The Los Angeles Lakers have struggled in multiple regards all season. Their bench mob seemed to hog the ball and were incapable of playing as a team, Lebron was injured for a large stretch and didn’t play a lick of defence for an even bigger stretch, and injuries seemed to hit almost every player on the roster over the course of the year. Some of these issues help to explain their faltering record and the fact that they won’t make the playoffs. But the majority of the blame lies at the top for the Lakers. The decisions to sign most of the Lakers offseason free agents was an attempt to zig, while the rest of the league zagged. However, it woefully failed. Turns out that surrounding Lebron with shooting and defending role players is a strategy that has worked for the past 8 years for a reason. These struggles led to all kinds of controversies surrounding the Lakers. There were reports of a “grandfather” offer for Anthony Davis which consisted of Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma, and multiple future first round picks. The Pelicans ended up not taking this deal, a mistake in my opinion, and the Lakers instead traded Ivica Zubac to the Clippers for Mike Muscala. A horribly short sighted mistake that saw the Lakers deal a young with incredible promise for an old stretch big who has seemingly forgotten how to shoot. But while the offer to the Pelicans and the trade to the Clippers were bad, they are in the past. And for Magic, Rob Pelinka, and the Lakers they must turn to the future past this season. And a huge part of that future is whether or not they pull the pin on a trade for Anthony Davis. The Lakers will be competing for the Davis with the Boston Celtics and many others in the off-season. In fact I imagine that nearly every single general manger will pick up the phone and chance their arm at one of the best players in the league. But there is a reason that the Celtics and the Lakers have had their names pop up in almost every trade situation. With Jayson Tatum and Brandon Ingram they have two of the best available young players in the league and the pelicans will likely be fixated on getting one of them. However, the Celtics and Lakers will be very careful with their young talent. They won’t want to give them up alongside too many other assets and will instead try and protect their depth and future while acquiring AD. This has been one of the big questions surrounding these deals, are the Celtics and Lakers going to be able to part with their developing pieces, or will another team swoop in with a huge offer to steal AD. The other big question has been who is more valuable, Tatum or Ingram? For most of this season and last season I think that nearly everyone would have said Tatum. But now the tide might finally be turning, Brandon Ingram has been absolutely incredible since the start of the year and particularly since the All Star break. Before the season everyone expected Ingram to be the clear number two player next to Lebron. A guy who could create for himself, defend, score, and dish the ball effectively to his team mates. But while Ingram was good to start the season it was nowhere near the heights that were expected of him. He averaged 16 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 2.3 assists a game. Apart from the assists, which had dropped slightly, these splits were very similar to the year before. So while it was clear that Ingram was playing well, I think that because he had not made a significant improvement, people were beginning to lose faith and place less value on Ingram. But this storyline has completely flipped since the beginning of the year. Brandon has averaged 20.5 points, 6 rebounds, and 3.6 assists a game, all while shooting over 51% from the field and 35% from very limited three point attempts. This is the Ingram that people expected to see at the start of the year. He has been the clear second option next to Lebron and at times has looked the calm presence that the Lakers need.