Mark D. Smith USA TODAY SPORTS
The Los Angeles Lakers are a very unique organization. They play in a large market that attracts players and also have deeper pockets than most of the other teams in the league. One of the things the Lakers are missing from their team is a foreign player.
As we all know, the Lakers are known for trading their first round draft picks rather than keeping them. In this day and age, the Lakers need to start stock piling guys overseas because they are so limited financially they could use some talent on the cheap. The team usually has a few high priced players on the team and that makes it very difficult to make changes to a roster but if they had some young prospects over in Europe that could change things.
We all know that the Lakers are in “win now” mode. They already have all 15 roster spots taken and are way over the salary cap. The team has traded away several future first round picks in order to acquire Steve Nash this past off-season.
First round picks aren’t guaranteed to pan out to begin with but why can’t the Lakers take a foreigner or two in the second round? Most of the other teams around the league have a foreign player on their squad and it’s usually a guy who was drafted late in the first round or deep in the second round.
In recent years, the Lakers have replaced key members of their scouting department and supposedly one of the new goals of the team is to focus on overseas talent. We will see if this plan is put into action or if it is just lip service.
From an organization standpoint, the team has to find inexpensive alternatives that can complement their star players. There is no better way to do so than investing strongly in foreign players who can play.
