Well, it all depends on what level of absurdly rich & famous you want to be. On one hand you can be a) absurdly rich & famous & have a chance to win with an organization with a more recently proven track record, while on the other you can be b) slightly more absurdly rich & famous & have a chance to win with an organization that used to have a proven track record but has seriously dropped the ball the last few years. Melo & Kobe are both seemingly accurate depictions of what kind of players are going to go for b... at least right now.
But let's not kid ourselves; the Lakers & the Knicks will, at some point, attract some actual quality free agents that will greatly improve their team. But while we're grounded in reality, let's remember that the last few years have been a disaster & the smaller market teams are consistently better & making consistently better steps to improve. The moment the Lakers hired D'antoni instead of PJx11, they set themselves up for years of failure & frustration. (I'm not saying they would have been better with Phil, but the impression of weakness in the front office by doing what they did has become a self-fulfilling prophecy)
Also, while we're not kidding ourselves, let's not act like Lou Williams is any good (in terms of NBA good). The guy is an extremely inefficient, shoot first type player that is exactly what the Lakers already have in Kobe, except this guy doesn't play defense in the same ball park nor is as good at getting others involved. Just because you got a good deal on a bag of **** doesn't change the fact that you spent money on a bag of ****. And again - what did I say about the types of players those organizations are going to attract?
I hope that I'm wrong & that you're right, all3, but you really seem to have the blinders on as much as we accuse Moranis of having them on. I'm not a Lakers-first fan, but I've always had a soft spot for them and WANT them to succeed. The league with a ****** Laker team just isn't the same to me.