said on The Woj Pod<\/a>, hours after signing with the Lakers for the minimum. \u201cAnd the reason why I say that is because you arguably have three of the top five best players.\u201d<\/p>\nDudley opined that when James was in Miami, he and Dwyane Wade were considered in the top five, but not Chris Bosh. After Leonard put together one of the best postseasons in history, the third member of a potential Lakers big three is easily in that echelon.<\/p>\n
\u201cAD, a year ago you could\u2019ve argued him as being a top two or three player in the league,\u201d Dudley said. \u201cKawhi Leonard this year, taking his team to winning a championship. LeBron, his accolades speak for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, the qualifier there remains that Leonard has not signed with the Lakers. Though reports peg it as likely \u2014 as do Dudley\u2019s quotes \u2014 Leonard has proven himself hard to predict, and he could just as easily stay in Toronto, or decide to prove himself further with the Clippers.<\/p>\n
Should he make the expected move and go to the Lakers, it would instantly install the team as title favorites after an offseason that has seen the league gain more parity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the Lakers get Kawhi, then yes, you\u2019re right there, you have all the talent,\u201d Dudley said. \u201cBut it\u2019s different because I\u2019m signed for the minimum. You\u2019re going to have minimum guys, you\u2019re going to have to have key veterans step up in big moments and it\u2019s not just gonna be easy if you get someone like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
After signing Kevin Durant, the Warriors managed to add depth because players wanted to win a championship \u2014 and took less money to do so, namely David West.<\/p>\n
Whether players would do that for the Lakers, should Leonard sign, remains to be seen. But even so, making the right signings is vital, as the Lakers would need to build almost an entire roster.<\/p>\n
As far as priorities go, though, until Leonard announces, it\u2019s hard to map any of this out.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[ad_1] You already know the Lakers would be one of the most talented teams ever should they add Kawhi Leonard to a roster already featuring Anthony Davis and LeBron James. So do the rest of the NBA\u2019s free agents. \u201cIt compares to the Heat, but a little bit more on steroids,\u201d Jared Dudley said on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":139036,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21784,102242,102243,92853,100481],"class_list":["post-139035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tie-world","tag-basketball","tag-jared-dudley","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba-free-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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