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

This is too good.

 

Johnson should and probably would pay it himself...just like the $500K. SMH...

 

We're going to finish the year 8-22? Because we're only 5 games back from where we had win totals all of last season. I've already proven we're a better team. Do I honestly have to do it again? Defensive rating up. Blowouts down. C'mon get real. This team is way better than last year's and you know it.

And yes, not paying Mozgov is a big plus.

So you're going to argue that Russell had nothing to do with us being bad? You don't think it would have been exponentially better if he was just great and we didn't worry about our picks because we would already have a star? Russell is blameless, we just sucked? How is Brooklyn doing with him?

No it was you. I remember because we are the only two still having this conversation months later.
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...gm-rob-pelinka-dispels-notion-rebuilding-year

But it was only about cap space... The Lakers have an enormous amount of cap space even if they bring Lopez back, so actually you can speak highly of a player and still treasure your cap space.

Well I'm not exactly combing the Brooklyn media looking, but I'd hope getting traded and then getting knee surgery basically immediately would add perspective. I'd love if he matured. I don't think that was going to happen here and honestly, who cares? He's gone. It's over. I wish him well over there, but he's not a Laker anymore so why bother worrying about it?

Well first of all I don't know what qualifies as moving the needle, but I believe strongly this group of young players could get the Lakers to the playoffs in a few years. That timeline isn't good enough for me, but they're that talented. Second of all, we got that talent in part because of this trade, so thank you for the validation. Thirdly, was D'Angelo moving the needle? Not at all and he certainly didn't have the focus, drive, or effort to push the team in the right direction so again... who cares if he's gone?

Agreed! I think it's possible that Lonzo, Kuzma, or Ingram develops into THE guy, but right now that's just not the reality.

Doesn't mean they aren't a real concern now. I honestly didn't bring them up, you did. I haven't bashed the kid for his knee injury because that sucks and I don't like doing that sort of thing, but if we're talking about injuries and severities and who should be more concerned, it's D'Angelo.

I mean the evidence is pretty clear all around.

There's 5 players averaging 10/7/7/1.5 this season: Draymond, LeBron, Westbrook, Simmons, and Ball.
Lonzo is in the Top 10 for Assists per game with a usage under 20% (only Rondo and Draymond have that sort of usage/assist ratio).
Lonzo has a better Defensive Rating than Russell ever had (Russell has never made it under 110).
When Lonzo is on the court the Opposing Offense is 6.6 points worse. D'Angelo has never had a season where the opposing Offense is worse when he's off the floor.
Lonzo nearly doubles Russell's Assists to Turnovers.
Russell has never averaged more than 4 rebounds per game, Lonzo averages over 7.

The only way in which Russell has an edge on Lonzo is as a scorer, but he takes 3 more shots per game to get 6 more points while averaging less assists and more turnovers. Hell Lonzo at 30.3% from outside is slightly edging out Russell this year at 28.9%.

Me too. We still have months to go before we see what that cap space provides.

We still won the trade with or without the cap space. I agree it was a risky move, but the FO made a move that improved the team. It might not have been one that I'd make and you're probably right it was born of overconfidence, but it worked.

We'll see. There's a lot of time left to go yet.

 

I hate Shumpert...

But that's not a terrible move.

 

I don't disagree, but you've even agreed that Russell wasn't likely to help us win games. We're doing fine now. I don't see the reason to be hung up on Russell. (not you, but that's what started my comment).

I mean you're picking which part to believe and which part to drop though. My argument has always been that the trade covered more than one end and you're just dismissing everything except the cap space entirely. I don't agree with that assessment. We're going to have to agree to disagree because I've provided evidence, but you're just not buying it. That's fine.

It's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing we won the trade AND we got cap space. Other fans however love D'Angelo so much that they'll bring him back up as a reason to crap on this FO when, in my opinion, we've won that trade without a FA. We got Kuzma, we got Hart, I personally like Lopez a lot and he's proving his value the last couple games. We got rid of one of the worst contracts out there. I still don't see the downside besides moving Russell. I liked the idea of putting Russell next to Lonzo, but I've moved on. I just don't see why many fans haven't.

Well I disagree with that. I think Ingram is very, very talented and brings a good gravity to the team. I believe he has the talent and work ethic to develop into a premier wing player.

Well there you go.

Lonzo is definitely better than Russell and that's not an insult on Russell, Lonzo is just a really, really good young player.

So what return are you getting for Russell besides that? According to reports around that time, there wasn't a great deal of interest or rather the interest was tepid like it is now with Randle/Clarkson. We might get a solid asset back, but only if we take money back. This trade got us a great expiring, the bird rights to a good Center, the 1st round pick that got us Kuzma, and it expelled a contract that was going to limit our versatility in the market. We are 100% more capable of going in 100% more directions now than we were before the trade.

If we'd kept Mozgov, we'd be sitting on zero cap space and zero flexibility. Russell maybe nets us a higher pick or something, but we don't have Lopez, we have probably only one of Kuzma or Hart, and we are stuck with starting Mozgov or Zubac... Yikes!

In the end, we're doing better than last season by a significant margin, we've got a ton of great young talent, and the flexibility to make moves this summer. What's the loss? The potential trade benefits of Russell alone? Keeping Russell? Would we better off with Russell/Mozgov and without Lopez/Kuzma or Hart/Bryant? I don't think so and I'm happy and comfortable with where we are now. It'll be great to be in the conversation for FAs this summer instead of wondering who we're going to fit around Mozgov/Deng.