10 trades and free-agent signings the Lakers would like a do-over on

Lakers do-over No. 6: Dennis Schroder trade, 2020

In the fall of 2020, the Lakers had just won the championship and were thinking through ways to retool around LeBron James and Anthony Davis to make another run. The formula of building around LeBron is well known. Get shooting and defense, the more wings the better, and let him go to work. Instead, the Lakers overreacted to a poor shooting postseason from three-time champion Danny Green and shipped him (and a first-round pick!) to the Oklahoma City Thunder for guard Dennis Schroder.

The deal looked like a mistake even if Schroder had played well, but he did not. He averaged 15.4 points per game but shot only 43.7 percent from the field and 33.5 percent from deep. He cramped the floor around James when they two played, and he was wholly unable to prop up the offense when James was out. Green, by comparison, shot 40.5 percent from deep. Oh, and that first-round pick became Jaden McDaniels, a promising young wing who would look great on the Lakers right now.

Lakers do-over No. 5: Dwight Howard trade, 2012

Here we pivot. The last five trades were all mistakes, the kind of deal the Lakers would want to do over, but they were all for supporting actors. We now come to the headline events, the deals that moved substantial resources (assets and money) to bring these players in. That begins with the Dwight Howard trade of 2012.

As previously mentioned, that summer the Lakers made a number of big moves to remake the roster and make a run at propelling Kobe Bryant toward that sixth title (and a tie with Michael Jordan). The biggest was bringing in mercurial superstar center Dwight Howard, the most dominant defender of his generation and an eight-time All-NBA member and three-time Defensive Player of the Year. It seemed like a great move at the time, with the Lakers sending Andrew Bynum and little else of consequence.

Unfortunately for the Lakers and Howard’s career, it was a complete tire fire from the start. Howard and Kobe did not gel, the offense struggled to integrate Howard and Pau Gasol, and with Steve Nash at less than 100 percent there was no selfless floor general to bring things together. The Lakers slipped into the playoffs and were swept out by the Spurs, and Howard left in free agency that summer.