Michael Scotto<\/a> of Hoops Hype reported that the Lakers are one of the teams interested in forward Cam Johnson as the Denver Nuggets consider revamping their core.<\/p>\nJohnson is a sharpshooting forward who would go a long way in replacing LeBron James, should this generation’s greatest decide not to return to Los Angeles. He would be a lethal scoring option alongside two others in Reaves and franchise centerpiece, Luka Doncic. <\/p>\n
Even the scoring and the uncertainty surrounding James is not enough to justify the cost of acquiring Johnson.<\/p>\n
For as talented an offensive threat as he is, the 30-year-old has his defensive deficiencies. He is undersized, and struggles against bigger forwards. He also struggles to contain explosive opponents in isolation, sometimes beaten in one-on-one coverage. He is also lacking in rim protection.<\/p>\n
The Lakers do not have issues scoring. Doncic led the league in regular-season scoring, James ranked 26th, and Reaves was a potent scorer throughout the year. The team needs to get better defensively so that it does not have to rely on a shootout every night in order to secure a win.<\/p>\n
Using trade assets to get better on that side of the ball should be a priority, not adding another scorer, regardless of whether James re-signs with the team.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, the Lakers will spend another season scoring plenty, not preventing nearly enough, and going home earlier than they would like. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers have already accomplished one off-season goal by signing Austin Reaves to a four-year, $185…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6],"class_list":["post-773040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-lakers","tag-basketball","tag-la","tag-la-lakers","tag-lakers","tag-lalakers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangeleslakers","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116829585642090809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773040","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=773040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}