The worst trading decision for the 30 NBA teams in 2020 has so far: Lakers

The biggest mistake: Losing 3 and D players from their championship team (2020 and 2021)

The Lakers won the 2020 championship with a simple formula: LeBron James and Anthony Davis plus 3D character players equals success. But they forgot the old adage of “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it” and traded 3D wings for the ball handler in their search for another win. Shortly after winning the championship, they traded Danny Green and a first-round draft pick (later known as Jaden McDaniels) for Dennis Schroeder. A year later, they bought Alex Caruso as a free agent, resulting in his signing with the Chicago Bulls. The coup was accompanied by a ill-fated heavy deal, with Kyle Kuzma and Kentavius Caldwell-Pop for Russell Westbrook in the post-golden era.

Each of these moves is worse than the last, especially Westbrook's failure to fit into the Lakers' James-centric ecosystem. They missed the playoffs in Westbrook’s first season with the team and traded him midway through the second season — and a future first-round pick. But the overall impact of the misleading approach change at management is obvious: The Lakers won four playoff series in 2020, but in the following five seasons, they won only two playoff series in total.