They aren't on the market, it's just buzz. It's a way to keep us entertained. Shams, Bobby Marks, Windy and so on work for the media networks who sell a product called NBA, it's their job to create entertainment and engagement so their channels can get views and share. It's a business Don't buy all the "reports" and "sources" you read, 95% have been proven to be wrong.
Yeah and what makes you think that they aren't? Because you just think so? SMH Media wise, nobody ever accurately predicts trades, before they happen, to my knowledge. That doesn't mean, that they don't happen, in every single season anyway.
Indeed, snake. Makes you wonder why no one wants to deal with him other than Washington or Utah. It’ll be a happy day when he’s no longer a Laker, but then he might have the job for like 40 years so man that’s gonna be a hell of a wait
Because there's a thousand examples of big moves the media never got a hold of until it was done and a zillion examples of things the media reported exhaustively and never happened. Every mid-December, deadline and July is the same. Reports multiply, everyone is available, there will be 50 trades. Then only a couple moves happen. It's just business
lol, yes, if only we'd kept magic around... btw, what's the "backstabbing" story, anyway? did he admit to jeanie that magic engineered some of the worst moves we've made in decades, all in a brief span (that magic himself basically admitted when he still thought they were good moves)? the reason nobody deals with rob is that he works for the lakers. it's a laker tax, not a rob tax. the next lakers gm will have it, too.
No the backstabbing story was basically that Rob was doing all the work, but Magic was taking the credit. Supposedly this is what Rob was telling Jeanie. Magic said, "Hell,that's what I hired him for"!! Which would imply that Rob, was actually responsible, for those moves you that blame Magic for. Lol..Oh the irony in that!!
the fact that we haven't made a zubac/muscala type move since magic left is all the evidence i need. also, i'd like to see the story itself if you have a link, as my guess is it was rob saying "i'm doing a lot of legwork only to have magic come over the top and do dumb s***" (magic also really botched the initial round of AD negotiations, imo). i think the idea that rob would have to lie to get magic out of a decision making role is both weird and funny. like, magic needed to be out by any means necessary. lying wasn't necessary. and why lie about it? rob made more money as an agent than he does as a gm, i bet. it's not like getting fired here would end his life. i just don't get the narrative about this guy. yeah, he's got a used car salesman persona or whatever. but this persistent insistence that some other person as our gm would be doing a much better job is wild to me. especially when the suggestion is f***ing magic!
Well..where there’s smoke there’s usually fire. The Rob is a liar stuff has been floating around forever, when he was an Agent. Look at Dwight, Caruso, Lebron and AD, flat out calling him a liar for saying that he consulted with them about stuff. Westbrook saying Rob was telling him one thing, and other people something else. This piece above about his "story telling ". Damn..I'm not sure EVERYBODY is lying on Rob. Hell I don't think Rob is the only dude that could be our GM, however he is, I don't see some evidence that no one else could have done a better job. That Magic thing was all over the internet when it broke. I'll check it out, but yeah..That's the gist of it. He was never at work, but he took credit for everything. Magic said the final straw, was him needed someone else to cosign, him firing Luke.
i didn't say he didn't lie. i said he wouldn't need to lie to get magic out (and if he did, i'm glad he did). you guys think rc buford and sam presti are just straight shooters, lol? masai ujiri is just a good ol' honest fella, tellin' truths and keepin' words. these are nba general managers, a good chunk of their job is lying. getting mad at one for being a liar is weird. much like the demands that he talk to the press. why? so he can lie more? because that's what he'll have to do! you want him to hold a press conference after we lose to the hawks by 30 and be like, "yeah, we gotta trade everyone, tomorrow!"? this is basically impossible. not seeing evidence that someone else could is also impossible, but at least possible to consider. anyway, i'll never stop repeating that our problem is ownership. rob is a shield for ownership. the next gm will be a shield for ownership. we're a mom and pop shop when nobody else in the league does it this way anymore. we operate with financial restrictions that our competitors don't. and to top it off, we operate with unrealistic fan expectations, even not considering these other facts (nobody wins all the time--the cba keeps getting redesigned specifically for this purpose!). i sound like i'm a rob pelinka fan. i'm not. i don't care about him. i just think it's silly to pin our problems on him when our problems are definitely not about him. it creates the belief that doing that thing will solve other things when it will not. and once again, the worst thing we could have possibly done was fire rob and keep magic. holy s***.
Wanted to chime in on two quick things on that.... Rob's media availability: i just want consistency and accountability. When we're winning he's front and center, talking to anyone. When we're losing, he hides out in the tunnel. Instead of doing end of season pressers or start of the season while hijacking/piggybacking off the new HCs presser. On who's to blame: the front office as a whole. Rob, Jeanie, Kurt, Linda, Harris. I want them all removed by security. I think each of them are holding us back. I don't think Rob is good at his job with or without Jeanie and our limitations. He flushes rosters like toilet paper and then holds on to flawed ones with dear life. He over corrects any mistake. And the rosters are built with zero room for error and no contingencies. Mark Cuban might have saved us though. By taking the deal he took, Jeanie sees what kind of money and structure a creative person can come up with (not her) for selling off a large chunk, keeping minority shares and staying somewhat involved.
