That's my thought on blowing it up. LeBron is a cash cow and he's not going anywhere IMO. Once we extended him that was it. Time to be all in.
All in for what, though? We have to ask ourselves that. Every year there's an injury. He came into this season with a left foot problem that's probably hampering him. Trade the farm and get as many assets as you can and let him chase the record all the while collecting all the revenues. LOL.
Honestly, right now I would focus on building a complete roster with pieces that fit together. That's step one to me and we will see a big jump in performance on the floor with that alone. The front office seems to want to skip the process and jump straight to a championship and I dont think that's possible right now unless there's some move out there that we are all unaware of. That doesn't mean we have to stand pat though. There's still moves that could be made that would help. It would be nice to see a team that's good on the floor and in a position to be competitive for the duration of LeBron's contract. If we can't do that, then yeah, blow it up.
Lebron can be traded in the off-season. He's not eligible to be traded this year. And even next year, who's trading for a 39 year old at 50 mil?
i just don't see the path currently. but i agree strongly with the bolded. this is how good teams operate. we were there until the russ deal. right. there are a bunch of reasons to wait. believe me, teams are praying their phones ring after we lose to utah in utah to start 2-8. because it's the weakest spot from which we can operate. if we're 5-15 at the 20-game mark, everyone including lebron should be on the table, imo. https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2022/09/players-currently-affected-by-trade-restrictions.html#:~:text=A player who signs a Designated Veteran contract or extension,Designated Veteran extensions this offseason. maybe this site is wrong or i'm reading it wrong, but i think he can be moved. edit: i did misread. the timing of lebron's extension means he can't be moved.
Definitely. Just doesn't see it happening. LeBron hasn't requested a trade in his career, just signed an extension and his family is settled in LA. AD's value is the lowest it has been. Will a championship contending team give up assets to get AD whose back is flaring up 10 games in the season? Doubt it.
I hope LeBronze asks out at the end of the season. He created this mess, along with Rob, and I doubt he will stick around for some of the final years of his career just to keep losing.
yeah, I also don't see the Lakers FO blowing the team up for picks and starting the rebuild that is probably inevitable at this point. it will more than likely be a grim few seasons of mediocrity until Lebron retires, and we can put together a championship team again.
“and we can put together a championship team again” That was progressing so well with ALL those high draft picks over like 7 seasons …. LOL. Prior to LeBron, Klutch and AD coming.
By put together a championship team he maybe means that they will try to land top free agents. Lakers don't build through the draft and I don't see that philosophy changing.
We aren’t piling up any wins, who are we beating? Utah was supposed to be a win, they beat us easily and likely do today as well. The Kings? They embarrassed us in preseason and Fox lives to beat us. Spurs, Nets, Pistons? Maybe, it’s possible that’s a stretch we pick up wins. But the shooting of this team is no longer an outlier, or a freak thing, it’s the norm. We shot 29% last night and if you take away Russ’ threes I believe we shot 22%. These are our percentages this year Game 1 - 25% Game 2 - 20% Game 3 - 18.2% Game 4 - 26.7% Game 5 - 31% Game 6 - 43.3% Game 7 - 27.8% Game 8 - 42.3% Game 9 - 29.6% We can’t shoot, it’s who this roster is, and it’s why we won’t win 45 games this season, we won’t even win 40, be lucky to get to 35 as is. When this team gets down too many points they can’t come back no matter how hard they try, because you have to be able to make threes to close a gap, and they can’t do it. They can wait 20 games, but we’ll be 5-15 or 6-14, screwed. Pelicans are going to get a great pick if we don’t act soon. I’ve been watching the Lakers for 30 years this season, and I’m sure many here have been watching as long or longer, you can tell a bad team when you see it after that long, it just seems to take some a little longer to admit it to themselves.
yes. yes they will. but it's why we probably aren't moving him anyway. if you put kawhi on the block tomorrow, there would be a bidding war, too. you're not getting anyone's best young player, but those guys are off limits in pretty much all trades. we're at the ten game mark tonight. do you really think we can execute a trade and incorporate the players quickly enough to affect our win probability over the next ten games? if we're headed for 5-15, then it's happening regardless of trades. and it will be too late to do much. but again, no trade presented so far has me thinking we'd be much better right now, anyway. if lebron isn't lebron, we're not contending. and he appears to not be lebron.
It really is no mystery. It wasn’t when the team was constructed bereft of enough shooting. It most certainly isn’t now that the concrete results are in. I’m not expecting Rob to fix this, because honestly, I don’t think he has the intelligence to. The FO can hide behind the “we will wait until we can negotiate from a position of strength” narrative until game 20 rolls around, but based on what we’ve seen so far, this is nothing but a pipe dream. I didn’t want to give up two firsts for the reported deals but there are other moves that can be made( well, maybe by a GM who is good at his job). If Rob can’t, or won’t, his extension is just going to look more and more like a massive blunder on Jeanie’s part.
You keep bringing up contending. I’m not talking about contending, I’m talking about being a playoff team, being respectable first, beginning to build some continuity again to finish this year with and go into next year with. The Indiana trade does that for example, so does a Charlotte trade. And yes I do think a trade for some actual talent makes us start winning some more games almost immediately, all we are lacking is some shooting and a real big to let AD go back to the 4. Trading Russ and separately trading Bev and Nunn could potentially solve that. We need talent, we need to start building something, floating on this island stuck in the middle with a team that will once again not look anything like this next season is damaging the franchise, coming into the season with Russ still here did damage, regardless of his looking better now, it hasn’t lead to wins. It’s time to commit to something with the core of this team, or to stop pretending and blow it up. If year 20 LeBron is looking this old, waiting a year to add a player or 2 with 30 mil in cap space to year 21 LeBron is an idiotic plan. In the here and now it isn’t fair to ask LeBron and AD to carry this terrible roster. It’s not in good faith to have them do this, it’s not in good faith for LeBron to extend and then play with this roster, probably the worst of his career. Or to ask AD to be our entire defense and throw his body around like this for it not to mean anything in the end because we have no talent, it’s a joke. It’s not my job to negotiate a deal worth our picks, that’s Rob’s job, he’s the GM, in theory, in action I see very little evidence of that.
who says the shooters can shoot here? history says no. and this year's roster is better than last year. and we're not blowing it up unless lebron wants to. anyway, i'm glad the FO hasn't panic traded yet.
