As the NBA playoffs march toward crowning a seventh champion in as many years, one message rings louder than any buzzer-beater: depth wins championships now. And if the Los Angeles Lakers are listening, Mirjam Swanson of the LA Daily News has already sounded the alarm.
“It’s really not that deep,” Swanson wrote — and yet, it is. In today’s NBA, depth isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity. “Gone are the days where you could pencil in a playoff series winner based primarily on which team would have the best player on the floor,” she observed.
Los Angeles Lakers’ Lack Of Depth Led To Playoff Ouster
The modern postseason has exposed top-heavy rosters. The Lakers, ousted in the first round, saw Coach JJ Redick use the same five players for the entirety of the second half in Game 4 — a testament to the team’s lack of viable depth. In contrast, teams like the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder have thrived with nine- and ten-man rotations.
“It seems like the teams that have longer rotations, longer benches, are the ones who are winning,” said Denver’s Nikola Jokic, after his Nuggets were overwhelmed by Oklahoma City.
Swanson makes clear that the league’s new collective bargaining agreement — with its punitive second apron — no longer allows franchises to “splurge on star power and power in numbers.” The smart teams now “calculate how to roster stars that don’t blot out the constellation.”
The Lakers and their fellow star-driven franchises face a clear choice: evolve or risk irrelevance. Because, as Swanson put it, this “isn’t the time to be top-heavy; it’s time to rally some troops.”
With the NBA’s new era of parity taking root, team-building has become a game of strategy, not just stars. The Lakers have been warned.