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

Of course it’s LeGM, expect the expected suck at this point

 

Welp...we added another "shooter" I guess. Congrats to Beverly...he went on First Take and begged his way onto the Lakers. He had a plan...mission accomplished. He's another guy from Chicago...so I guess AD is cool with it.

 

This was a trade that for whatever reason was plan B if the Irving deal wasn't materializing (if KD was coming back to Brooklyn).

Unfortunately, THT does not have the trade value he once had because we didn't have him running the offense when LBJ wasn't on the floor- instead we had some guy named Russell. We hurt THT's trade value all last season because of this. And like RW, he became the square peg in a round hole for this team- with the ball needing to be in his hands and with no shot to speak of...So we end up trading him for someone who was forcing his way out of Utah AND we had to add someone just to make the deal work....

Lakers are in fact better than they were yesterday because, although nowhere close to resembling a volume shooter; Beverly is the best 3pt shooter on our team now and he does present a HUGE upgrade over RW when it comes to defense.

This trade alone however doesn't move the needle much. Lakers still have to move Westbrook and try and get more pieces to this rotation. Losing Johnson stings as well because we were already light with size and on the wings. The next move will tell a bigger story of where we are for this season.

The other plus for this deal is the now 34 million in cap space we will have for 2023; but I doubt we can make an RW trade and keep the books that clear for next season; especially if the pivot is now for Buddy Hield and Myles Turner; with the former still owed 19 million next season.

 

Not to throw gasoline on the fire … but yeah.

While Pat Bev was in Cancun:



Then about a week later:



The seeds for this trade may have been planted over some tequila in Cancun… I’m mostly on board with this trade by now, but still … never drink and LeGM!

 

He's in his free fall now. He's coming off the worst 3 point percentage of his career. Can't wait to see him continue to get worse while being the most embarrassing clown in the league.

 

clippers have the better team and org. I doubt we’re beating them in either category for a while.

 

Turner and Hield still don't match Westbrook's salary...they are 8 million dollars short. They would have to add TJ McConnell I suppose, ironically he shoots about as poorly from 3 as Westbrook.

 

The Clippers have been a juggernaut on paper for 3 seasons in a row now...they'll find another way to fail this season too.

 

his advanced stats were maybe his career best last year, so i dispute the "already in free fall" point. but at 34 as a small guard, that cliff is always just one small step away.

to be clear, i was talking about winning a meaningless regular season contest. because every time we lose one of those to the clippers, this place melts down for a week.

they don't need to match. westbrook is so grossly overpaid that the 125% rule covers a HUGE discrepancy. this might be another reason they're asking for two picks--they're taking on payroll.

 

We may regret trading THT the same way we regret trading Zubac…

Which is to say, it’s something fans will harp on out of frustration but ignoring the fact that it was never in the cards for us to keep that player anyways due to contract situation, conflicting timelines, etc.

Zubac was traded prior to a summer where he was going to be a free agent, while we were chasing AD and big game hunting in free agency. We were always going to rescind his qualifying offer to maximize cap room that summer (a strategy which led to a championship I’ll remind you).

THT may have “potential”, but he had NO fit on this current roster. He wasn’t going to develop any further on this team. He’s just not productive at this juncture and was speculated to be on the outside of the rotation.

Say what you will about going “all in” for the Lebron window, but that’s the reality of our situation now and THT doesn’t fit into those plans. Doesn’t help us win this season. Next summer, regardless of whether we could open up a max slot or not, we would get better value of an extra $10 million in cap than THT currently brings. We were always going to dump him if he opted in (and given that he wouldn’t have a spot in our current rotation, no I don’t think his value would have gotten much better if we waited until next summer to dump him).

THT may very well play much better in Utah. Still won’t make me “regret” trading him. He was never going to blossom on this current team due to our roster construction and timeline.

Holding onto THT instead of converting him into an expiring contract that fits better and is simply more productive on the court right now, solely over this idea of “he’s young, he still has potential, we shouldn’t sell low after not trading him for Lowry and then picking him over Caruso”, would have been sunk cost fallacy

 

zubac had a vet min cap hold. if we wanted to keep him, we could have. that was a huge fail.

and THT's potential value is post-lebron, which is approaching sooner than people think. terrible asset management start to finish, and it's not a sunk cost situation if you're not doing anything in addition that makes it worse. we could have just held onto him in case he fulfilled the promise we obviously saw.

and again, depending on what happens with russ, getting off his salary may do absolutely nothing for us.

 

This is my problem as well. Bad asset management and Caruso at 8m is a torturous reminder of our bad decision making.

 

Laker off-season breakdown for much of the post Dr Buss era.

1. Lakers rumored to get star.
2. Fans / media realize there’s no real path to star.
3. Rumors persist.
4. Everyone slowly starts thinking we might actually get star.
5. Lakers don’t get star.
6. Lakers pivot by giving up on a young player and overpaying for lesser talent than rumored star (*we are here)
7. Fans rightfully criticize move
8. Some Fans put on purple and gold goggles and convince themselves that lesser talent will somehow work
9. Young player we traded blossoms outside of our team.
10. Outside of the bubble season, slapped together Laker team fails for one reason or another.

Hopefully we break the pattern but yeah. Things seem to be playing out as I feared.

