2019/20 Players' Transactions: Breaking News , Trades, Free Agents, And Rumors

But do we want to be paying 15 million to a backup pg? Yes, it's better than paying Deng 17 million to pursue his goal of being a backup offensive lineman for the Rams, but we had to give up a bunch of young assets to make that happen. I don't think we're making a trade this season unless Randle becomes really cranky or a crazy good option presents itself.

 

I'm not disagreeing, just providing a map forward.

I think if you get Bledsoe, you start him next to Ball which creates a secondary issue with KCP and everything gets complicated. Let's see what happens around December when we're able to trade KCP.

I would like Bledsoe next to Lonzo a lot, but I just don't really see a way to get there that makes sense.

 

I'm worried about his agent. Although Bledsoe is one of the King's men so maybe it doesn't matter?

 

Don't forget Phoenix hates us as much as anyone. I'm not sure they're going to want to send him to a division rival despite a good offer so we'd have to offer something we don't want to offer like Ingram.

 

I’m still unclear on why we’d want Bledsoe. If he doesn’t like his role on a crappy team in Phoenix, why would he like coming off the bench for a rookie on an almost equally crappy team. Also don’t see why we’d want him when that for sure ends the 2018 plan unless we have a Deng dump lined up, and he’s only played over 70 games like 3 times out of 7 seasons in his career, always hurt.

 

You would absolutely bench KCP instead of Bledsoe. Bledsoe is a better player. I also proved it wouldn't end our 2018 plan!

 

You didn’t actually, because in your scenario someone takes Deng from us, and no one can prove to me that someone will take Deng from us. I will only believe it when I see it happen with my own eyes. We also end up tossing in Ingram in order to dump Deng. Tossing Ingram this early for Eric Bledsoe? Yeah, no thanks. If we were gonna trade Ingram I’m pretty sure it would have been for George.

 

No, tossing in Ingram to get Bledsoe, George, and LeBron.

Well that may have been a mistake from the Lakers, we'll have to see. All I'm saying is I provided a way to make it work, which I did. I didn't say that way was the right way, a good way, or even something the Lakers would consider.

I do think to get rid of Deng it'll likely cost Ingram right now. The truth is we're probably going to have to stretch him.

 

I get you, and I don’t think we even necessarily disagree. What I was asking was why do we want Bledsoe? I thought our goal was to develop our core to add LeBron and PG or some other star too, not to dump 3/5 (Ball and Kuzma being the 2/5 kept) of it for Bledsoe and to then retain the 2 max slots. I realize Randle is probably gone, and that JC probably has to go for the cap space plan, but I’m not ready to give up on Ingram yet. He’s getting tapped on a lot of his shots and he’s missing gimmes. If those start to go in at just a little better clip he looks so much better. There ARE players I do trade Randle and Clarkson away for, and Ingram as well, but a Bledsoe that can’t play consecutive seasons without being injured isn’t one of them.

 

Lonzo is always going to be effective with basically any lineup, but if you had just Paul George in there where Pope is playing, I think this team is fighting for an 8th seed within a year or two. If you add two max stars, we're in the thick of things in the playoffs with 3-4 young guys who could develop into NBA starters or at least rotation players. Games like last night are the ones we desperately need to convince stars that we're somewhere worth looking into. Right now Lonzo looks like the absolute real thing and, in my opinion, the undoubted best player in the draft. Philadelphia f***ed up big time. Boston didn't win the big prize, but Tatum is no slouch.

 

Unless I'm reading something different from you guys, Tito Ortiz asked the question to Magic, no? Why would that make Magic a moron and a dimwit?