This is the fourth part in a series on how league insiders view the Lakers' rebuild. Read the first part here, second part here and third part here.
The Los Angeles Lakers walked into a sitdown with LaMarcus Aldridge this summer with their pockets full of cash and the sun shining down on their massive market. Despite having finished a franchise-worst 21-61 months earlier, hopes were high that they could land the best player willing to move on the free-agent market.
After all, that's usually how things go for the franchise with the most titles since the NBA-ABA merger.
But the meeting was a disaster. The Lakers' pitch to the four-time All-Star focused too much on branding and marketing and not enough on basketball. The Los Angeles Times reported that Aldridge was especially turned off by a lack of analytics, still a sore subject for the organization.
A second meeting was granted, but it did nothing to sway Aldridge, who instead signed a max deal with the San Antonio Spurs. Aldridge later told USA Today that he considered only the Spurs and Phoenix Suns as possible destinations.
And that's how the Lakers came up empty in free agency for the third straight summer.
"It was, 'OK, they're going to get LeBron.' Then it was Kevin Love. Then they're going to get LaMarcus. And they haven't gotten any of those guys," one agent said. "They might get [Russell] Westbrook, but they're going to wait two more years. And [by then], five or six years have gone by and they haven't gotten any other guys? What are they doing?"
The NBA landscape has changed. Here are the three uphill battles the Lakers now face:
1. Everyone has money to spend
There's a sense of urgency for the Lakers to turn their franchise around. And with first-round draft picks still owed to the Philadelphia 76ers and the Orlando Magic and a shortage of tradeable assets, the most likely way to do so is in free agency.
"We don't have the luxury to have a 10-year rebuilding program done through the draft," Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said in late September. "But that is why we have maintained a lot of flexibility we have with our cap going forward."
The Lakers can open up as much as $59 million -- contingent upon factors like Kobe Bryant's retirement or the renouncement of his Bird rights, the team losing their first-rounder, Brandon Bass opting out, etc. -- which is rivaled by only the Sixers. That puts the Lakers in a position to possibly add two max contracts next summer, when the likes of Kevin Durant, Mike Conley and Al Horford (and, for what it's worth, LeBron James and Dwight Howard) become unrestricted free agents.
"If you can start selling people on the idea that, if you want to come play with your buddy and both you guys get to live in L.A. -- that's a big difference from saying, 'Hey, we've only got to convince one guy and he's going to come here and be a savior," an analytics official said
But several other teams will be flush with cash, too.
Thanks to the NBA's new $24 billion television deal, the league's salary cap is soaring, from $70 million this season to nearly $90 million next season and, according to some projections, as high as $108 million in 2017-18. Unlike in the past, when only the richest of the rich could afford the best talent, more teams will have more money to throw at players.
As a result, insiders expect the top free agents to prioritize winning, just like they did this past summer, when both Aldridge and Greg Monroe eschewed the bright lights of L.A. and New York for the smaller ones in San Antonio and Milwaukee, respectively. This would put the Lakers, mired in the worst stretch in franchise history, at a disadvantage.
"I think Greg Monroe probably set the standard of what's going on," said one executive. "Outside of the [Miami] Big Three, which is a novelty, I still think players now look at situations and go: 'You know, I've made a lot of money up to this point. Now it's about winning. Where can I win now?'
2. Stars don't need big markets to sell
Big markets used to mean big perks -- fame, success, wealth.
But unlike in the past, when a large market meant lots of exposure, social media and other technology has allowed marquee players to remain in the public eye no matter where they play.
"There's no question that access to marketing dollars are just not limited to [playing] in L.A. or New York," one agent said. "That's just not the same as it was five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, for sure."
Another agent singled out Durant and Westbrook as key examples of the shift.
"[Those] guys are playing in OKC, one of the smallest media markets, but they're superstars because they've won," the agent said. "They still get all the endorsements that anyone else would get in L.A. or New York. That has changed. It's definitely a key piece for the marketing side. [Players] want to be associated with a winner; if that's not L.A., if that's not N.Y., that's fine."
"You're not separated by small-town America anymore," another agent said. "The way that social media reaches, you don't have to have 10 million people in the streets where you are. Look how bright the lights are in New York -- and they ain't doing anything for Melo & Co."
In fact, there are certain advantages to playing outside of the limelight that appeal to today's players -- including avoiding the highest state taxes for pro basketball players and not having to share the ball with Kobe.
"In some ways, you're not putting up with the big-city garbage that you have to deal with, either," an executive said. "In New York, there's still the New York atmosphere, which brings a little bit of pressure in itself. There's less pressure in Milwaukee in signing a big deal."
Even those who enjoy the year-round sunshine aren't seeing the appeal unless the wins come with it.
"A lot of people live there in the offseason, so they're like: 'I get my fix of L.A. already. I can go someplace else [and win] and go back [in the offseason],'" one agent said.
3. Players are looking for a different pitch
The Lakers' history is cherished in Los Angeles. The banners. The retired jerseys. The Hall of Famers and past players on the sidelines, roaming the halls, analyzing the games. All of it feeds into the great mythos the franchise tries to convey.
But the mystique doesn't appear to mean as much to today's players as winning.
"Shaq, Kobe, whoever it may be, they wanted to come there," an executive said. "No one is wanting to come there [now]. They want to be recruited there. [But] they don't want to come there. Even Dwight Howard, who wanted to be in L.A., who wanted all the glamour -- that guy was set for L.A. They hated him, and he hated it."
Like Aldridge, players want to be shown, in detail, how the franchise plans to use them in order to win.
"They're selling this Buss/Magic [Johnson] mythology," one scout said. "That's grand, but does that mean anything to the modern player? There's a certain amount of arrogance in terms of where they think their brand is relative to the rest of the NBA."
Said one executive: "In the '90s and the early 2000s, it seemed like the Lakers and Knicks could get by solely on the name, the market. They didn't really have to have a high level of expertise or analysis with respect to guys. ... You've got the presentations that [Houston Rockets general manager] Daryl Morey is giving to the Houston free agents -- those are becoming the types of situations and the type of detail-orientated things that are becoming attractive to these players."
The Lakers still get meetings with big-name free agents, but insiders say their failures to sway players like Aldridge should be a clear sign that change is needed.
"The bottom line is that presentation was bad," an executive said. "You can't just view that in a silo if you're the Lakers. In today's league, with the way players are connected to each other, players talk. Players are communicating non-stop. That's the sort of stuff that is damaging. If you're the Lakers and you give a s----y presentation to LaMarcus Aldridge ... [he's] telling 10 others and word spreads quickly about that stuff. It goes back to the allure of the Lakers deteriorating. That stuff is important."
How do the Lakers get back into pole position in the free-agent chase?
One analytics official suggested using the rise in salary cap to facilitate players looking to join forces. Another pointed big-name free agents like James and Aldridge heading home and suggested the Lakers set their sights on L.A. natives like Westbrook (free agent in 2017) and James Harden (2018).
"They whiffed on Dwight. They whiffed on [Carmelo Anthony]. They whiffed on Aldridge," one analytics official said. "But all it's going to take is one hit. It doesn't make them any less dysfunctional or flawed, but it will fix almost all their problems."
However, relying on hope is how the Lakers missed on those three big names in three successive summers in the first place.
"Two years is forever," one analytics official said. "If your game plan is, 'We'll maybe get this guy in two years.' OK? I mean, that's not a strategy."
