With the Los Angeles Lakers luckily keeping the second overall pick in the draft, their decision has been made much easier. In what has been widely regarded as a “two-player” draft, the Lakers will have their decision made for them when they draft whichever of the Ben Simmons-Brandon Ingram duo falls to them.
Despite what is effectively a lack of choice, LAL will still do its its due diligence, however. According to Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times, the team is planning to hold workouts for the second overall pick, possibly as early as next week.
Lakers not planning to work out players for second overall pick until middle of next week, at the earliest. #ingram #simmons
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) May 24, 2016
The Lakers have been fairly quiet on the workout front ever since the draft combine with no official list of players yet named. This may have to do with the status of new head coach Luke Walton who is still with the Golden State Warriors in the playoffs. If the Dubs are eliminated in the Western Conference Finals, workouts starting next week would theoretically include Walton. If not, the Lakers may push the workouts even further in order to have their coach present, although they could opt to go on with them without Luke and use recently hired Brian Shaw as the coach by proxy.
It seems certain that the Lakers will choose one of Simmons or Ingram with the second overall pick with some rumors pointing to the latter ultimately being the pick. That certainty makes the workouts somewhat unnecessary and more of a traditional action.
The draft will be held on June 23rd and it could not come soon enough.
