The 2025-26 Los Angeles Lakers, all things considered, probably outperformed expectations. They beat their projected win total by 6.5 games.
They solved the fit issues between Luka Dončić, Austin Reaves and LeBron James in a blistering 16-2 March. They won a playoff series that Dončić missed and Reaves didn't join until Game 5.
Purely on paper, the season was a success. In reality, very little was actually accomplished.
This season, more than anything, was about buying time. Time for James' max contract to expire and create cap space. Time to gain further access to their own draft capital for trade purposes.
Time to evaluate what they had so they'd know what they need. The last season and a half was an uncomfortable collision between the end of the last era and the beginning of the next.
Starting this summer, the real work of building the Luka Dončić Lakers begins.
The Championship Goal
The end goal of that effort, functionally, is building a team that can compete with the Oklahoma City Thunder. They're the bar, at least alongside the San Antonio Spurs.
Those are the teams the Lakers are going to have to beat to win a championship, and they're what make this season, on some level, a disappointment.
The Dončić Trade Evaluation
The Lakers acquired Dončić in February 2025. It's been a season and a half. They have not yet acquired a single player who appears poised to be a central part of their strategy against the Thunder moving forward.
They just played Oklahoma City in a series that the Thunder frankly slept through. The first halves were competitive. The second halves, when the Thunder woke up, were not.
Oklahoma City became the first team in 26 years to win the first three games of a series by more than 16 points.
Dončić's absence makes proper evaluation difficult, of course. Everyone was overburdened without him. But Deandre Ayton was a mess and called out for his effort on the Game 3 broadcast.
Jake LaRavia was borderline unplayable. Marcus Smart and Luke Kennard had their moments, but Smart is 32 and injury-prone, while Kennard's offense came and went throughout the postseason.
Both can become free agents this offseason. Reaves, though injured, played most of the series with a target on his back defensively.
The only Lakers who consistently held up were the 41-year-old James, whose future is uncertain, and Rui Hachimura, also an impending free agent with serious defensive question marks.
Roster Outlook
The Lakers are almost starting from scratch here. They have Dončić. They'll probably have Reaves. JJ Redick will be their coach, and this year's over-performance suggests he's a keeper.
And they'll need basically everything else: at least one center better than anyone they currently have, multiple wing defenders who can shoot and another ball-handler to replace James, whether he leaves now or in a year.
We can say very little with confidence about who will be playing for the 2027-28 Lakers, when Dončić will be in the final year of his contract and presumably expecting to seriously contend.
That's what this offseason is about. Beating modest Vegas expectations and knocking out dysfunctional opponents is no longer relevant.
The entire goal is to find the players who will surround Dončić during the prime of his Lakers tenure. Who those players might be and how the Lakers can try to get them are what we'll try to figure out today.
Short-Term Financial Outlook
The projected salary cap for the 2026-27 NBA season is $165 million. The Lakers currently owe roughly $92.6 million to nine players, and their No. 25 overall pick will cost about $3.2 million.
Factor in a $20.9 million cap hold for Reaves, allowing them to go over the cap to re-sign him, and you're looking at roughly $116.7 million in obligations, giving the Lakers a bit more than $48 million in projected cap space.
That figure is not set in stone. It assumes that Ayton and Smart will both pick up their player options.