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

Other scenarios are bound to pop up.

Right now..I'm not giving up Russ and 2 FRP for Hield and Turner.

Russ and 1FRP for Rozier and Oubre doesn't work for me either.

I wouldn't attach a FRP to Westbrook for anyone, not at an All Star caliber level.

New names should be getting floated about in another week or so.

 

What situation lol? We don't have a "situation" yet but if you are predicting that whoever we get won't be able to click inside of the rest of the season then 100% disagree backatcha. You have never seen a roster with 4-5 new "good" players acquired in the middle of the season period so don't make assumptions to the worst. It remains to be seen.

 

Rob trying to woo the Moz. Difference maker signing on the way.

 

Do. Not. Trade. Russ.


Edited: Fine we can trade him.

 

We have most of the ingredients right now, we just need some good health. I'm not into rushing into a bad deal.

 

Good health? What? LeGM and AD have played in the majority of the games. Riding this narrative, even when it doesn’t make sense, I see.

 

moz coming back to crime scene, stealing 80M from lakers n laughing all the way to the bank

 

yes trade brick, for every good play he returns 3bad ones

 

I don't think we ever win when Russ has a good game. When's he's out there on the court we just keep collapsing for some reason.

 

We just played a very competitive game against the number 1 team in the NBA (which we should have won) and we recently beat the number 2 so I don't quite see the sky falling, we put ourselves in a predicament going 2-10 to start the season. I have no doubt the FO will look to make moves come Thursday, I am sure they know we are on the verge of being very competitive, tonight our big "2" showed they can practically take on the best in the NBA by themselves when they are in kill mode. Russ' contract is the only thing that gives us a chance to spend over the cap so we will look to do something.

 

This roster is too flawed to fix this season in my opinion. We need offense to take load off AD and Lebron. Hopefully then Lebron stops taking lazy 3's at end of games. We need defense ideally with a wing AND I think we need presence down low too: I noticed we've been giving up too many offensive rebounds and AD is not able to by himself protect the rim, rebound, etc. Even Bucks have Lopez to help Giannis out. Otherwise AD is at risk of foul trouble and there goes our offense and defense when he sits. I think Pelinka is holding hope to use our draft picks to hit a home run for an all star. I just hope if we do make a trade, it's not trade out of desperation. I don't trust our front office to make the right decisions though. I fear we'll end of with mediocre players, lose our draft picks and still end up missing the playoffs.

 

dynamic

inefficient

bone headed

amazing

head scratching

If you can improve by moving him, you probably have to do it. But if you can't improve enough to make the playoffs AND make noise, you may be better off letting him expire.

 

I think some people in here are watching different games than I am watching.

Lakers are getting beat, for the most part; because they have no perimeter defense and most importantly continue to struggle from distance. It is unfortunate because James is still playing at a high level and AD is perhaps playing the best basketball of his career. We have lost 6 of the last 15 games and they ALL tell the same story.

L Boston (OT) (outscored 57-24 from 3, shot a woeful 28% from distance)
L at Philly (OT) (outscored 54-33 from 3)
L at Toronto (outscored 36-21 from 3, shot a woeful 21% from distance)- No LBJ or AD
L at Cleveland (outscored and shot a woeful 17% from distance)- No AD
L Indiana (outscored 51-33 from 3)
L at Phoenix (outscored 48-12 from 3, shot a woeful 18% from distance)- No LBJ

You can't keep playing teams and losing in this area by large margins and expect to consistently win. We are trying to offset it by getting to the FT line more often (in the above game in Arizona we actually had a +30 in free throw attempts and still lost)...

For the season now, while shooting a robust 32%, we have been outscored by 222 points (1005-783) on 3's and despite shooting 80% from the free throw line and leading the league in attempts, we are only outscoring our opponent by 137 points at the charity stripe. That has been the difference....period.

Lonnie Walker and Austin Reeves are the only ones doing the job from outside (40 and 38% respectively) and we need 2-3 more guys who can hit from distance.

LeBron is hitting at a career low (32%) while jacking up over 7 attempts a game (7.5) and all of Westbrook (3.9, 28%), Beverley (3.2, 25%), Brown (3, 31%), Nunn (2.8, 28%) and Schroeder (2.4, 26%) have been dismal.

You aren't going to get good defending wings at the deadline, especially ones that can shoot. Teams simply dont give those players up.

Evan Fournier is not a good defender, but he is no worse than the guys we have been putting out there. One thing he is though is a good VOLUME shooting wing from deep.

His previous 3 seasons until he was taken out of the Knicks rotation this year:

2021-22: 3 makes a game, 7.7 attempts, 39%
2020-21: 2.8, 6.7, 41%
2019-20: 2.6, 6.5, 40%

He is exactly the type of player we should be REALISTICALLY hoping for.

I keep repeating the same thing. Lakers need to surround arguably the two most dominant inside guys on the same team with SHOOTERS to have sustainable success and to have ANY CHANCE of competing to a title.

Now some here want to keep Westbrook? Simply because he is playing better coming off the bench- but still hurts this team more than he helps??? Mindboggling

Probably the biggest indicator (as if one can't see all of this by just watching the games) is our offensive rating when certain guys are on the floor and our defensive rating, and of course the difference.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize how AD goes is how we go as a team. He has the best offensive rating (131) and best defensive rating (106) on the team for a difference of +26.

Reeves is right behind him on the offensive side (127) but is slightly behind most of our perimeter players defensively (117) but it still comes out to a +10, second best on the team.

Gabriel and Bryant have been net positives in limited minutes, which tells me Ham should play them more.

Both Beverley and Westbrook have better defensive ratings than Austin (113 and 112 respectively) but their offensive ratings are so horrid (97 and 98) they are both negative overall (-16 and -14). Schroeder (-11) hasn't been any better and Nunn (-34) has been downright dreadful.

James and Walker both set at -3 as Lonnie being undersized hurts his defensive rating (116) and LeBron has too many lulls because of his age (108, 111) although is defensive rating is respectable for the team.

Bottom line is all three of Beverley, Nunn and Westbrook need to go and if we keep the later his minutes need to go down even further and he doesn't close games at all...........

 

Great, great post

 

agree with most of kobeking's thoughts. except i'm not sure we need to move russ. his minutes with lebron need to be minimized, which includes sitting during crunch time. and moving for a fournier/hield type should yield benefits. i only prefer fournier because i think he comes with reddish and i know the knicks are looking to move (not sure about indy).

it's actually encouraging that the only three losses we have with lebron and AD playing have been those three fall-from-ahead losses against good teams.