Most teams have a small Championship window, if you can get a talent like AD IMO you have to do it.
But the bar for the Lakers isn't "Championship." It's "Dynasty" and "Legendary." I mean, of course Lakers ownership and execs and fans will be ecstatic if an aging Lebron James and an in-his-prime Anthony Davis can bring the Larry O'Brien trophy back to Los Angeles, but once
something gives out in Lebron's admittedly cyborg-like body, it's game over, and then Davis is right back where he started in New Orleans: a lonely superstar, though this time in a market with
very bright lights and
very big expectations.
On the flip side of that coin, if I'm the Lakers, I'm looking at Ingram, Ball, and Kuzma and I'm saying, "They might someday develop into nice pieces, but these guys aren't going to win us a championship." So why not package them together and swing for the fences with Anthony Davis? The mistake wouldn't be in parleying young talent into a superstar, but in signing Lebron James in the first place. It sounds crazy to consider a world where signing Lebron James could
ever be thought of as a mistake, but in my opinion, the only way to maximize such a signing would be if all the other pieces of a championship contender were
already in place.
As is, if the Lakers trade for Anthony Davis before the deadline, they
cannot offer a max contract to another all-star in the summer, and it would take some
serious cap maneuvering in order to sign an all-star in the summer and then trade for Davis afterward. So it's Lebron and Davis and whatever misfits they could surround them with and a "championship or bust" mentality for a couple seasons until something goes "pop" in Lebron's marvel-of-science of a body... and then what? If they surrender future first-rounders in a deal for Davis, then it's back to where the Lakers have been for the last half-decade: struggling to attract the high-wattage talent they're used to courting in free agency.
I guess I just find the Magic-Pelinka "all-in" strategy to be deeply flawed in a Western Conference where the Warriors are still at the top of the food chain, and where the competition beneath them gets more fierce by the day. It was always too hard to imagine Magic Johnson being patient as president of basketball operations, but I'm not sure that a possible James/Davis pairing is as profoundly game-changing as many think it would be. They'd tear up the highlight reels for a year or two, but again, Lebron is 34 years old, and he's got a nearly-unprecedented number of miles on him. Father Time remains undefeated, after all.