2024-25 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

Are we really going after Jimmy Butler ?

 

a Cameroonian professional basketball player who last played for the Los Angeles Lakers ???
When,what game

 

I thought Christian Koloko was a decent prospect coming out of Arizona. He’s got alot of length and never really had an opportunity to develop at the NBA level.

Considering he’s just on a 2 way deal, it’s a decent way for the Lakers to try to develop him into a serviceable rotation player. He’s got the physical tools to be just that.

 

OK after a couple days ago just watching half of his highlight tape above on my phone and seeing right away he's on the thin side too I went for the humor on the thin stuff. But I just watched for the first time seriously on my computer monitor and heck if he's heathy and on a 2-way now same as Castleton, what's not to like. He and Hayes both listed at 7' but Koloko is/was listed 10lbs meatier than Jackson's 220, at 230. He's quicker than Colin too for sure but Colin goes around 250-255? and has a different set of skills, hopefully able to knock down some 3s after working all summer on he said he would. But with Wood out if Hayes (I'm expecting some improvement), Koloko and Castleton (I'm expecting some improvement) to fill in as 3rd big maybe off bench behind AD are all healthy ..... suddenly I'm intrigued again. Go JJ and that nice staff you put together, you Grinders.

Ooops I just read after typing that, above, that one of the 3 2-ways has to be released. I don't remember who the other 2 guys are but I'm still hoping Colin takes a leap. I suppose he could lose his 2-way if he's not showing that he has. I wonder when that decision on who to kick out of the current 3-some has to be made.

 

I don't think we had a good off-season. But sometimes not doing something is as good as doing whatever. Wasting FRPs in Grant, Trae or Lavine would have been awful. More importantly, context matters.

We entered the off-season with 0 roster spots available. There's fault on Rob for the POs given to 3 vet mins last year. There's fault on the organization for drafting Bronny and give him a roster spot, but that's the price for re-signing Bron, which is good for the organization. I would like to live in a world where we aren't hostages of the best player in the world the last 2 decades, and you can hold that against our org but I imagine over 90% of the league would like to be in our shoes regarding Bron.
Then you're left with 2 young guys in Knecht and Max that we chose to sign instead of finding something else in FA. I think they were both good decisions.

Then you get to trades. I would have sent two FRPs for Dejounte Murray, plus Max if they wanted (and whatever fillers). We don't know what happened, but there's rumours they wanted Reaves and ended up with what I think is a worse package. Without knowing details I can't criticize or praise, but that's the only trade that was mentioned that I would have done. There was little movement around the league and I don't think we've missed on anything else that would have improved this roster.

I think this roster lacks depth and has 2 problems: POA defender and C backup. If Gabe shows what he showed in Miami we have the first covered. So we're left with backup C. I haven't seen anyone available yet, so not sure what we can do. My hope is we can find someone with JHS, Reddish and Hayes/Wood contracts. If we have to send Vando, Rui, Gabe or DLo, we are fixing one problem and creating another. I believe this type of trades can go down more easily in the 2nd half of the season when teams are more willing to let go good players for expirings and youngsters.

Finally, I think we are better than people talk about. We were 4 wins away from the top4. FOUR!!! That's nothing in regular season. It's a game here and there lost in details. And if anyone followed the Lakers games, knows that Ham crippled the team with his decisions. We had +50 different lineups. We had Prince starting most of the season. Cam Reddish starting. Weird rotations. So I think that you remove that and we would have been top4 and everyone would be talking about how great the Lakers are. I mean the Clippers and a much worse off-season and are on a way worse situation and don't get a tenth of the discourse.
Our worst matchup is the Nuggets and unfortunately they lost their last game and we got them. I'm pretty sure any other team in the West doesn't want us in a 7 game series. Not even Sac. We have had amazing runs with Rui or Vando in the lineup with our Off and Def ratings both at top 10, looking unbeatable in stretches that we play those lineups consistently.
We identified the biggest flaw of our team that was Ham and dealt with it. We kept Bron and signed 2 youngsters that can be valuable down the line. I think we did enough, we did the most important things. It wasn't great but it was enough.

