LeBron James has cycled through a whole lot of teammates during his time in Los Angeles. While Anthony Davis was a mainstay through much of his tenure with the Lakers, the pieces around them shifted constantly.
At the beginning and even before Anthony Davis, LeBron joined a Baby Lakers team that was still growing and figuring things out. Eventually, that team was broken up — most of it through the trade for AD, specifically — but nearly all those players flourished in the league later on in their careers.
On Thursday, LeBron got to match up with one of those former Baby Lakers in Brandon Ingram, who is now on the Raptors.
After the dramatic win in Toronto, LeBron spoke about Ingram as well as the other young Lakers who went on to have success elsewhere.
“BI is an unbelievable talent,” LeBron said. “I had him my first year in LA, obviously, and he was a young stud then. He’s a seasoned vet now, super mature now. His game has matured. He’s gotten better and better and I love to see him thrive.
“All the guys I play with, especially my first year [in Los Angeles], I love seeing him, [Alex] Caruso, [Lonzo Ball], Josh Hart, [Ivica] Zubac, just to name a few of them…it’s great to see them play the game the right way and balling.”
Prior to the game, Ingram also spoke about playing with LeBron and how that impacted him at such a young age.
It’s really amazing to look back at that team. LeBron mentioned the likes of Ingram, Lonzo, Hart, Caruso and Zubac. That team also had Kyle Kuzma, Svi Mykhailiuk and Mo Wagner, all as young players who are still in the NBA today.
That was the heyday of Lakers scouting, leading to them finding great young players up and down the draft and even outside of it. Because of how much talent came out of that team, it’s fun to play a game of “what if” to imagine how things would have played out if the Lakers simply kept that team together. While the Lakers clearly made the right decision to go after AD as it resulted in a title, imagining how things played out in a different scenario is fun.
At the end of the day though, like LeBron, Lakers fans are just happy to see the Baby Lakers have success all across the league.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
