This is why you don’t hire guys essentially off the street for a job as big as the freaking Los Angeles Lakers, the greatest franchise in league history
He didn’t. LeBron came because of Magic, and KCP, Kuz, Caruso, McGee, and Rondo were already here. He was handed the AD trade, signed Green, Bradley, Dwight because Cousins got hurt bad, and Morris later on off buyout. That team was mostly already built, and he has spent almost every bit of time since 2021 tearing it apart.
What's sad is we can have any GM we want in the league if we offered the right money and all the autonomy in the world. Such a shame.
Bull S***. (not you Weezy, Twitter schmuck) What a horrible take and people here are agreeing, totally ignoring the same things are happening with non availability of supposed to be rotation players and LeBron’s poor and injured start, plus the players picked up to be key contributors starting off shooting way below their career averages. You put both full rosters on the floor and no way is last year’s better. Just keep piling on …. Wheeee!!!!
I agree with him though. The roster isn’t full of worse players, but they definitely are worse fitting, and it’s a more nonsensical roster than I’ve maybe ever seen. It’s a worse team than last year, that team was horrible and still had a chance at the play-in, this team is in the running for the #1 pick currently. I’m not buying “rotation players out” excuses, we were sold that last year with Ariza. Who are we missing? Bryant, who hadn’t looked good anyway, and Schröder who was signed last minute. LeBron being old and not as good or a slow starter they should have factored in, it’s year TWENTY. Guys shooting below their averages? Maybe don’t assemble a roster with all the worst shooters, probably not good for spacing and such.
Guys around 35% from 3 career wise give or take aren’t worst, and with athleticism and better D capabilities than the corpses who couldn’t shoot last year? 1-9 or 10 in the rotation including Jones and Bryant whom everyone here were hot to pick up both included, is not so horrible. It gets redundant after that with too many guards, probably because they thought Russ would be able to be moved for not some horrible deal. But 1-10 before all the s*** happened again not inferior to last year IMO.
The athleticism and D are doing wonders. We're 21st in D and have one of the worst records in NBA history. Last year's team that didn't give a s*** was better while sleep walking through the season waiting to flip that end of the season switch, only the power company discontinued service instead. This year has better in-a-vacuum signings but that's not how the NBA works. Rob doesn't understand that and why should he? His ignorance gets rewarded with job security. We somehow downgraded from Dwight and Deandre. Melo and Stan > JTA and Troy Brown Monk and LW4 are close to a wash (LW edge defensively) Collison and Isaiah Thomas are better than Nunn and Bev. That's not including Bradley, Ellington, Baze, or THT We're giving a f***ing Uber driver 13 MPG this year.
Doesn’t each season start in a vacuum for players reasonably available to be signed based upon past performance with input from the scouting department and coaching staff? Plus who with their crystal ball thought picking up Jones and Bryant was going to give us less so far than Jordan and Dwight last year?
Independent of any other signings or players on your roster? No. Absolutely not. That's why we have 7 point guards who can't ride all the rides at Disney due to height requirements. That's how you end up with 5 players who all have the same exact skill set. You have to try to fit a puzzle together based on your roster, your needs, and what the new players are historically good at and then find ways or other moves to hide some of your roster's shortcomings. Rob does not know how to do this. He reacts in extremes and givens zero thought to balance. The duo was the signings I felt the best about, but that's not saying much because i hated our off-season. Several were higher on Jones than I was. If you're buried in Sacramento, that's a problem. They kept bringing additional bigs while he was there too. I thought he'd be a mobile upgrade over what we had though. He's awful and his 10 day with us was an anomaly. Bryant? I'm hopeful he'll be a contributor at some point this season. But like Ariza, if we're holding out hope for him, season's done. He's not fully back from his Washington injuries, last thing he can afford is another setback with any injury. He needs to be on the court. Pairing an injury risk with a 3rd string C from the Kings probably isn't the best way guarantee help for AD.
The roster construction is flawed. There is no debating this. The entire basketball world, besides LeGM, AD, and Rob knew it wouldn’t work with Westbrick and we have been proven right. Once again, injuries happen to every single team, every year. This is why you don’t hire an idiot who has no idea how to properly build a well balanced roster. This is not the first time improper planning has blown up in their face. Blaming everything on injuries is just being insincere by avoiding the real problem with this Franchise: Inept, unqualified, over their head, short sighted, leadership.
I don’t actually see anyone defending this front office. I agree with LT that I think this years roster is better than last years. Obviously the record suggests otherwise, but I think there’s more to the story than that. We’ve had an incredibly difficult schedule, and feels like more injuries/illnesses compared to 12 games in last year. And mostly just with the eye test, this roster shows glimpses where they lock in defensively and get running that shows me a higher ceiling than last years team… but then a few timely turnovers or missing a big shot and the momentum flips back to the other team and we end up losing. Like there are a lot of little moments where the team shoots itself in the foot that end up adding up to losses, but I don’t necessarily think that’s always an indictment on the roster construction. Like if Russ doesn’t turn his brain off at the end of the first half yesterday, maybe the whole momentum of the game changes if we go into the half with a double digit lead. But since Russ DID turn his brain off for a game swinging 30 seconds, suddenly we’re going to argue that the likes of Bazemore and Ellington are better than JTA and Troy Brown? That sounds like an emotional take rather than a logical one. I don’t know if I believe that anyone would seriously trade this years supporting cast for last years (the funny part is we wouldn’t even have to trade, because most of last years supporting cast isn’t even in the league anymore) I’m not defending the front office. At the end of the day they have to be held accountable for the abysmal position we’re in. But I do think this roster is better than our record indicates, and it’s better than last years retirement home of non-defenders. At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if the team just unravels because there’s such an insurmountable hill to climb, and we do finish with a worse record, but I went into this season thinking we were a slightly better constructed roster on paper and I stand by that. Am I some delusional defender of the front office for thinking this? Am I supposed to keep shut and not voice my opinion because emotions are riding high and only venting about the sky falling is allowed? We’re in for some extremely painful times as Laker fans. I’d like to hope this forum has room for some occasional nuance and balance rather then just a year of everyone saying “This front office sucks” (even if it’s true)
all of the above. and i agree that it's not a forum if it's just a three-word s***post about the team sucking in every thread. i don't know what happened defensively the past few games, but i wasn't discouraged by the first 7 at all, tbh. i am now, but i wasn't then. and i do think it's a better roster than last year. and since everyone's beating the roster construction drum, i'll continue to beat the "the people we needed weren't available for what we had to offer" drum. because they weren't. the russ trade killed us and keeps killing us.
Rather than getting bent over for future assets to not bring back equal measure for Russ, they counted on Ham having him be useful at least up until the deadline, and if so we’re good enough in the short term to not do the bad deals and probably looking good at the deadline. Overall it has been successful, ASSIDE from his never ending propensity to do the dumbest things at the worst time to kill momentum, and now is starting to revert on defense too, adding to the brain farts. But he was making layups, dishing, defending and even now shooting 36% from 3 with the most made on the squad.
