoring in double figures - led by 21 points from Brandon Ingram, including the game-winning 3-pointer in the final seconds. The W validated L.A. as being along a similar rebuilding path to the 76ers, if a slightly more winding one.

Julius Randle's breakthrough. After two years of being a promising talent whose skills seemed uncertain to ultimately outweigh his shortcomings, Julius Randle finally had the season Lakers fans were waiting for in 2017-18. He's leading the Lakers in points (16.3) and rebounds (8.0) per game, as well as field goal percentage (56.3), PER (20.1), and win shares (6.3) - all in fewer minutes per game than he played the past two years. He has become one of the game's most indomitable forces at the basket, and he only seems to be getting stronger as the season goes, averaging 22.3 points and 9.9 rebounds on almost 57 percent shooting (and eight free throw attempts a game!) in March. Defensive and positional concerns linger, but there probably aren't a lot of teams that wouldn't be interested in Randle's services at this point, regardless.

Out of the defensive cellar. After rating last in the league in defense for the previous two seasons - and 29th of 30 the year before that - the Lakers burst out of the gate in 2017-18 with an improbable top-five defense to start the season. The additions of Ball and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in the backcourt undoubtedly helped (particularly in the stead of D'Angelo Russell and Lou Williams), as well as newly imported big men Brook Lopez and Andrew Bogut, and finally, it looked like Luke Walton's defensive principles were starting to take hold for the run-and-gun young squad. The defense has predictably regressed but still ranks in the league's top 15 - a major developmental step for a team that hadn't enjoyed a stable defense since Mike Brown's lone full season in charge.

The Bad

Lonzo Ball's shooting. Yeah, that. It remains a little hard to look past Ball's relentlessly bricky shooting. Though he had a hot stretch from the field spaced out over a couple of injury-interrupted mid-season stints - which at least prove a sweet-shooting version of Ball exists, to some extent - his shooting has otherwise been historically dreadful, with a slash line of 36/31/45 that would be totally unsustainable for any player who didn't produce in as many other ways as the eldest Ball brother does. But even he will have to shoot better in the years to come to be the reliable two-way PG the Lakers need moving forward.

(By the way, Ball's shooting does earn him the dubious random streak of the year award: His ten games in a row of hitting exactly one 3-pointer - over a combined 58 attempts, but who's counting - marks an NBA record, at least as far back as Basketball-Reference's data goes.)

Happy holidays. For the second straight year, the Lakers jumped out to a decent start - 5-5 through ten games - that gradually took on water until the season capsized. The Lakers officially went Team Overboard in late December when, following a defining win over the Rockets in Houston, L.A. proceeded to lose its next nine games going into the New Year, dropping to a West-worst 11-27. To the team's credit, it rebounded from there to go an incredible 12-4 in the next 16 games, avoiding total ruination for the year. But, in the crowded West, it was already far too late for any feel-good comeback stories, and the Lakers never approached the playoff picture again - the fifth straight year without the postseason for the Purple and Gold.

Tampering! Lakers GM Rob Pelinka and president Magic Johnson probably couldn't fill out a comment card at a restaurant right now without risking a league sanction. Over the summer, the Lakers were fined $500,000 after the two were essentially found to have been playing free-agency footsie with then-Indiana star Paul George, which the Pacers demanded be investigated as tampering. That citation may have had merit, but it was less easily understood why the team was fined an additional $50,000 for Johnson's comments in praise of recently contract-extended Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo in an ESPN interview, saying he would "bring (Milwaukee) a championship one day." Not like the Lakers are hurting for the cash, but a little absurd that Magic and Pelinka may have to plead ignorance whenever asked about any NBA player who might at some point in the next decade become a free agent.

Year One with LaVar. Anyone who predicted LaVar Ball would set aside his personal agenda out of deference to those actually in charge of the Lakers as soon as son Lonzo landed in Los Angeles as an NBA professional ... well, suppose there's no reason to pretend anyone actually thought that. The Biggest Baller spent most of this season about as expected: Making excessive media appearances, getting parodied on SNL, and of course, attempting to usurp the authority of Lakers head coach Luke Walton, who he claimed "doesn't have control of this team no more." (The Lakers immediately proceeded to win 8 of their next 10.)

