I don't think that they are done though with the experiment, it's that after Gasol left or those part of their winner team, they haven't seen the perfect fit. There's so much expectation with Howard join, but we all know what happened, they break up. Until Kobe retires and they were able to just get so-so players. Lebron and AD comes, find the perfect pieces, win a ring. Then they let most of their support cast for reason, try to rebuild last year but it was a failure. Now they added new faces they years so let's see if this is a success or another failure.
They traded Kuzma and KCP to get Westbrook and went for a 3-superstar lineup without supporting roles and they got punished by that move. They even let go of Caruso who was phenomenal in their championship run. He was good in offense and defense but the lakers tried a cheap offer on him and he walked away. That were 3 good players the Lakers let go that could have meant another championship for them.
That's the trade that LeBron wanted to make, so they appeased him. He now wanted to dump Westbrook for Kyrie but it seemed like the Lakers organization wasn't willing to pay the tax/fees involved to make it happen. They said no to LeBron, which I think is probably the second time that's happened to him in his career. I wonder if that will be enough to send him searching for another team again... The irony is that the Lakers wanted to get DeRozan instead of Westbrook, but LeBron and AD wanted Russ. Then DeRozan goes on to have the best year of his career as an MVP candidate while Westbrook spends the end of games on the bench.