Monroe and Vucevic are very different though. Neither is a great defensive player, but Monroe is a much better offensive player while Vucevic is more of a rebounder. I would max Monroe because it's incredibly rare to find legitimate back-to-the-basket post players these days, not to mention how rare it is to find a player of his caliber at his age as a UFA. If Vucevic was available this summer as a UFA, I might offer him the max too possibly. Also Payton looks alright to me, but I wouldn't say he's 2 years away from being one of the best guards in the NBA. I wouldn't say that at all. However, saying just for a minute that's true, why give up the chance to get a Payton type player in the draft? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Just because most teams strike out in the draft, doesn't mean we will. Our scouting department has done an excellent job with the picks they've had. Over the last few years we've picked NBA caliber players with almost all of our picks. Randle might end up being a Top 3 player out of this last draft and we got him at 7. Getting a cost controlled NBA player is an enormous part of this rebuilding process. That's simply an inefficient way to go about this off-season when we have so many pieces we need and there's so many available UFAs to go get. Unless we make all of our draft picks just right and thus don't need to use all of our available cash to upgrade the roster, I think it makes a lot more sense to spend the money on available pieces and worry about RFAs some other day. Not to mention, if we're going after RFAs we should go after RFAs that are more dynamic. We need pieces that can single-handedly win us games next year. Our draft pick(s) should add 5 wins. Our FAs shoud add another 5-10 wins which would put us near 40. Our hurt players (Kobe and Randle and Young) should win us 5-10 games etc. I like Middleton, but if we're going after RFAs I'm going after Kawhi Leonard first. He's the kind of guy I'll tie up money in waiting for. Then we can use left over cash to sign guys like Mo Williams.
^^ I would love to go after Leonard. That is, if we don't end up with our own younger version in Stanley Johnson.
Leonard is a lot like Jimmy Butler to me...untouchable. The Bulls and Spurs will match any offer thrown at them. As much as I love them both, it would be foolish to offer them anything because it would keep all our cap space wrapped up. Especially the Spurs. You know they'd wait until the last possible second to match it. It would be an exercise in futility.
My two targets now: Khris Middleton for 4 years @ 35 million and Mo Williams for 2 years @ 13 million. I think those numbers get it done for both players and it gives us a young, solid 2-way wing to pair with Clarkson, Randle and whoever we draft (granted we keep the pick). If we don't keep the pick, I throw the max at Monroe and hope we find a way to squeeze in Middleton. If we renounce Hill and Sacre, and keep Clarkson, with the Houston pick coming in at around 1 million, we'll have 37.2 million wrapped up in 6 players. Monroe's max starts at 16 million, so that puts us at a shade over 53 million with 7 dudes. cap holds for 4 players adds 2 million brining us up to 55 million with 11 guys. The cap is projected to be around 66 million so we should be able to sign Middleton if we want him. If he is going to be getting more than 11 million a season, I don't think we want him anyway.
The Bucks are already threatening to match all offers on Middleton as well. My point was not that I really wanted to wrap up all our cash in Kawhi, but that if we must go after RFAs, then I'd go after him. I'd rather just go after UFAs and not worry about it.
Yeah, true. I was not aware the Bucks were already threatening that. I doubt they match a max offer though (not that I'm advocating we do that).
The first thing that teams with valuable RFA's do is threaten to match any offer, hoping to prevent any offers from coming in at all. I'd rather the Lakers try going for an RFA that makes sense (Kawhi, Middleton, Tobias, etc) then spend money on a FA that doesn't (RONDO).
I have a really, really hard time of seeing Rondo on the Lakers. I like Khris Middleton or Tobias Harris plus Mo Williams or Jameer Nelson, assuming we don't draft Stanley Johnson.
We all know that Rondo upgrades his play when he is on a good team and happy. Defence is about effort and Rondo still has it. I believe that if he tries he can avarage 1.8 steals next year. There is the Kobe factor also. if Kobe wants him, he knows why. and I trust him. I know he waited for a MAX contract on the C Bags, but maybe the Dallas experience made him a little realistic. To call him garbage is stupid. just 3 months ago he contributed something like 13,13,7 with no effort. so, for alot of money? HELL NO. but on a chance to sign him around 10 M , you need to be crazy not to do it. The only thing that is scary is the FT%. he must work on that to be around 65%. you can't play in the 4th querter with bad FT shooting.
