None of our acquisitions were lighting it up and we still went to the conference finals. We went 8-5 when Lebron was out for a month when we were written off for dead. If Westbrook's departure isn't a case of addition by subtraction then I'm not sure what is.
yeah, even dlo was hurt during that time period for a decent chunk. only vando (whom i'm told is an albatross of sorts) was doing anything. it was just shaking free of russ (and bev, imo).
Even Bev I think could have been useful with a smaller role but with Dennis here there was no need for both of them. But yeah, Russ was a train wreck. You can tell he's on his best behavior with the Clippers to prove a point. His body language was terrible here.
Subtracting Brick let to addition of more Reaves minutes and touches. The most important piece of trading Westbrook was it cleared the way for AR. I'm not a big fan of Beasley, Vando, and DLo for the playoffs. They do eat up regular season minutes which is good but the key to the Westbrook trade is not assets gained or lost, it was that the pecking order moved AR clearly to the number 3 guy
SG is a surprisingly weak position historical. Who look at the 80s and the All NBA had Jordan and Gervin buy otherwise was dominated by PGs (moncrief, Isiah, magic, Stockton) 90s you had Drexler, Miller, and Jordan but then a huge drop off. 10s Harden, I guess klay? 00s had Allen, Wade ginobili, kobe, 10s A good top 2/3 but certainly not the depth of talent you see at the SF and PG spots. You look at SF talent and the list is long Lebron, bird, Dr J, Durant, Tmac, Kawhii, Pierce, Pippen, Unique, Worthy Melo, Vince (listee as forward won't argue with him considerrd as SG)
Can’t argue with this point, it’s totally spot on. Giving Reaves more of the wheel was big. I just think a lot of our end of regular season and playoffs success was a result of getting healthy for the first time in a long while.
Getting healthy was a huge part of it but do you think that we would have still made it to the conference finals with no trades at the deadline and keeping Westbrook and company? I don’t.
it also doesn't explain the uptick prior to the playoffs with lebron and dlo missing roughly half of those games, imo. whether russ was a good guy or not, his presence on and off the floor made it a tense, hopeless situation. a ton of bricks were airlifted out, and the change was palpable almost immediately.
Russ would be an outstanding 6th man on this current version of the Lakers with AD/Lebron and AR as the clear #3 - just don't buy he has the mentality for it. 25 mpg leading the second unit with no expectation of getting minutes such as in crunch time. Maybe he can do it with the Clippers if they ever stay healthy but it wasn't happening with this team
I don’t know if we make it to the conference finals. It’s a tough question to answer. I probably say no - however if we still carried out the Rui trade and started Schroeder, Reaves, Rui, Lebron and AD with Russ, Lonnie and Gabriel off the bench, maybe we could have? We were probably missing one piece in the rotation - either a SF or a big to make it as far. In saying all that, our additions didn’t do much and that was always my argument. DLO shot 42%/31% in the playoffs and didn’t offer anything to else, while Vando wasn’t getting many minutes in the playoffs. Russ averaged 23.6/7.4/7.6 in the playoffs, is it really out of the realm of possibility that we still competed well with him and the rest of our playoff rotation?
i thought about those two and paul pierce, but i felt like they were all a tier below reggie miller and ray allen. i could see arguments made for them, though. i forgot drexler, too. that was a big oversight. he was really jordan's primary "rival" in terms of sg supremacy for a good chunk of the late 80s early 90s.
Meh I watched both and those are two were just simply not anywhere close to MVP or number one guy on a title team. Good players but I feel it actually reinforces my point that these are bought up.
LOL …. that was all BS about Austin having (drinks?) and conversation in an Arkansas bar with Taylor Swift. If it hadn't been Lakers, Austin Reaves said Rockets, Spurs were interested NBC Sports Sun, Jul 23, 2023 at 11:40 AM PDT·1 min read Reaves re-signed with the Lakers for four years, $53.9 million, with a player option in the final year and a 15% trade kicker should he get dealt. It was the most the Lakers could offer under the CBA, and even if he doesn't take a step forward off last year's play that is still one of the best contracts of the summer for a team. Were other teams interested? Reaves said yes while on the “All the Smoke” podcast but preferred to re-sign with the Lakers. "I really wanted to be in L.A. the whole time, there was a couple situations that were close but like I said, I really wanted to be in L.A. It feels like home to me so that's really where I wanted to be." Who were those other teams? "Houston, before Fred VanVleet signed there, and San Antonio." Reaves also shot down the rumors he is dating Taylor Swift. The entire thing started as a joke on a parody site, but gained traction because, well, welcome to life. There were reports they were spotted together in multiple locations. Reaves was having none of it. "I have never met her, never talked to her. All bulls***. They said we were in a bar in Arkansas. That's crazy." When asked if he would date her, Reaves said he would like to stay out of the media. Which is pretty much the opposite of dating Swift.
I didn't see where you specified MVP or #1 on a title team. If you did, you need to drop Drexler and Reggie from the conversation as well. Mitch Richmond never had the opportunity to play on a championship contending team, but he was very good. I don't want to do the work to dig up MJ's comments about him. Dumars was not #1 on a title team, but in their championship years he was 1b to Zeke's 1a. Zeke was better as a scorer, but Dumars was better on D and controlled the team's culture. I just disagree with the assessment that there was a huge dropoff between MJ > Drexler > Reggie...............Mitch > Dumars.
Drexler is underrated because Jordan punked him a but similar to how Hakeem did Robinson dirty. But Drexler got his team to two finals as a clear number 1 of that team. The stats match the team success. Drexler career PER was 21. Dumars best season was in the high teens. Richmond had only 2 seasons where he above 20. Drexler season averages just dwarf them and he was the clear #1 on very good team. Not stat padding. Dumars and Mitch Richmond were good players but when you look at including them in a the best of decade team it shows how poor that position was relative to others. I'm really shocked how folks assume Lillard is the best Blazer of all time. Drexler and his Blazers were really good
