ESPN Reporter Calls Out Los Angeles Lakers For Roster Failures

ESPN's Tim Bontemps called out the Los Angeles Lakers roster decisions.

Jul 2, 2024; El Segundo, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka at a press conference at the UCLA Health Training Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The Los Angeles Lakers will always be among the most talked about franchises in the NBA.

Right now, they have two of the greatest players of all time in LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

However, they have been an up-and-down team since winning the 2020 NBA Championship.

James and Davis recently helped lead Team USA to a Gold medal and were two of the best players on the roster (James won MVP).

Recently, ESPN's Tim Bontemps (via Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective) spoke about the team's failures.

Bontemps: "Maybe the single biggest takeaway for me from this whole tournament is that it showed to me how terribly the Lakers have been run for most of the past several years...The fact that the team has been built so poorly around him and Anthony Davis that they have been an afterthought the vast majority of the run and especially the past few years... With him and AD it remains unfathomable that this team is irrelevant and that's what they are. Is irrelevant."

The season after the Lakers won the title, they lost in the first round of the NBA playoffs to the Phoenix Suns.

Jun 3, 2021; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) reacts in the second quarter against the Phoenix Suns during game six in the first round of the 2021 NBA Playoffs. at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

In 2022, the Lakers missed the NBA playoffs after making a poor decision to trade for Russell Westbrook.

Dec 9, 2022; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (6) and guard Russell Westbrook (0) high five after a score against the Philadelphia 76ers during the second quarter at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports / Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

After missing the playoffs, the Lakers made a run to the Western Conference finals in 2023 (they were swept by the Denver Nuggets).

May 22, 2023; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward Anthony Davis (3) dunks the ball against Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) during the fourth quarter in game four of the Western Conference Finals for the 2023 NBA playoffs at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

This past year, the Lakers lost to the Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs.