{"id":752835,"date":"2026-06-05T04:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T04:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/752835\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T04:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T04:42:13","slug":"robert-horry-on-how-the-lakers-must-build-a-championship-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/752835\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Horry on how the Lakers must build a championship roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right now, the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> and Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> are the kingpins in the NBA’s Western Conference, and most expect it to remain that way for many years to come. Both teams just completed a contentious, back-and-forth Western Conference championship series that ended with Victor Wembanyama<\/a> and the Spurs outlasting Oklahoma City<\/a> in Game 7.<\/p>\n

The Lakers<\/a> are in the second tier of NBA teams, meaning that they’re good and possibly very good, but not strong enough to contend for the league’s grand prize. Robert Horry, a former forward who won three world titles with the Lakers and seven overall, said during an appearance on ESPN L.A. radio<\/a> that the team needs to bring in personnel that can match up with the Spurs and Thunder.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think about the days when we won three in a row,\u201d Horry said in an appearance on ESPN LA Radio. \u201cSo many guys got jobs because they were there to try to stop Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal). It\u2019s so many guys that got paid because they needed a big body. There\u2019s no big body for Wemby. So you gotta find someone who\u2019s a tall defensive player who can kinda deter some things, who can move his feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what the Lakers gotta do. They gotta build to beat OKC. They gotta build to beat San Antonio<\/a> because that\u2019s what good teams do. You realize who you are and you look at the team\u2019s who\u2019s out there dominating and you build your team to try to beat them. So hopefully the Lakers can find something out there, because they\u2019re gonna be depleted. So many free agents and who knows what\u2019s going on with LeBron<\/a> [James] so they gonna have to find a way to beat those two big dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thinking among many Lakers fans is that the team’s biggest need is an upgrade at the center position. But Los Angeles<\/a> also needs multiple athletic two-way wings in order to physically match up with players such as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a>, Stephon Castle<\/a>, De’Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper<\/a>, as well as the New York Knicks<\/a>‘ Jalen Brunson<\/a>. Right now, L.A.’s only true plus defender at the guard or forward positions is Marcus Smart<\/a>, and he has a player option for next season.<\/p>\n

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The moves the Lakers make this offseason could dictate to a large extent how the next few seasons will go for them. Of course, the biggest domino to fall for them this summer, as Horry alluded to, is what LeBron James does in free agency. James hinted recently that he may not make a decision<\/a> until around the middle of the summer.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Robert Horry on how the Lakers must build a championship roster<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Right now, the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder are the kingpins in the NBA’s Western Conference,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,65885,226,92463,288,516,251,326,6,191,475,179,5847,969,474,209,65639,930,2152,693,574],"class_list":["post-752835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-de39aaron-fox","tag-dylan-harper","tag-espn-la-radio","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-lebron","tag-los-angeles","tag-marcus-smart","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-robert-horry","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-shaquille-o39neal","tag-stephon-castle","tag-the-lakers","tag-victor-wembanyama","tag-western-conference"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116695671999724333","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}