The Lakers cannot win a championship with their current roster

It almost seems as if the Lakers believe they have a competitive team as they haven't made any moves during the offseason. The only thing that they have so far is extending LeBron James for two more years. This is a big move because he is still the team's best player. However, besides that, the team is still below average and that's not competitive enough.

According to Jovan Buha from The Athletic, this team doesn't have the pieces to compete in the Western Conference. The Lakers front office was hoping to land Kyrie Irving via trade but that ship has sailed. Now they have to look for help elsewhere as soon as possible as training camp is just around the corner.

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Jovan Buha commented, "No, I don’t believe the Lakers, as currently constructed, can win a championship. I think they can certainly make the playoffs, but I expect them to be a bottom-tier playoff team if Westbrook is on the roster and playing (somewhere in the No. 6 to No. 9-seed range). If we compare their supporting cast to other top West teams, they fall significantly short."

The Lakers have desperately tried to send Russell Westbrook away since the start of the season. Of course, they want something big in return. But right now it seems that the team is trending to accept anything if they can take Russell's contract out of their cap space. Still, they will have to move him and add some pieces if they want to compete for the championship.

Trading Russell Westbrook

The Lakers thought that Westbrook was their missing piece for another championship run. However, he ended up playing the worst season of his career. Not everything is his fault, as the two best players, LeBron and AD, missed a lot of games due to injury. That hurt the team too. Now, after the bad season Russell had, plus his expensive salary, might be a reason why teams don't want the former MVP.