Russell Westbrick Discussion: Clipper Gonna Clip

weezy already said it, but nobody doesn't put injuries at #1 that i've seen. the argument here is that this year's team was substantially worse than last year's. much worse. this is just sort of a quantitative and qualitative fact. it's really weird to argue the other side, and it's really frustrating to deal with someone so entrenched in a narrative that they can't admit this fact. last year's team was better built and more successful with similar or worse injury problems. period.

and westbrook has been bad this year. this is also a fact. he's had periods where his box scores looked better, but even then, he wasn't helping anyone win. you can't tell me that you think westbrook has been good or that the trade looks good in retrospect. i don't believe you believe that.

which other nba starting pg would you NOT trade westbrook for? serious question. how long is the list? what's their salary? would their team take westbrook in trade?

a lot of us said we'd prefer caruso to nunn at the time, pre-injury. caruso was simply a more valuable basketball player last year, and of course, this year.

 

This thread has turned into trash.

Much like this forum lately.

And me spamming I suck doesn't help.

I'm off this site for awhile.

See you guys in June.

 

Yikes.

 

It's more to basketball than shooting Cookie. You seem to equate a player's value with his ability to score points. I disagree. I don't have a problem with the man's contract either, more power to the players to get paid whatever they can get IMO. I hold Russ to task for the things I mentioned, they might not be as important to you. Likewise his defensive ability is more important to you than it is to me. Westbrook has been a 40's shooter for his entire career and he's a 1st ballot Hall of Famer.

 

yeah, that was a big part of it

but how about rondo and KCP shooting the lights out from 3? dwight's defense on jokic? how are you gonna ignore all the contributions made by guys that aren't lebron or AD. without those guys i mentioned, the lakers don't win it all

 

I think the injuries to Lebron and AD are actually more of an indictment about Westbrook and the trade ramifications.
Look Lebron and AD aren't stupid they remember they crushed Houston and the defense they played on him. What happened was though clearly IMO they got frustrated that the injuries the post bubble season caused them a shot at defending a title against a bunch of flawed teams. So they got a guy who thought could carry the Lakers thru the grind of the regular season and the Lakers wouldn't need to depend on either AD/Lebron if they have had any nagging injuries. It turns out that was a complete mistake and that they actually had to play thru nagging injuries even more, because Westbrook is no longer a good basketball player

 

right. as someone else said, the whole theory behind westbrook was that we'd be better able to weather injuries to lebron and AD. but we weren't at all. we were worse, actually.

 

I’m assuming they want to unload big contracts in Hayward/Rozier so that they can pay their younger better players

 

Latest from Stein

Come on MJ, help us out. The city of Charlotte needs Russ.

 

Probably a good approach for everyone.

And it’s nothing against this forum, I think we’re a microcosm of the fanbase/organization at large. Things are probably even more toxic on other boards.

Naturally everyone is upset/disappointed. There is going to be a lot of negativity and finger pointing all around, with varying degrees of validity.

Might as well just decompress and keep the Lakers out of our minds a bit until we get closer to the summer and there is actual news about how we’re going to reshape the team.

(I say this knowing full well I probably won’t be able to help myself from still checking this board and Lakers news every day )

 

Without the dominance of the big two, the role players wouldn't have been in a position to make an impact. The best players set the table for the other guys to be able to eat, when everyone plays their role, it's a beautiful thing. Role players come and go, but the stars deliver the hardware. Everyone on that team deserves credit for whatever role they played, they are Champions. I just point out that if the big two were less than at their best, the other guys weren't going to get us that ring.

 

Rozier was very good this year. take that trade in a heartbeat

I've always liked Hayward as well but damn that guy is even more injury prone then AD

 

Hayward is high usage when he plays though. I'll take his 30 minutes a night over what any of our newbies gave us in those additional 20-30 games this year.

If you can snag Covington or JaMychal Green for the tax payers mid, that'll cover wing D and give you a pretty strong base. You could construct something like...
AD/McGee/Gabriel
Bron/Thadd Young/Melo
Hayward/JMG/Stan
THT/Reaves/Rivers
Rozier/Nunn

 

I do that Charlotte deal.

 

Yea I would do the CHA deal in heartbeat. With Rozier on board, you don't have to re-sign Monk.

Also, the more I think about it, if we can't get a Westbrook trade, I'd rather just run it back with him and AD/Lebron. I don't want to stretch and waive him only for his contract to be dead cap on our books for an additional 3 years. And for what, so that we can offer Monk more money?

 

God I hope he's gone after this season. This is far and away the worst trade I've seen in my years of watching professional basketball and it was clear that Brick was at best a bad fit. he was awful before he got here. He played no defense before he got here. He was mentally weak before he got here. He couldn't shoot before he got here. His athleticism was declining before he got here. He was stat chasing before he got here. He played losing basketball before he got here. He had a low bball IQ before he got here.

The only surprise is that he turned out to be even more terrible than anyone could have possibly imagined, and I knew he'd be bad.

The collateral damage around the 40 million we paid him to give us negative production is that we had to fill in the roster with has beens that can't defend, putting more strain on our stars, causing them to be injured. All of our best defenders went with the trade, and we couldn't eat the tax hit to keep Caruso.

This has just been downright awful by all measures and could've and should've been prevented and foreseen. That's what makes this even worse.

 

rozier/hayward works for russ or even for russ+THT

almost too good to be true, though, imo. both rozier and hayward fill needs for us, and rozier (contrary to lebron's theories) is the kind of guard that has thrived next to lebron throughout his career. we'd be adding salary in the move unless THT goes the other way.

totally worth a discussion, imo. i prefer it to stretch-waiving russ or the wall deal. unless jokic doesn't sign an extension, the FA class isn't likely to be worth having a ton of space in 2023.

edit: this deal is pretty reminiscent of porzingis for dinwiddie/bertans, imo.

 

Another idea I had if we're unloading THT too, thinking that Nunn and Rozier eat up the Russ and THT roles/minutes, then loop in TOR (the one team who has targeted THT in consecutive years)...

Essentially we're adding a young high motor big from TOR, Charlotte gets a big from TOR, I'm also having TOR throw in a their 2nd rounder from Detroit this year and a future 2nd round pick or pick swap to sweeten it for Charlotte. We save some money in the deal, too.