According to RealGM, Leon Rose is now Zo's agent. Not Aaron Mintz. https://basketball.realgm.com/player/Lonzo-Ball/Summary/59501
This explains the reason why the specifics to his injury were so hush hush. It sure looks like Zo was heading out for AD, but his camp torpedoed it and any potential trade value he has. This also has to be the reason that he left his BBB camp and his agent for Rose/CAA. Wow.
Ja Morant is projected to be the 2nd overall pick. With Cleveland winning over the Suns, maybe James Jones is more willing to trade the 3rd overall pick to get their PG in Ball. All the coin flips today kinda broke in our favor.
Combine this news with the Jabari Parker news and it sure looked like we were working on a potential 3way deal with the Pels to get AD. Chicago currently has the 4th overall pick.
If the Pelicans weren't high on our young talent, makes sense that they'd rather get cap relief in the form of Parker's expiring and some draft picks.
Ball's camp was on path to have him out of the league by his 5th season. Luckily papa is out for now and he's changing his agency to hopefully get him on a better path. Terribly advise. Voiding his contract would have been a killer. Losing him I'm fine with, but without any return would have hurt.
picking him at no. 2 is our biggest f*** up lol, can't shoot and worse isn't available for long periods of time...I wish we traded the pick for an all star or traded down for multiple picks
I remember the summer when Paul George got traded from Indiana to OKC. Indiana was demanding either Brandon Ingram or the Lakers #2 pick, this was right after the lottery but before the actual draft... .... we totally should have just did the trade and give up #2 pick for PG lol. This changed the path of the Lakers forever. If we did that, we might have made Aaron Mintz and PG happy enough that they would have re-signed with the Lakers the following year... plus we could have also have been on better terms with Julius Randle so when he was a restricted free agent, negotiations would have been better. We still would have had cap space for LeBron too... which is the entire point on why we traded DLo+Mozgov (frees up one max spot) and then the Clarkson/Nance+DengStretch (frees up second max spot). That decision started a butterfly effect to where we are now. If we did the PG trade, our lineup would have been: - some mid level starting Point guard/Caruso - Ingram/Hart - Paul George - LeBron/Kuzma - Randle/McGee
To be fair, TO be fair, hold on hear me out. After spending a year around this org and front office, it’s likely Paul George would have bolted immediately. Hell, if LeBron did another 1+1 he’d probably have bolted too.
On court Lonzo - Love him Off the court Lonzo + Family + Drama - over it I’m glad he started (and needs to continue) cleaning up his off the court life/relationships because his off the court stuff is really starting to take a hit to his on the court benefits.
Here’s a legitment question. If you had the option to have a do-over, would you rather have D’Angelo Russell or Lonzo as your point guard? I’ve been thinking about this, and yes DLo was immature but I pretty much believe that equates to the bad advice Lonzo constantly takes from his dad, which will eventually ruin his career. Another thought is D’Angelo led his new Brooklyn Nets team back to the playoffs sooner than Magic could......
Sad thing is we didn’t have to choose, could have had both. Lonzo couldn’t be more of a pass-first PG, Russ would have feasted off of his passes.
