2022-23 Team Developments: News / Trades / Free Agents / Rumors

In the playoffs

 

dwight's offense was overrated in his prime. he's never had good footwork and the most he averaged in that time was 23 PPG in 10-11 which was kind of an outlier because he never averaged more than 20.7 in any other season

but he was a monster defensively. best in the game in his prime

 

I wasn't cherry picking, just showing until when he managed to contribute effectively. I can't remember what happened the prior seasons. He did have a couple of bad seasons in Miami. I remember he started to get fat someway into his late career years, but I don't remember more

We definitely disagree, but I think you are pushing way off your agenda saying "probably zero titles". And you're counting that a semi-prime Shaq would not be enough to win it with prime Kobe who was the best player in the league for the next decade (after the trade). Just having Shaq in the court would benefit immensely Kobe, not to mention the impact on defense.

That's the beauty of ifs, it could go 1000 ways and we have no way to know it

Yes, I should have made the distinction. Completely agree with you. Well depending what you mean "best in the game", you mean best ever? I would disagree. But he sure was the best at his time

I always hated his offensive moves and I was glad he understood later in his career that he's not built to do it often, sad for him it took so long

 

not best ever, but certainly best in the game during those years

it wasn't until he got to the lakers in '12 that i realized how poor his footwork was. he put up 20+ per game on offense just by relying on his strength. even when the "back to the basket" C was still a thing during his first several seasons, he was never that kind of C

 

Weirdest injury too if I remember. Didn't even look like he could have hurt himself doing that.

 

counter to your comment, mgmt was willing to match Caruso didnt want to wait, but who knows and losing Caruso isnt the end of the world, he isnt some world beater like some are making him out to be, next season when Deng $ is off the books mgmt will still operate the same way

 

yes?

 

Legally maybe, but teams will find a way to compensate him one way or another

 

Oh s***. You dun broken the Cookie and got crumbs everywhere now.

 

Let's say he doesn't get hurt in the playoffs in 2009. Lakers 3-peat with Kobe and KG.

2011, Kobe didn't have cartilage in his knee and needed to go to Germany to fix it. Do they 4-peat? Do they beat the Thunder in 2012? So many what ifs.

 

Blockbuster moves tonight

 

That was mild of you Cookie. I was getting ready for something more in the neighborhood of . . .

 

yes, sorry--should have clarified that you could have been inadvertently cherry picking. point is: shaq wasn't shaq after we traded him (or really, even right before). this is why i'm not sold that we would have done anything big had he stayed. we had our 3-peat (rare and dominant), and it was over. we lost due to injuries to guys that we wouldn't be able to replace in FA (we weren't getting another malone on a vet min--dude was still going toe-to-toe with prime kg in the playoffs that year!), and due to the fact that the league de-facto legalized the zone a year before they officially legalized the zone--all in a direct attempt to stop shaq, imo.

i really think the league was done with shaq. he was too hard to officiate, and fans were tired of his brand of dominance (not sure i disagreed, tbh, even as a laker fan).

anyway, prime paul/near-prime kobe/barely post-prime howard in 2012 is scarier than dysfunctional prime kobe/declining shaq/luke walton.

 

yeah, that story doesn't check out to me. it was pretty clear from the reports that caruso's agent brought chicago's deal to the lakers. it's not on him to wait. he needs to cash in while he can. management should understand that. and they did. they had a price point and he exceeded it. why?

so then you're arguing (i think) that he's not worth (to us) the deal he signed (with them). i disagree. for all the excitement about our new wings, i think he's more valuable than all of them, including THT (for now). the market clearly bore that out, beyond my own eyes/estimation.

i think all those vet mins we knew we had to sign anyway, so AC's money was always going to be on top of the total. so we ended up with nunn at 5 per instead of AC at 9 per.

deng's on the books for 5.

 

they got a better player at a lower cost in Nunn imo

 

hope so, but doubt it. i think people thought schroder was better than caruso, too, for similar reasons. but he wasn't.

anyway, the point is that deng's continuing albatross probably played a role in us cutting loose a key contributor and taking a chance on a smorgasbord of cast-off alternatives.

 

nunn was no cast off, he couldve easily gotten same deal as Caruso