Brandon Ingram Discussion: He Is Who We Thought He Could Be

all assets are available for a star in his prime, imo. that includes ingram (whom i like VERY much). i'd rather try to find a way to get an impact player without losing russell or ingram, obviously. but beggars can't be choosers. i will say that if you make a move like that, there better be another move or two (big FA signing, trade of other assets for another star).

but let's just say the cupboard is wiped bare of young talent, but you walk into next year with paul george, blake griffin, and another equal-value star...you're sort of back, right?

 

Yes, you're back in a big way.

 

couple things: if it's championship or bust, then we should go full philly. trade all of our current young guys for future draft picks, because none of them is a lebron or tim duncan or kobe, which is what it takes to be a guaranteed contender year in and year out. as it stands, we'd have a few years to wait for rusell and ingram to be probably not as good as griffin and george, and they'd be the ripe old age of 25 by then, too.

and there will be other lebrons, kawhis, etc. that will rise while we're developing our guys, too.

5 years is an eternity in the nba. you can win a title, fall out of the playoffs, reload, and win another title in a 8 year frame, as we've seen. and growing a young core is fraught with peril (see okc thunder, current orlando magic, philly).

imo, the lakers brand is incredibly damaged, and more of what we've been doing can make that even worse. it was the primary advantage historically--all things equal, players wanted to be here. that's not true now. getting back to respectability can fix that. i'm all for shorter routes. championships can't be guaranteed, and we certainly are not on that path with the current roster. let's stop being a laughing stock and then talk about titles again. the youth movement is fine...as plan B.

 

I completely disagree. Developing our young core should be Plan A. We can always trade or sign a star (ie Wilt, Kareem, Shaq, Pau) after the foundation is built.

 

the other ticking clock is these guys' rookie contracts. you can't sign a superstar when russell, randle, and ingram are making 20 million each.

gs had cash because a) curry's slow development kept his first contract down and b) thompson's extension occurred prior to the cap explosion. otherwise, they'd have had no shot at durant. i think of the durant situation as similar to the shaq situation here: it will happen once every 15 years or so--a crazy confluence of events.

i'd be all for building around youth if we clearly had a superstar in the fold, but it really doesn't seem that way.

 

I'm quite sure Russell, Ingram, Zu and Randle's value will rise in 2-3 years. Trading any of them now would be selling them low. And even if we manage to trade for George and somehow acquire Griffin + Westbrook, the Cavs/Warriors are still better. So it makes no sense to strike now, both for internal and external reasons.

I don't think we have much of a choice but to wait anyway, considering we have $34 million of our cap tied up to Mozgov and Deng. We're handicapped for 3 more years, and it's unwise to start shuffling valuable assets with such heavy baggage. So I'm all in on the 2020 plan.

 

I understand your argument up until the end. When has the "insert year here" plan ever worked out? You are banking on everything working out in one year and if it doesn't, as we've seen here first hand, it turns into the 2015, 2016, 2017, etc plan. Never put all your chips into a year plan.

 

Well in the summer of 2020, Ingram will be 22, Zubac 23, Russell 24, and Randle 25. We'd still have a huge window ahead of us, unlike the other 20xx plans.

But just to make you happy I'll rename it the 2020- plan.

 

I agree. Trading the kids right now would be a huge mistake. Ingram looks like a superstar in the making. Russell/Zubac have at the very least flashed All Star potential. Randle, Clarkson, and Nance Jr. have all shown the ability to be contributors. What exactly are we gonna be blowing up the young core for? No matter who we get the odds of competing and beating Golden State are slim to none. They need the youth to continue to grow and develop and one or two become stars and then add another one in free agency without having to gut the roster for one.

 

there will always be a golden state (who lost last year, btw). you simply can't operate worried about the quality of other teams. you also can't plan more than 3 years into the future in the nba. injuries, changing cbas, too many variables out of your control.

 

Well if you're including injuries then what's our insurance policy when Paul George snaps his leg again, with Julius, JC and the Top 3 pick gone? We'd have $60 million on the sidelines, including Moz and Deng.

 

Exactly.

Let's go star hunting this summer.

 

No one has made a convincing argument of why we should trade for PG13 this summer, other than "we've got to start somewhere."

To that I must ask.... "and end where?"

 

1. leg breaks like that are not likely to recur; you should probably be more worried about julius's foot, and ingram and russell's knees, tbh. george has proven he can stay healthy for long periods of time.

2. as i said before, in a couple years, we'll have 20 million invested in those guys, too. if we don't, it means a) they busted and we wasted time developing them or b) they walked for nothing. why not just speed the process up by two years?

the larger point is that you're resorting to forecasting injuries to support your argument. you can't forecast injuries unless you're dealing with an injury that has proven to chronically recur (like those degenerating cartilage cases (cp) or jones fractures in the foot (embiid)).

 

in the playoffs?

 

Agree. He really turned it up in the last month of the season.