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Stephen A. Smith has entered the Lakers group chat — and, as usual, he did not come quietly.
After a busy offseason Luka Dončić, Austin Reaves and Walker Kessler are looking like the Lakers’ top core trio, Smith called out the obvious visual shift in typical Stephen A. fashion.
“I’m saying it,” Smith said. “Your three best players are white dudes. This ain’t golf. And we got a whole bunch of brothers on Team USA. This is basketball, what y’all think this is?”
Subtle? It was not.
Smith was not alone, either. Bomani Jones joked that the Lakers “ain’t been this white since they left Minneapolis,” referencing the franchise’s George Mikan days and continued with, “if lakers-celtics became a nationwide thing again, me and the homies wouldn’t know who to root for.”
Online, fans quickly joined in with nicknames like “Snowtime Lakers,” “Tres Leches” and “Snowtown.”
The Lakers’ new core is an outlier in today’s NBA. In a league where roughly 70% to 78% of players are Black and only about 17% to 19% are white, a Lakers trio built around Dončić, Reaves and Kessler naturally stands out.
To Smith’s “this ain’t golf” point, the PGA Tour remains overwhelmingly white, with estimates around 80% of professional players identifying as Caucasian.
For a franchise long defined by icons like Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and LeBron James, the Lakers’ new-look core is easy to notice.
But beneath the jokes is a real basketball question.
Former Laker Markieff Morris questioned not the race of the players but their toughness. While saying he liked the Lakers’ pickups, he warned that the team is “gonna be soft as hell” and said Dončić needs “a few dogs in that West.”
That may be the actual issue.
Dončić gives the Lakers an elite offensive engine. Reaves brings shot-making and secondary creation. Kessler adds size, rebounding and rim protection. Sandro Mamukelashvili, Quentin Grimes and Collin Sexton give Los Angeles more options.
There is talent.
The question is whether there is enough toughness, athletic defense and edge to survive a Western Conference filled with teams that can punish weak links.
In many ways, the Lakers do look very different.
Now they have to prove they are just lighter in color, not lighter in the fight.
English (US)