Last summer the Lakers had big plans to bring in new superstar talent to in turn help Kobe make one last championship run before walking away from the game that he grew up playing.
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Among those moves were bringing in All-Star point guard Steve Nash to give Kobe the point guard he never had, but the biggest move was acquiring superstar center Dwight Howard from the Orlando Magic in a three team trade between the Philadelphia 76ers, Orlando Magic and Denver Nuggets. In turn for Howard, the Lakers sent All-Star center Andrew Bynum to the 76ers.
Although the 2012-13 season was certainly a forgetful one for the Lakers and Laker fans, the Lakers did make the best move possible in acquiring Howard. Even with the uncertainty that Dwight might not return to the Lakers, if he does he will be the face of the organization, while in L.A. Bynum never really reach his full potential and when he did have his best season of his career, he was a problem off the court with his antics and his feud with head coach at the time Mike Brown and now has faced numerous injury problems with his knees during his stay in Philadelphia that forced him to miss the whole 2012-13 season.
76ers legend and Hall Of Famer Julius Erving claims that the 76ers were tricked into the deal that acquired Bynum via Jason Wolf of USA Today:
“When you talk to the Lakers, when you talk to the Celtics, when you talk to – well, those two in particular – the ossed,” Erving said. “So whatever he’s telling you, he’s not telling you the truth. He’s working a deal for him. And what happened to us last year with getting damaged goods hopefully will only happen once. And that’s the extent of that learning curve.”
After the 2012-13 season, Bynum was tagged as an up-and-coming star in the NBA after his best season of his career and was named to his first career All-Star Game and looked to have put his injury problems in his rear-view mirror seemingly made him a must have on any team.
Even though Bynum did not play a single game this past season, the 76ers knew what they were getting when they acquired him. An injury prone center with loads of talent and has been known to cause a few problems in the locker room from time to time. This was not something that the Lakers kept quite so any team that was willing to bring him in, knew what they were getting.
Even though Dr. J has a reason for being upset at the way the 76er’s season turned out, it does not mean that the Lakers tricked the 76ers into accepting the blockbuster deal. Sam Hinke, the 76ers General Manager, still pulled the trigger on the deal even after knowing the baggage that Bynum brought along with him, that cannot possibly be blamed on the Lakers.
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