{"id":19347,"date":"2025-07-18T16:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T16:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/19347\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T16:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T16:24:08","slug":"byron-scott-on-what-lakers-need-to-become-championship-contenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/19347\/","title":{"rendered":"Byron Scott on what Lakers need to become championship contenders"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> have had a decent offseason so far. While they lost 3-and-D forward Dorian Finney-Smith to the Houston Rockets<\/a> in free agency, they signed Jake LaRavia, a 23-year-old forward who seems to have some upward potential, and they then significantly addressed their dire need for a starting-level center by snagging Deandre Ayton.<\/p>\n

However, the Lakers haven’t had an impressive offseason, and they still have a couple of roster holes that need to be filled. As it stands, they should definitely be a playoff team and perhaps a top-four team in the Western Conference again, but they aren’t championship contenders, despite the presence of LeBron James, Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Byron Scott, a sharpshooter on their “Showtime” teams of the 1980s, told Sports Illustrated<\/a> at the ESPY awards this week what exactly his old franchise needs more of.<\/p>\n

“They still got some work to do,” Scott said. “Obviously I bleed purple and gold, so I want the best for this organization and the franchise.<\/p>\n

“… But LeBron and Luka, they still need some more help – Austin’s been great, every year he gets better. We still need a little bit more length, size, athleticism, and need some more scoring off that bench.”<\/p>\n

Los Angeles does want to improve its defense<\/a> at the guard position, and to that end, it is reportedly interested in<\/a> Gary Payton II, an athletic veteran guard who is known for his defense.<\/p>\n

This past season, L.A. was 11th in offensive rating but just 17th in defensive rating. It could very well be an offensive juggernaut this coming season, but it must find a way to get into the top five to 10 in defensive rating in order to become a truly elite team.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Byron Scott on what Lakers need to become championship contenders<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers have had a decent offseason so far. While they lost 3-and-D forward Dorian Finney-Smith…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[11654,402,17811,17815,6405,17816,17812,6426,17817,5050,17813,3013,3031,1055,3014,398,400,401,99,17814],"class_list":["post-19347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-austin-reaves","tag-basketball","tag-byron-scott","tag-championship-contenders","tag-deandre-ayton","tag-defensive-rating","tag-dire-need","tag-dorian-finney-smith","tag-gary-payton-ii","tag-houston-rockets","tag-jake-laravia","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-luka-doncic","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-sports","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}