Like someone that any one of our 3 young guns will be likely be better than as a basketball player within 2 years if not sooner? So we can hate our team for another season? How about lets see what we have here and go from there? All these years no great picks and now we have 3 or more in house and people want to just blow them out for anyone. Why? We aren't winning the west this year with anyone, FA or not. Let's have some fun.
Well this is quite unfortunate, he was my top target after the draft fiasco. I knew SA had a leg up on us, but the reports out of the meeting are discouraging. It's even worse that the meetings are going poorly and they don't see it, they leave thinking it went well. We've got to change our approach, the times have changed. The C market is nearly dry. Everyone thought we had one of these guys in the bag which is why we drafted Russell. Might as well invest our money in a life coach, a babysitter, a mentor, and a shrink for Upshaw.
No worries. We'll get a top 3 pick next year, sign Kevin Durant, and destroy the NBA for the next 10 years. Book it.
yup....that's about as long as i can endure pretending to be the Sixers....time to fix this ish or its time for Jimmy to live up to his word and step down
See outside of him being my favorite prospect, this is what infuriated me with our draft. If LMA was our guy all along, you've known for a very long time he didn't want to play C. If he's not your guy if you have Jah, then if you're calling Carroll at 12:01, he signs here instead of Toronto. You can afford to meet with Butler and even though he won't sign because he can't end up here, it helps down the road. It would've been much easier to build a team with pieces going forward. Because even if you're still talking to the big names, you're meeting with guys closer the 2nd tier and able to scoop them up during some of the circuses that have been going on today. But now we have no center, are striking out left and right, and teams are already snatching up second tier guys while we're still waiting to hear "no" from some of the first tier ones. Nazr will be our big get at C at this rate. Then Westbrook is a shoe in when he's a FA. The one guy we nearly know for certain that wants to come to LA (well...we thought the same about Love and look what happened) and with two ball dominant guards, that's not happening.
I'm not saying shoot for this year. I said Cousins because that seemed really likely. But people are like, ok well this sucks, but we have three young guys and next year is Durant and Westbrook and whoever. Isn't Durant going to be 30 too next year or almost 30? We're complaining about being old but happy about a slightly old Durant. Then, if Love wouldn't come to LA even though he has ties there and everything, what guarantee is there that he comes next next year? We're shooting for high stars and names with money but last year we got burned and so far this year we're getting burned. (If Monroe is still out there or we can get Harris or something then I'll take this all back. Jordan doesn't excite me at all so I don't care.) I'm just not excited about a possiblity to next year when we have nothing to show for the next two years. I'm also now leaning more towards the idea of Jimmy HAVING to step down (but I was typically for that) and Mitch too. I still like Mitch but I think everyone is still hoping to relive the glory days or the 80s and early 2000s and things are changing. We need all new blood everywhere. We can keep Scott for now because that won't make a huge difference, but everything else should be a matter of cleaning house.
This is very disappointing.....and this doesn't help us with other potential FA's either. This is a huge problem, and it's going to be 3 years in a row where we've either not been able to retain our stars and also not been able to attract anybody. Is it Kobe? Is it the FO? Is it lack of analytics? Are lakers stuck in the stone age? Is it Jimmy? Is it Mitch? WTF is it?! I'll tell you what it is...we SUCK right now and until we get better or show a team that we can almost make the playoffs (like the Suns 2 years ago), nobody is going to wanna come here. Players care about winning now more than ever because if you wanna win? It'll cost you $30M.
I'm not talking about positioning for next year, just saying at this point we have 3 "apparrent" very high upside, talented players cost controlled. It would now be the ultimate screw up to lose any of them just to "sign someone". Let's cut our losses early with this star chase (unless we have a shot at DJ) and get some fits in here where needed (hello McFly pounding on Mitch's head like Bif in 1st Back To The Future) ..... like SMALL FORWARD and other needs, and since we passed on Okafor ..... spend the money for all the life coaches JSM mentioned to fix Upshaw.