The Los Angeles Lakers had struggled mightily to get back to their winning ways for the better part of a decade.
Their championship drought finally ended in the bubble, bringing home the 2019-20 NBA championship after a very complicated season.
Asterisk or not, the Lakers had a solid team and had thrived in the regular season as well, and they could’ve just tried and run it back with the same roster next season.
However, they didn’t keep JaVale McGee or Dwight Howard and replaced them with Marc Gasol and Montrezl Harrell instead.
"Why didn't the Lakers just bring us back? We just won a [2020] championship… They went and got Marc Gasol and Montrezl Harrell. That was their way of saying, 'we got younger and better at the [center] position.'"
—Dwight Howard
(via @MATHHOFFA)pic.twitter.com/uTz6hexoUD
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) August 3, 2023
That, according to Howard, was a major mistake by the Lakers, but he understood that they just wanted to do what was best for them by getting younger and better at the center position.
At the end of the day, plenty of things went wrong for the Lakers in their defending champion season.
Anthony Davis couldn’t stay healthy, and that was the defining factor that ultimately led to their demise, way more than whoever was playing at center.
Even so, Howard has a valid point in regards to teams changing what had worked for them in the past just for the sake of getting younger.
Veterans have become a bit of a dying breed in today’s NBA, with teams constantly looking to get younger.
Even so, not many players from that championship-winning team are still with the organization, as usually happens with teams featuring LeBron James, so maybe Howard shouldn’t take that as a personal shot at him whatsoever.
NEXT: Lakers Defensive Specialist Working On His Offense This Summer