While Monroe definitely has a much more polished post game, I don't know how you can call him a much better offensive player. He puts up more PPG than Monroe while shooting a higher %. And it's not like he's putting up stats because no one else can, Oladipo and Harris can light it up, that team has lots of options. Monroe might have a prettier offensive game to watch, but I think I'd rather have the guy that gets it done by grabbing boards and not having plays ran for him. Neither guy is going to be our franchise player so we shouldn't be running the offense through them. As for RFA's, I definitely agree Leonard is worth chasing. I'm assuming we go after a max or near max FA and another 2nd or 3rd tier FA. If we manage to steal Leonard or Butler obviously that's a great plan, but if not, a 2nd tier FA like Middleton to go along with a major addition like Knight or Dragic would be our best case scenario.
You just wanted to throw Tobias Harris' name in there. Again, there are too many cons to going after a RFA. 1. Time - The time spent waiting for the player to sign the offer sheet, the time spent for the originating team to decide on matching the offer. Meanwhile, the UFA's can sign at any time and we lose out on those players. 2. Money - If you have an offer sheet tied up on a player, we can't just go throwing offer sheets around to anyone else or other UFAs.
DeAndre Jordan is putting up 20/20s every other game right now, but is he an offensive threat if there's no one giving him the ball? Not really. Vucevic is pretty similar. He's a good clean-up guy with a decent touch, but he's no offensive weapon. Greg Monroe is a player you can dump the ball to down low and he can carry your team if need be. NOW I'm alright with getting DeAndre Jordan if we have other options that are more able to create offense, but if we end up drafting Russell or Stanley Johnson, then I want Greg Monroe because he can actually create a shot for himself or others. Vucevic can't create for himself as much as Monroe can, they're very different players. I see the Lakers going after either Dragic or Monroe this summer depending on who we draft. I'm sure they'll put calls in to Marc Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge, but I'm not convinced they'll even waste their time on those guys. I'd be surprised if they didn't call Rondo to see if he'd be willing to take a discount. I would guess most RFAs won't be on their radar because we have too many needs to fill and we don't have time to wait 7 days while the other team mulls over whether or not to match.
This is completely false. If he can't bring himself to put in effort on a bad team,why would we want him? Besides, you think we're a good team? And the 13, 13, 7..I mean, is that one game? Dude averages 9, 8 and 6 on the season. That's not worth 10 million. He can't play defense anymore, so you're not paying money for that. Kobe wanted Bynum traded for a 35 yr old Kidd. Kobe loves Steve Blake and Derek Fisher. I don't want Rondo on this team for free. He is a locker room cancer.
Oooh that's a good "would you rather"...sign Lin or Rondo. Tough call, but assuming Rondo is more expensive then yeah I'd go Lin too.
1. YES. I think a healthy Kobe, Randle, Clarkson, Young, draft pick + signings is a good team. 2. Fisher and Blake are great bench PG. Kobe has a different look at players. for instance, for years now Kobe have said Westbrook is the closest to him in the explosion. I didn't see it that way until this season. so if he sees something in Rondo that can help him in his last years, I believe him. 3. It's not accurate, but in Boston he did play like 10 game in a row with stats like that. when he is healthy and happy he does amazing things. 4. He has a problematic character, but he also has a championship and years of experience in the top level. In Dallas he went into an already completed system, here he will be part of a new creation. I do have a feeling it will bring something different from him, especially with Kobe watching him. Dragic is not moving. Reggie Jackson is s***. what other PG can run youre starting five? Clarkson is not there yet. and i'm hoping we are drafting a big guy this summer. and again, for 10M.
Let's say, for the sake of argument Rondo is on his best behavior for Kobe. Kobe may very well be gone after next year where we'll have to deal with at least 3 more years of Rondo. I'd take Lin for half the amount you are saying we'd be crazy not to give to Rondo (10). I'd take Mo Williams for 6-7 million a season for two years. I'd even take Jameer Nelson for 4 million a year for a couple years over Rondo. Like I said earlier, I'm not sure people have watched Rondo recently. He is a shell of his former self. I looks like he's walking around in quick sand.
Kobe also wanted to trade Bynum just when he was coming into his own. Kobe's greatness as a player does not mean he is a great GM. Kobe also did not like it when we traded Fish for JHill, even though that was a great trade for us. I'm hoping Jim & Mitch are not drinking the same Rondo Kool-Aid that Cuban did.
“At some point we have to start a new run, and that’s definitely going to include Kobe next year,” Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said Friday. “To jeopardize the next five or seven years … [by bringing] in old veterans that make a lot of money, just to win one more year, because that’s Kobe’s last year or could be his last year, I’m not sure that fits into doing it the right way.” … “We’re going to look to do this the right way, which is to try to make prudent decisions about youth and veterans and making commitments to players under the existing rules. I’d love to be able to put together a young team that can win 55 games next year, but it’s not that easy. It’s just not that easy. It’s not off the table. It’s our goal, but we want to make sure we do it the right way.” http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports....t-because-it-may-be-kobe-bryants-last-season/ I'll tend to trust Mitch on this one...
