A rival role player turned Laker is a tale as old as time. Whether it was Metta World Peace, Matt Barnes or Rajon Rondo, Lakers fans have had to clench their teeth and bear it with new signings throughout the years.
A particularly bitter recent pill would have seen Bruce Brown join the Lakers immediately after winning an NBA title. Their run to the Larry O’Brien trophy included sweeping LA in the Western Conference Finals in a deceptively close series.
Brown’s post-Denver run was a fairly unimpactful one. He spent half a season with the Pacers and Tyrese Haliburton before being traded for Pascal Siakam. He was then traded to the Pelicans the next season in the Brandon Ingram trade before eventually returning to Denver last offseason.
Through it all, the Lakers remained interested in him, but that huge offer he signed with the Pacers made it pretty difficult to match salaries and make a sensible trade. As a result, he never got particularly close to donning the purple and gold and certainly not as close as it appears to have been during the summer of 2023.
The most memorable Lakers-related moment for him after that summer was when D’Angelo Russell got his get back against him in the In-Season Tournament championship game, which LA eventually won. It certainly would have been a fun and interesting dynamic to see those two play together after their playoff battle.
Brown’s fit with LeBron James and Anthony Davis would have been a pleasure to watch, too. What he lacked in his ability to space the floor as a shooter he’s made up for in his career with his IQ and defense. Having him as a starting point guard alongside Austin Reaves would have created an interesting dynamic as well and could have accelerated Reaves’ progression as a ballhandler, which instead came under Redick.
All of that, though, is playing a game of what if. Instead of having to swallow that bitter pill and sign Brown, the Lakers missed out, but the timeline they’re in led to them trading for Luka Dončić, so I guess that’s a decent consolation prize.