While I suppose this is true, they didn't need to sign any marquee free agents for nearly 20 years since they had a top 5 player in Kobe leading the team, during a time where 1 top 5 player was all you really needed to compete. I did say they either sign and/or trade for top players. Their last 5 championship teams were made possible through signings and trades; ie. Shaq signing and trading for Kobe in the draft. Trading for Pau and Odom. We also can discount their ability to retain top players which they've seemingly always been able to do.I'm not debating that they are successful. I'm just saying we tend to trade for players to keep us relevant. Free agents (especially marquee ones aside from LeBron) haven't exactly been lining up to sign here for quite some time.