In The Least Surprising News Of All Time, Deandre Ayton Is Officially Heading To The Lakers

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The second we learned that Deandre Ayton and the Blazers had agreed to a buyout and he would be free to join any team of his choosing, we all knew what that meant. Easily the most obvious Lakers signing of all time. He's a big name who actually kind of stinks but puts up box score stats, the team had a desperate need for a starting center, preferably one that could work with Luka as a roller/lob threat who didn't cost a ton of money or assets to obtain. We all knew that the second he cleared waivers on Wednesday that we were going to get the Shams notification announcing it. Lock of the century.

You'll never believe this, but once Deandre Ayton cleared waivers, within minutes we had our answer as to where he was going

First off, take it easy there Shams holy shit. I know agent propaganda mixed with Lakers bias when I see it because while that stuff is technically true, let's not pretend like Ayton is some sort of flawless player. There are in fact many flaws. The Blazers are actively paying him to go away, and it's not even surprising as to why. Not only was he a headache and mostly a disaster off the court in terms of work ethic and culture, but the Blazers were also much better without him on the court. On the season, they were a -7 with Ayton on the floor and a -1 without him. He's everything that JJ Redick absolutely despises in a player which is what makes this signing even better. At the very least, we're going to get a handful of JJ freak outs while cursing Ayton out as the team heads into a timeout. That's going to be great.

If we're to be fair and tell the whole truth when it comes to this signing, in terms of the available center market, this is a clear-cut basketball win for the Lakers. In terms of available center options on the market right now, it's all complete dogshit outside of Al Horford. Under no circumstances could the Lakers end this offseason without addressing their center position, so their options were potentially pretty brutal (again, outside of Al Horford). From a talent perspective, Ayton is certainly the best option available on the market given that he can score in the midrange, work in P&R, is solid on the glass, while being a decent rim protector.

The thing is, it just hasn't really translated into being a good, functioning winning basketball player, and that's the problem. Between Ayton, Luka, and LeBron being 40 and about to potentially bolt the Lakers altogether, the quit factor is now HIGH on this roster for next season. 

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In the end, it was your typical case of a "big name" player just so happening to fall into the Lakers' lap for nothing. Crazy how that keeps happening! Does this change their standings in the West? I'm not so sure. OKC, DEN, HOU, MIN are all a cut above in my opinion, and that's even with a full year of Luka and now Ayton. 

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Lakers fans want nothing to do with Ayton by Christmas. He's the perfect type of player where the "idea" of who he is and what he could be is much better than the actual player. Once you get that guy, you see what everyone has been talking about. 

If the plan for the Lakers is to build around Luka, the one thing he needs is a center. This is clearly the Lakers hoping that Ayton can be that guy moving forward, which would leave them with a Luka/Reaves/Ayton trio for the post-LeBron world. Is that good enough to contend for titles? Does Luka look at that and decide it's good enough to stay? Remember, he still hasn't signed that extension yet, and if this Ayton experiment fails and then LeBron leaves, why would he want to stay? It's not like he wanted to be a Laker in the first place, so maybe he decides to take the opportunity to finally pick his own basketball home.