 

We were on the razor’s edge of being able to open up the second max slot for Kawhi that summer. Zubac’s vet minimum QO could have prevented that. And no, I don’t think we’re the type of organization that would have kept that QO up until Kawhi made his decision just in case things didn’t pan out. We weren’t going to string along Zubac and screw him over while Kawhi dragged on. And no matter what ended up happening, opening the max slot for a real chance at Kawhi was still the gamble you HAD to make.

Lebron signed an extension. Post-Lebron era will be after THT’s current contract, at the earliest. So you’re proposing we should have held onto THT and his $10 million salary for the next TWO years, knowing he wouldn’t fit into the rotation, in the hopes that we could then sign him to a new contract after that and THEN finally be in position to see if he lives up to his potential?

The opportunity cost of not trading THT for a more productive/better fitting player, and instead holding onto him in hopes that his potential pans out when you know your roster situation makes that virtually impossible for the duration of THT’s current contract, and doing so in large part because of previous trades/free agent decisions … is still a sunk cost fallacy.

Or maybe not, I don’t know, I’m not trying to argue semantics over terms that are mostly used in economics. It would have been bad decision making at this juncture regardless of what you want to label it.

 

Beverley is still a plus player by the metrics and a good overall fit with Lebron/AD. The problem is his age, he can fall off at any point.

I’m not at all high on THT like most are. He is a slasher who can finish with only 1 hand, zero jumper, tunnel vision, and poor IQ. It was obvious he wasn’t long for this roster. It would be interesting to have him if we are rebuilding, but I doubt ownership ever looks to rebuild. Plus, his contract was gross.

it is disappointing to add in Stan though. He’s a wing who showed some defensive promise. Maybe we can clear some roster spots and add a Josh Jackson as another reclamation project.

 

I’m struggling to see what other year that pattern would have applied to.

And I don’t agree that pattern applies to this current off-season… yet. That would imply that THT for Pat Bev is THE pivot after the Kyrie situation fell through. That we don’t make any other moves and are supposed to hope that Pat Bev will single handedly cure our woes.

Of course if that’s what ends up happening, Rob deserves our full ire and it would be delusional to have high hopes for this season.

But if we end up turning Russ and THT into Hield, Turner, and Beverly, that’s a GREAT pivot IMO. I would disagree with the notion that this package would be significantly less talent than the Kyrie trade, or that including the THT piece somehow makes it an overpay.

What might make it an overpay would be if we had to give up both FRP’s to make that happen. But if hypothetically we can do it with just one FRP, I have to wonder how drastically different the optics would have been if it was announced as one multi-team trade instead. If a few days ago right after the KD news eventually killed the Kyrie sweepstakes you told me that we could trade Russ, THT, SJ, and one first round pick for Hield, Turner, and Pat Bev, I think most of us would have been pretty ecstatic and not really even think twice about THT’s departure.

 

Can you confidently say THT adds value to our current roster? He's not a good fit with LeBron, period. Whenever James is on the court, THT value decreases. Same happens with Russ. So even if we trade Russ, you're gambling in 15-18min of good THT. Is it worthy?
It also factures in that last year he didn't breakout. Again, our roster doesn't fit him, which would be the case for the next 2 years, so it's very hard to see a path where THT actually develops to a role player in a contender in the next 2 years based on our roster

The kid has potential for sure but while LeBron is here and after his extension, there's absolutely no use for him.

Of course it hurts we went for him and not Caruso but we need to move on from that. Rewriting history never solves anything, what's done is done and we need to do the best with what we have now.
I'm surely blaming the FO for that anytime we are analysing their delivery, but we have to accept that as of today, THT needs to be moved.

Regarding Beverley:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/ChrskBHguhh/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

How can you NOT want this guy in our team?


This trade cannot be analysed in isolation at this moment. We need to wait.
If we do the Turner/Hield, this is our closing unit:

Bev
Hield
LeBron
AD
Turner

That's 3 NBA all defensive members + LeBron and one of the best shooters. LeBron and AD with 3 good shooters.
Plus Reaves, Nunn, JTA and Jones/Bryant off the bench. And Lonnie or Troy as the last bench guy if they perform well. We may even open up to Swider who could fit with AD or Turner covering his defensive inability.
That team can definitely make noise in the playoffs if healthy. We're forgetting how monster AD can be paired with LeBron

 

My post was sarcastic. Don't put much thought into it.

I won't rehash it all out here, but as you can probably tell I have little faith in the front office or Rob.

I think when the dust settles we will end up using up our assets to bring in Beverly, Hield, and Turner. As others have laid out in much better form, I don't think that's a good return. I also agree with the thought that, outside of AD, we have gotten too little for our young guys going all the way back to Randle, DLo, etc. We passed on Lowery and Caruso based on our faith in THT and are a year later trading him for Beverly. That's not good asset management in my opinion.

I always hope things work out. Always and will credit the front office if they make things work.

I have my doubts though.

 

Let me be clear: I don't think LeBron/AD bring us another chip. Age and injuries seem to be too much to handle for a team with them to win it all against so many good teams

But we're riding with both at least 2 more years. There's no escape from that. So we have to think, how to assemble the best team for the next 2 years with both of them. Beverley is a great fit. You can't cry for Caruso and say he is a great fit with LeBron and then don't want Beverley, they have the exact same roles in a team with Pat being more vocal, which this team needs A LOT. He will be Ham's voice in the locker room for sure

So this move makes sense. As does Hield/Turner. For the next 2 years with LeBron/AD.

It's not my ideal roster but none is with LeBron and AD with max contracts. So this is one of the best rosters we can have under these circumstances