Lakers May Soon Feel Regret That Blazers and Suns Once Felt With Former No. 1 Pick

The Los Angeles Lakers are getting the most efficient offense of Deandre Ayton's career during the 2025-26 season. Ayton is shooting at a 70% clip from the field, a likely byproduct of playing alongside Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves. His PER is approaching the heights of his days with the Phoenix Suns, when he was playing alongside a Chris Paul-Devin Booker backcourt.

Ayton looks much improved from his days with the Portland Trail Blazers, where he missed more games than usual and looked disengaged on a rebuilding team that might've had more nefarious reasons for being bad than we currently know under Chauncey Billups. Not to mention, the team drafted Donovan Clingan in 2024, signaling that Ayton wasn't the long-term plan.

He might be carving out a role in LA's long-term plans in the frontcourt. Jaxon Hayes is the only other true center on the roster, and Ayton is the one between the two who is on the books in 2026-27. Ayton is humming along, playing great basketball again.

Will it last, though? Rip City Project's Reese Kunz believes Ayton isn't the type of player you can go through thick and thin with. There's a potential LeBron James retirement that could rock the foundation of the Lakers franchise behind the scenes, forcing Ayton to prove Kunz's point right or wrong, one way or another.

"Franchises will inevitably go through rough stretches throughout the years, and Ayton is not the type of player who can remain a constant through thick and thin. His highs and lows as a player are overly dependent on team circumstances. And that's just not a sustainable formula. Phoenix and Portland already made this realization, and that's why the former No. 1 overall pick is now elsewhere," Kunz wrote.

Unfortunately, Kunz is right. The gall Ayton showed in Portland went far beyond what most glorified role players typically display during a career-worst season.

"The Portland Trail Blazers could live with Deandre Ayton missing shots or his man scoring on him. They could even live with him being limited by injuries to 55 and 40 games in his two seasons in Portland," The Athletic's Jason Quick prefaced before saying, "But in the end, they couldn’t live with his bad ways. The tardiness to team flights and practices, according to a team source. The skipping of rehabilitation appointments. Fans saw him slam chairs when he was taken out of games. And a team source said there were tantrums in the locker room when he was sidelined for poor effort."

Deandre Ayton's Elevated Play May be Contract Year Anomaly

Ayton has a level of security for the 2026-27 season with a player option, and by any stretch, he's in a good place with the Lakers. San Diego, roughly 120 miles south of LA, was Ayton's first home in the United States. Luka is his teammate, and the Lakers are one of the suitors in the hunt to land Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Is this just a contract year dog and pony show from the former No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NBA draft? Could LeBron's presence in the locker room be helping Ayton be more accountable? James may not be a Laker this time next year.

Ayton is easy to picture putting up big stats at the end of the regular season, but getting benched in the postseason against teams that run up-tempo offenses. If/when that happens, the Lakers will understand what the Suns and Blazers once felt.