When many Lakers fans decried the team’s frugality in allowing Alex Caruso to sign a four-year, $37 million deal with the Chicago Bulls instead of green-lighting a match of their offer to keep him a Laker — something Caruso was reportedly open to, despite not being a restricted free agent — I was not among them.
Why? Well, I assumed that Caruso’s absence alone wouldn’t be enough to bridge the gap between champion and contender, or even contender and pretender. But in hindsight, I was wrong. In reality, the gulf between Alex Caruso and who the Lakers have deployed in his stead has been far wider than I could have possibly anticipated.