So yeah, in a nutshell I don't get the panic and don't buy the we are doom narrative that media loves to force down our throats.
I think we can improve, we should improve and it's Rob's job to do so. But I'm not impatient and understand that in the real world you can't have everything you want when you want. It takes time and in our context and with the market we have, there's likely better moves we can do down the line than just changing things for the sake of it. That's proven in any business to be the most sustainable way to have success and I second that.

 

stop summoning @sirronstuff

 

100% this

I don't get why they didn't bring in a big to help in the middle and rebound

How many games will be get out rebounded with this lineup?

 

LeBron should stop being such a p**** and bang inside

 

Interesting article.. Assets wise.. Okc is stacked...Clippers suck..we are in need of a few young guys taking a leap.

https://hoopshype.com/lists/team-as...ich-franchises-have-the-most-valuable-pieces/

 

But I love sub sandwiches

 

What’s not to love about Koloko? He, Hayes and Wood isn’t great, but it’s better than what we had up to this point. Hopefully Koloko’s presence will light a fire in Hayes as well.

 

Koloko as a prospect is fine.

missing a season for blood clots is scary though.

 

Let's just call it a "soft" rebuild" at this point.

Let the forums and social media hype this dude up and he's probably at the end of the bench before the start of the season.

 

C bags can eat their hearts out ! They don’t have a drink like us

 

Not even a full 17 oz SMH. What a cheap organization.

am I doing it right?

 

I ain’t panicked and I already stated that I’m fine that Rob didn’t make a big trade.
I’m not fine with him not retaining either Dinwiddie or Prince if he had no intentions of adding a big. I don’t care if we don’t have a roster spot(that’s ALL on Rob). Waive one of our dead weight pieces.
I’m also not fine with him failing at making his most value piece(on the court)happy. AD has made it clear that he wants to play the four and Rob just ignored his request. We could have signed Valencuinas, but the FO didn’t want to give him the extra year we requested(reported by Trevor Lane).
You don’t need to make a huge trade every season, but you should at least be able to improve some role player spots every summer. Rob has just been so Heckle and Jeckyl during his time here and it’s significantly hurt our chances.
If Jeanie had half a brain, Bob Myers would have already taken over Pelinka’s job. But, he’s not qualified since he doesn’t have any former “Laker ties.” It doesn’t matter that he built the Dubbs Dynasty.
Mom and Pop run organization until they finally sell.

 

We currently have SEVEN players under contract who will miss significant time already this season due to injury or who have proven that they aren’t even good role players:
Vando
Wood

Hayes
Reddish
Lewis
JHS
Max Christie (I’m higher on him than most since I think he will help
this year)

I could have added Gabe, but he gets a pass since he has shown in the distant past that he can play.

Bronny is a huge question mark.

So, we currently only have these guys who we know can play:
AD
LeBron
Reaves
Hachi
DLo

Knecht(maybe)
Christie(maybe)
Gabe(maybe)
Bronny(maybe)

That’s not even close to being enough. Our bench might be the worst in the League until Wood and Vando return.
Only way we are in the hunt come the trade deadline is if NONE of our starters lose much time from injury AND two of the maybes ball out and become dependable players right away.
I’m just calling it like I see it.
The West is brutal and our team is extremely shallow.

 

We couldn't waive anyone and signed somebody. When you waive, it still counts against the cap space and we have none below the 2nd apron. Going above it has penalties on future trades and future picks.
Agree on AD in general but I think Bron is pushing in the opposite direction and the organization is favouring him.
Trevor Lane didn't report anything. There's no evidence on what he said about Valanciunas. You can decide on what you believe, but the fact is that there's no evidence on that nor official reports on it. It's hearsay/clickbait. It also doesn't make sense on the timeline, we were clearly going after Klay by the time Valanciunas signed, so I think he was only plan B.

Agree in general too. But c'mon, Bronny is not a serious player right now. I'm 100% sure he's not playing any competitive minute this season, apart from the "marketing minutes" with his dad. That's a odd take
Hayes is fine and I think that's harsh. Boston plays Kornet often and he's worse. Cam is not a bum and won't hurt as a 11th player like he is right now. JHS may surprise a few people, I give him the benefit of the doubt yet.
Sure, it's not good if we need to play those end of the bench guys too often, but apart from Lewis and Bronny, that really look like far way from NBA level, the others can give a few not bad enough minutes.
But agree that we are highly dependable of our top6