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

You can definitely call him whatever you want, it doesn't stop you of being wrong though.

What underlying stats did Stan have?

I said here already that he looks an odd fit (better now without THT) and didn't agree with the signing. To call him a scrub before training camp starts is wrong

 

blah blah blah so it got your panties in a twist, l could care less, you say yourself he looked like an odd fit so stfu.

Also I didn't call him a scrub I said I liked all the scrubs signed better than him. Pay attention. And I don't give a damn if you think it's wrong anyway what are you, his brother, JJ Walker?

 

Dyn-o-mite take!

 

i'm surprised at how mad basically everyone is about the lonnie walker signing. we truly had few options (maybe none, tbh), so a one-year deal to a young player with upside isn't the apocalypse. were better players signed for similar money? probably. did we reach out to them before settling for lonnie? almost certainly.

my only gripe with it is we should have pushed for a team option on year 2 just in case he played well. i get why we couldn't do that with monk last year (he was playing for below market value), but this time feels like a favor to klutch (again).

anyway, it's a weird thing to obsess about when we have a 50 million dollar anchor at the center of our problems. whatever happened with the MLE was never going to make a dent in that.

 

I think there were several issues at the time and we've at least cleared one up (THT):
- every mid level signing we've had has been for Klutch and they have always got the preferred terms of the deal. When is that partnership going to give us a friendly deal because in turn we're rostering 80% of his clients? As you mentioned, we should have gotten the TO in year two so we have a cost controlled asset which is at least a trade piece if he does well.
- redundant skill set. With THT and Russ on the roster at the time of the signing, it was a risky gamble that you'd be able to unload one or both.
-overpaying. I don't think he's worth the full tax payers MLE and the fact that a rebuilding SA was fine letting him walk is concerning.
- roster needs. He didn't address any issues and there were free agents who did. Sure we can guess that we talked to them and they turned us down. BUT this is the LA Lakers. A one year prove it deal should have been extremely appealing to several vets, especially after the Monk proof of concept. Failing to sell that to agents and players is a massive fail for Rob...a
former f***ing agent. If you can't get through to them, then why are you here?!

Not addressing getting a real wing, shooting, or defense REALLY put us in a bad spot when it comes to trade packages we need in a Russ deal. The roster is incomplete and Rob didn't do us any favors with the Walker signing.

 

Scotto and Buha talk Lakers
https://hoopshype.com/lists/lakers-...trick-beverley-carmelo-anthony-austin-reaves/

Here's the most interesting parts...

Indy wanted THT and for us to take on Theis, Russ to Utah is more likely than Indy, and trade talks will ramp up before camp

On Turner money

If the medical checks out, I don't think we trade for him if it doesn't, I get him extended to that before his first game. That's a very friendly deal (something we rarely get) on a big of that caliber.

 

It’s not a weird thing to obsess over because it was one of the levers we had to pull that could make considerable improvements to our team. Every year there is a mMLE that performs greatly above their contract value. Last year we signed Nunn that hypothetically when healthy outperforms that contract, we also signed Monk who was the same.

This year similar high value players went for the mMLE or above. We can’t say whether we reached out to them or what they said back to us. The only thing we can say is we signed Walker who isn’t a good fit, so far hasn’t managed to be a positive player (whilst under Pop) and is a Klutch client.

So it stands to reason that people are upset. It looks and feels like nepotism. Trying to say - it’s all good, it’s just a mMLE and we probably tried elsewhere - is just rationalising a cop out.

 

So, I'm guessing this is likely our roster going into training camp and to start the season?

I don't see WB being moved after recent reports, and who else can we trade? Maybe there's a smaller move?

I'll just accept it for what it is and see how it turns out.

 

I don't understand why we didn't pull the trigger on that Indy deal...

Theis has the same amount of years on his contract as Hield and THT...that last year is a team option so he can be cut.

I would have done that deal yesterday and called it a f***ing day....

Luckily, we can still do that deal...Russ/Wenyen/2 FRP's for Hield/Turner/Theis. Especially since we did get rid of THT for a bag of chips.

