30 Teams in (a lot more than) 30 Days: Los Angeles Lakers

Record last year: 26-56

Major departures: D'Angelo Russell & Timofey Mozgov (Traded to Nets), Nick Young (Signed with Warriors), Tarik Black (Signed with Rockets)

Major acquisitions: Brook Lopez (Traded from Nets), Lonzo Ball (2nd overall pick), Kyle Kuzma (27th overall pick), Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (Free agent)

Leading scorers: Lou Williams (18.6 PPG) & D'Angelo Russell (15.6 PPG)

Leading rebounder: Julius Randle (8.6 PPG)

Leading assister: D'Angelo Russell (4.6 APG)

The 🅱️ig 🅱️aller era is upon the NBA, all we can do as fans is sit down and appreciate the wild ride America's REAL first family has taken us on.

President LaVar 🅱️all is simply a marketing genius. He's living proof that all publicity is good publicity, if you know how to channel it properly.

The attention gained from his over-the-top boasts and trash-talking threw LaVar's name into countless sports conversations daily. His name is still thrown into conversations that don't even involve him in the slightest.

These still look better than your shoes, @Lavarbigballer. https://t.co/WPgB4Gc1Z9

— Norm Kelly (@norm) August 10, 2017

Nowhere in this tweet was LaVar involved until Norm takes an unprovoked shot at him. Norm has a sizable social media following & presence (for some strange reason. Shouldn't he be......governing?) Those half-million followers are now seeing something involving LaVar's shoes again, effective advertisement that costs the 🅱️all family absolutely nothing.

LaVar has not paid a single dime for all the publicity him, his family, or his brand have gotten this past year. Even though the flagship 🅱️ig 🅱️aller 🅱️rand item, Lonzo's ZO2's, is slightly overpriced, there are plenty of non-footwear items in the 🅱️🅱️🅱️ catalog that are priced reasonably enough to entice the growing traffic.

And with the recent release of LaMelo's new shoes, the whole Ball family is moving into the merchandise wing of things.

Now on to actual basketball.

Even though the Lakers were towards the bottom of the Western Conference standings last year, they improved by 9 games over the previous season. Elite Tank Commander Byron Scott was relieved of his duties after a successful 17-65 season.

As a replacement, LA scooped up longtime Laker Luke Walton from the Warriors coaching staff. The addition of Walton with his GSW experience, and the departure of the crusty corpse of Kobe Bryant definitely helped the success of the Laker squad last season.

The offseason moves LA has made over this summer tell us that the Lakers are almost ready to strike on a move that pushes them to "contender" status. They've traded D'Angelo Russell and Timofey Mozgov to the Nets to increase cap space and gain a 1st round pick. They signed players like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to short term contracts.

Anybody with working eyes and a working brain can notice that stars like LeBron James, Paul George and Russell Westbrook have player options that can be exercised after this season. All 3 of them are players that can push LA to playoff basketball with the current roster.

The two first round draft picks the Lakers chose are major additions to the current roster. Their first selection, UCLA point guard Lonzo 🅱️all, is a dynamic point guard with passing vision and a nice shooting stroke.

His passing and defensive potential has drawn him comparisons to legendary point guard Jason Kidd. And Kidd himself has called those comparisons a "great compliment," so you know Lonzo has for real talent in this league.

Lonzo Ball would end up becoming the star of the 2017 Summer League, posting a 16p/7r/9a statline on his way to winning Summer League MVP. "Oh but it's just summer league, he's beating up on scrubs" bitch I know that, but the fact that he can perform at NBA speed & in an NBA offense should be comforting for Laker fans.

The Lakers next selection, Kyle Kuzma, was from the pick gained in the DRuss+Mozgov/Brook Lopez trade. Kuzma was a nice surprise for LA in 7 Summer League games, scoring almost 22 points per game on over 50 percent shooting. He also dropped 30 points in the Summer League Title Game, earning the game's MVP honors.

I highly doubt Kuzma's SL success will translate to a spot over Larry Nance or Julius Randle, because, ya know, these are D-Leaguers and NBA scrubs he's playing against. But the skillset shown there by the 22-year-old translates very well to the NBA, so we'll see how he performs in limited minutes this season.

In losing a talent like D'Angelo Russell, not only did they receive Kuzma, but they received a very talented big man in Brook Lopez. Lopez was a consistent beast for Brooklyn/New Jersey, averaging 19 points per game in 9 seasons there. Lopez recently added the 3 ball to his game, shooting it at nearly 35% last season.

Lopez's talent is valuable addition to the Lakers offense, and a major improvement over overpaid dud Timofey Mozgov.

Nevermind.

All jokes aside, Lopez is a talented player on an expiring contract, which opens up lots of cap space at the same time Paul George and LeBron are able to opt-out of their contracts. Magic & Rob Pelinka have lined things up for a splash next offseason.

The potential's there, but there's dead weight in the Lakers roster too. Luol Deng is a withering shell of the player he used to be. And I doubt the Lakers are okay with paying that crusty Sudanese bum $18 million a year for the next 3 seasons, so he's gotta go.

If everything goes how I expect the season to go for the Lakers, they will still be towards the bottom of the Pacific Division. The Warriors will beat their asses most times, except for the random game in LA that Golden State shits their pants in. But the other divisional teams have gotten somewhat weaker from last year, which bodes well for the Lakers.

My bold prediction is Lonzo Ball gets multiple triple-doubles as a rookie this season. I really don't know how bold that prediction really is, but if Lonzo were to accomplish it then I would be very impressed.

Grab a seat. The Lake Show is gonna get real interesting.