The Lakers might've lucked out that the other two Ball boys' unusual amateur ball situations took them halfway around the world to Lithuania - and their pops with them - where the drama could be (relatively) minimized. Still, Lonzo may have to reckon with the idea that not only does his all-around play have to be excellent enough to make up for his out-of-focus shooting, it also has to be enough to justify continued tolerance for his carnival-barking pops.

No lottery pick. After three seasons of ducking it under lottery protections, the Lakers will finally have to pay the piper this summer for the first-round pick they sent to Phoenix for Steve Nash in 2013 - which, via a variety of subsequent trades, will go to Boston if the pick is from 2-5 or to Philadelphia if anywhere else. Luckily for L.A., it's unlikely the pick finishes near the top five - after three straight years of drafting No. 2, the Lakers are all but certain to finish somewhere in the 10-12 range of the tanking rankings this season. And they did acquire a first-rounder from Cleveland in the Jordan Clarkson/Larry Nance trade that could end up in the high 20s. But any season that ends without a playoff appearance or a lottery ticket for a still-rebuilding team remains a tough swallow regardless.

The Questions

Is LeBron coming? Whatever was happening on the court for the Lakers this season, the dominant story surrounding the team remained one about this July. NBA scuttlebutt has long connected LeBron James to the Lakers in his upcoming free agency, largely pointing to his desire to expand his non-basketball portfolio.

Did this year help or hurt the Lakers' cause? Hard to say definitively - the team's young core mostly all either made promising debuts or took big steps forward, but they also combined to win just 30-something games, which isn't often enough to attract the best player in the world in free agency. They also have more pronounced competition now from the ascendant Sixers, who have two burgeoning superstars and may be able to clear max cap space, and the Rockets, who could offer LeBron the chance to be part of a juggernaut powerful enough to maybe make even the Warriors look puny. Unclear if the Lakers' location advantage can really compete with that.

How painful will it be to get rid of Luol Deng's contract? Incredibly, there's still two years and over $36 million left on the free-agency deal the Lakers struck with veteran forward Luol Deng in the 2014 offseason - not much of a bargain, considering he's already down to playing only 13 minutes (total) a season. To have any hope of adding two max players, while also being able to retain one or two of their own outgoing guys, they'll need to unload Deng's money. But that should come at no small cost to the Lakers, who may need to attach multiple first-rounders and/or attractive young players to make any such trade palatable. The answer to how motivated they are to still get such a deal done may be closely connected to the answer to this next question.

How badly do the Lakers want Julius Randle back? Ah, the rub to Randle's breakout season: The Lakers neglected to lock up their force-of-nature power forward to an extension over the summer, hoping to keep their cap as clear as possible for impending free agency. Now, he's likely to find big money elsewhere, and though the Lakers will have the ability to match whatever offer he receives, they may not be willing to sacrifice the potential bidding space for max free-agency guys such as LeBron and Paul George. Hard to let homegrown talent like that just walk away for nothing, though, so it'll be interesting to see if the Lakers do what it takes to retain Randle without sacrificing cap flexibility, whether it's through jettisoning Deng or deploying some serious cap gymnastics.

Who's untradeable? What if it takes an attachment of Kuzma to get the Deng contract off the books? What if LeBron doesn't want to land anywhere in the same galaxy as the Ball family? What if Ingram is taking up too much space on a roster looking to add two stars who play the same position? Are any of the scant players remaining under contract in L.A. after this season totally untradeable, or are all expendable in the name of landing LeBron and a co-star?

Without a big free agent, are the Lakers still on their way? Let's say LeBron goes to Houston, Paul George stays in OKC, and L.A. essentially strikes out with the big fish in the free-agency market - hardly implausible, considering it's what they've done in basically every summer since 2013. Can the Lakers retool on the fly - resign Randle, maybe even work out ways for Caldwell-Pope and/or Isaiah Thomas to come back on reasonable long-term deals - and still be on their way back to contention?

They seem to have enough promising young players to be able to put something decently special together, and Luke Walton may have shown enough to prove to be the man to help them do it. But going from just outside the playoffs to just inside can be tough, especially without a no-doubt future superstar to lead the way. Plus, rebuilding slowly from the inside has never been the way in Los Angeles: From Wilt to Kareem to Shaq to Pau, investing heavily in outside help has always been key to Lakers dominance. Can L.A. take the long way to NBA nirvana? It's a question Magic & Co. are certainly hoping to avoid having to answer this offseason.

(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)