Worst comes to worst...if Kyrie is available next summer and he wants us, and Nets don't want to lose him for nothing...you can do Hield/Theis which is about $30M in expiring contracts for Kyrie in a sign and trade. Could also throw in a young player like Max Christie too.

 

yeah, you guys are sort of making my point for me. we've been over the list of players who signed at this money, and it's not impressive. it's equally "rationalizing" (in this case, rationalizing irrational fury) to suggest that we didn't look into these other options as well. we're simply not an attractive destination right now (almost everyone we signed last year is out of the league, partly in thanks to our terrible season). otto porter's wife is from toronto. we can't get everyone.

i never viewed the mini mle as a significant "lever" because i knew what the market looked like ahead of time. a one-year deal to a young guy with upside is a fine fallback. unless you can prove they didn't pursue anyone else, i don't see the fuss.


what's weirder is that svtzr suggested my takes on westbrook were extreme. one of these things is SIGNIFICANTLY negatively impacting the team. the other isn't and won't. i'll place my anger where it makes the most sense.

 

I wish we still have Kuz Caruso and KCP. I can’t believe how much I miss them even after being critical of two of the 3 most of the time. I also like Trezz here. It feels so long ago

 

guessing it's the two unprotected 1sts that everyone wants. i get it, too. it's objectively an over-ask when you see what others are going for. indy traded brogdon for expirings and a single 1st. hield has negative trade value. theis has negative trade value. also, i get the sense pritchard just kept upping the asking price, and rob got tired of it. it's entirely possible he was stringing us along and was eventually going to ask for christie/reaves/anything of any value at all.

 

I want to clarify, I don’t think your takes are extreme. I just felt that you’re takes were getting more negative as the off-season went on - but that could just be the way I was reading them.

I also mentioned I didn’t like taking on long term money for average players when we could just let Westbrook expire. I’ve been pretty consistent with that take since the start of the year. I’m sick of chasing bad outcomes with even worse fixes - let’s take the short term pain to control our own future.

 

That makes sense - if it is 2 unprotected 1st's, I don't do that deal, not even for Kyrie.

I think 2 protected 1st's makes sense...maybe 1-5 or 1-8 protected something like that...but yeah them asking for 2 unprotected is ridiculous given that one of the players is expiring and could leave (turner) and the other I don't think has a market right now for his services even though he's the perfect fit for us (hield).

 

Yup, Westbrook is here to stay for the foreseeable future. This is the team we’re rolling into camp with.

When Rob said after our initial round of FA signings that we still had more moves to make and he wanted to address shooting and defense … that move ended up being Patrick Beverly.

They will try to sell us on the idea that Beverly was a huge acquisition that single handedly fixes our team’s issues with shooting/defense/culture. They’ll repeat the idea that Ham’s system will bring the best out of Westbrook.

And the worst thing is that if Lebron and AD are healthy, and Russ/Beverly don’t kill each other, I can see us being good enough (maybe 6-8 seed) that they don’t want to rock the boat and never end up making a mid-season Westbrook trade.

We’ll be a first round/play-in exit team, and then they’ll try to sell us on the idea that our marginal cap room in the summer will be enough to build a championship team around a barren roster of only AD and 39 year old Lebron.

 

I would’ve loved to seen us run it back with the entire squad. Only thing that kept us from the WCF was AD getting injured. And how does this team work with 3 point guards? Do we start Beverly and Russ, with Nunn off the bench? This roster construction is a mess.

 

no, again, you were right that i got more negative about russ over time. my sense was that you were implying it had gone over the top, and i disagreed with that (which maybe wasn't intended anyway).

i'm still not itching to mortgage the future to dump him, but dumping him is a pretty important goal for me nonetheless. i sort of can't worry about the team's other problems as long as he's projected to be playing 30mpg here. everything else is either much smaller (lonnie walker not being tj warren or whatever) or out of the team's control (lebron and AD playing half seasons). russ is the only semi-controllable piece that could make a big impact, imo.