Remember how the Lakers won the 2025 offseason by signing Deandre Ayton to a two-year deal, shortly after he and the Portland Trail Blazers parted ways? Well, about that.. It's mid-March, and LA realized months ago that the center probably wouldn't have a career resurrection. Fans are still wondering whether he'll buy into his role. Again, the regular season is almost over.
A couple of weeks ago, Dave McMenamin of ESPN published a detailed piece about Ayton, where the center said the Lakers were "trying" to make him Clint Capela, loudly declaring, "I'm not no Clint Capela!"
The Lakers do, ironically, need him to be Clint Capela — a lob threat who defends and is active on the glass. If he shows he can play that kind of role consistently, Los Angeles, which is No. 4 in the West, will have a greater chance of making some real noise in the playoffs. The problem with that (for LA), of course, is that it probably won't happen.
Trail Blazers keep being proven right about Deandre Ayton
As Jason Quick of The Athletic detailed in a piece after Portland waived Ayton, the big man's tantrums, tardiness, and poor effort were a few of the main reasons why the Trail Blazers felt it was time to move on (subscription required).
We don't have the full picture of what's happening behind the scenes in LA, but we do know that his lack of effort and self-awareness are still very much a thing. You can watch games for enough proof, but there's more to it than that. McMenamin wrote that the Lakers have tried to cater to Ayton's ego by depicting the center as a lion on a t-shirt and labeling his water bottle as "DA's Crunk Juice."
Los Angeles is pulling out all of the stops, and so far, it's been to no avail. An offseason signing that was supposed to be a low-risk, high-reward move for the Lakers has turned into Jaxson Hayes still being the more reliable option at center, and that's saying something.
They're still stuck wondering who their center of the future will be, while the Trail Blazers have theirs in Donovan Clingan, the kind of big man the Lakers have been looking for.
LA might've thought it was getting lucky when Ayton seemingly fell in its lap during free agency, but all it needed to do was pay a little closer attention to how his time in Portland and Phoenix ended.