While the Los Angeles Lakers did bring in talent like Lou Williams, Brandon Bass and Roy Hibbert this offseason, those weren’t the type of moves previously associated with the basketball franchise and they certainly didn’t make Lakers fans happy.
Either way, Kobe Bryant believes the Lakers have a bright future thanks to their influx of youth like Jordan Clarkson, D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle as he told Marc Spears of Yahoo Sports in a sit-down interview.
“They have really set themselves up for a promising future going on years. I think they drafted very well. The free agents that we picked are extremely solid, [Roy] Hibbert, [Brandon] Bass, Lou [Williams]. We have a very good mix of young and veteran leadership. The challenge is going to be blending the two and cutting down the learning curve.
“How quickly can we get going? How quickly can we bring up [rookie D’Angelo] Russell, [Julius] Randle. [Jordan] Clarkson got valuable experience last year in playing that will benefit us tremendously. I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to running with these young guns.”
There’s no denying that the Lakers have a strong core of youthful prospects on their roster, though, how it will translate at the NBA level remains to be seen.
As for the current squad, Kobe Bryant believes he can lead the Lakers to the playoffs this season.
Absolutely. We have talented players in their respective positions. We have some really young players. How exactly will the pieces of the puzzle fit? We really don’t know. We are going to [training] camp trying to piece this together just like every other team does. We have to figure out what our strengths are, figure out what our weaknesses are. And every time we step on the court we are going to try to hide our weaknesses and step up to our strengths.”
