The Los Angeles Lakers had enough cap space to add two marquee free agents this summer. But after singing LeBron James, the Lakers have only added complimentary players and didn't pursue another big name free agent like DeMarcus Cousins, who eventually signed a one-year deal with the Golden State Warriors.

According to former Cleveland Cavaliers general manager David Griffin, not signing Cousins was a mistake by the Lakers. Griffin believes that Cousins would've given the Lakers a reasonable shot at beating the Warriors in a potential playoff matchup/

"I don't really understand exactly where they're going from the standpoint of playoff basketball," Griffin said Wednesday on KNBR 680, via NBC Sports Bay Area. "I get it -- if you want to put multiple playmakers out there and make the game a little easier for LeBron to play, I totally understand. I don't think LeBron thrives with playing with non-floor spacing ball-dominant guys, especially in the playoffs.

"You're talking about taking the ball out of the hands of the most efficient and best decision-maker in the NBA. And when you space the court around him, your points per possession is going to be infinitely higher with him on the handle than it is with anybody else.

"When the playoffs happen -- if Brandon Ingram hasn't come a really long in his ability to consistently make open 3s, I don't know who you're counting on to be a big shot maker.

"I think the way you can beat them (the Warriors) potentially -- and again, this requires all of the stars to align -- Boogie Cousins is the guy the Lakers if you would have had him, they would have been able to throw him the ball and force the Warriors to keep a center on the court, and that was a weak link once. Now, you don't have anybody to throw the ball to and force them to keep their ninth- or 10th-best player on the court. ... What do you do?

"I don't know how they're going to be able to put them in any jeopardy -- certainly this year. The group they have right now isn't scaring Golden State."

Griffin makes some good points and he may be right. The Lakers however, are taking a different path to challenging the Warriors as Magic Johnson said during ESPN's broadcast of the Las Vegas Summer League championship game on Tuesday.

“[We already know] what the bar is, and that’s Golden State,” Johnson said. “For us. We’re just trying to have a great season, get into the playoffs, and then we’ll see what happens. You’re not gonna out-Golden State Golden State. Everybody’s talking about the Lakers don’t have shooting. Oh, we have shooting. But we saw all the teams in the playoffs that had shooting; they got beat. Let’s break it down: Philly had two great shooters, but Boston took the shooters out. And who ended up winning? Boston. And they had a lot of guys that can break defenses down, and shoot. And they were committed to the defensive end. That’s why Boston advanced all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals, and they did that with two of their best players out.

“I watched every series, so I built this team based on what happened in the playoffs. You don’t build a team just for the regular season. You gotta build it for the playoffs, as well. And then we saw what Houston did. Houston didn’t have a bunch of great shooters. They had some shooters, but they had a lot of guys who can handle the basketball, and break the defenses down, and create their own shot. And so they go all the way, take Golden State to 7 games. And then, Houston had tough guys. Boston had tough guys. So what did I bring in? Tough guys. So that’s how I’m building it. I took a lot from watching Boston play, watching Houston play, then advancing, and they beat all the teams that had all the great shooters.”