I don't know bro .This current team is Rob's vision isn't it? He puts the roster together, hires the coach. I'm not sure what exactly the vision is myself. Now to your point about ownership, that clouds the subject a lot. Who is really in charge? Who really makes the decisions? That would apply to Magic too wouldn't it? Was it his ideas or was he just taking credit for the marching orders he was given?
oh he's not blameless at all. but do i think it would be his vision? no. his vision isn't wasting a roster spot on lebron's son. it's just not. he views that as part of a long game, which i understand. it's also why i understand our lack of activity lately and view it as a triumph of sorts given that he's trying to both please lebron and make sure that the franchise isn't crippled for a decade when lebron retires. had he buckled under pressure from the fans and lebron, we'd have already emptied the chamber on the next russ type debacle and would probably be looking at lebron walking away from a charred house right now. instead, everyone's still grinning and bearing the denouement of lebron's career. that's a win in some ways. i think rob makes the decisions, but he knows his parameters. he's gained jeanie's trust by understanding those and not forcing her to make choices (especially publicly) that could be unpopular. again--do you really think rob (or any general manager anywhere) would have let caruso walk? would have made it a choice between THT and caruso when it absolutely did not have to be? no. that's knowing that there are financial parameters. now, choosing to pay THT over retaining caruso? that's on rob. but that's not talent evaluation alone. THT was a klutch guy who showed a ton of potential (lol, he's still kind of doing that right now!). if you let THT walk instead and he becomes a third-tier star like seemed possible, now you look dumb AND lebron and klutch are pissed. at the time, i fully expected us to keep both and was shocked when we didn't. but many subsequent moves have made it clear that we weren't going to keep both simply due to the financials. anyway, the point of this post is rob serves two masters: jeanie and lebron. understanding this helps me understand the things that have happened and why they happened. lebron will retire soon, so that won't be an issue (and will be replaced by the gaping roster hole that losing lebron will create), but the jeanie situation is a long-haul thing. i'd be perfectly happy, btw, if when lebron retired, jeanie cleaned house, hired a real president of basketball operations (read: not a laker friend/family), and tried to modernize the operation. but that s*** ain't happenin'. if rob's gone, the next rambis type (if not rambis him or her(!) self) will come in and could be worse in terms of knowledge and work ethic. i think rob clearly knows what he's doing and works hard. magic was neither of those, and i fear rob's replacement would trend that way.
I'm not convinced that it's all on Lebron either. We would have grabbed Kyrie, if was all about what Lebron wants. Kyrie was the perfect out from the Westbrook situation, and Rob just passed on it IMO. Lebron flat out said that he told them to keep Caruso too. Kcp and Montrez were Klutch. AD is Klutch. I don't think Talen was kept just because of being Klutch. If it was all that, why dump him for Beverley? I don't think Lebron asked for that either. I also think he's been pushing to get rid of Tinkerbell since the WCF And Westbrook wasn't Lebron's first choice IMO, he wanted Dame or Derozan. It was never explained why Derozan keeps saying that he thought that was a done deal. I actually think Russ was more of an AD pick. So Rob hasn't exactly, been bending to Lebron and Klutch every wish at all IMO. If anything, he seems to be making a point of not doing it. Hell whose bright idea was it that AD was to be a permanent 5? After the dude came here saying that he wanted to play 4? And hasn't been given a decent big to play with since the bubble? And it's STILL a problem today Nah..I think that Lebron/Klutch stuff gets overblown. Brony is a second rd pick..whoopee doo. Plenty of them never work out everywhere. It's just as plausible that Rob is a liar, he thinks he's the smartest guy in the room, and he makes some dumb decisions, but he gets to hide behind Lebron/Klutch, Jeanie is a penny pincher, and KOBE!!! I'm not sure he should be trusted to rebuild anything. Yet we shall see what he does this season.
still think if bkn was really willing to play ball, we would have done it, too. they didn't want to deal him to us. you know else is kind of a big liar? lebron james. also, it's not his money. of course he told them to keep caruso, just like all of us did! agree on kcp, trez, and AD (all positives from klutch connection, imo). but i think THT's contract was partly a klutch thing. we dumped him for beverley because he didn't develop, and in theory, he would have had more of a chance to do so in utah than here. klutch is happy because he made his money and was going to get a chance to make more with a bigger role. didn't work out, but definitely wouldn't have here. for our side, bev was supposed to make up for the caruso botch. also didn't work out. yeah, that's a poorly kept secret. the only thing i don't get is that it seems like the one thing that lebron and AD aren't in lockstep about. lebron and AD both crowed about making the russ deal happen. i'm sure they wish they'd kept their mouths shut, though, lol. dame wasn't happening, and i still don't understand how they thought derozan was possible given the cba restrictions and his salary desires. i also wouldn't have loved a derozan move, anyway. he always manages to look good while his teams look meh. that's not a fluke at this point. this is my point, too--it's good that he hasn't. he's worked with them on some good stuff, but then the russ deal really put into sharp relief the dangers of letting players/agents play gm. he's wisely used it as a way to push back. every coach we've hired. i guess jj said he wanted a bruiser, but i'm still not sure he wants to start said bruiser. the issue is that with age, lebron's speed and willingess to defend on the perimeter has really dropped off. so playing him at the sf for heavy minutes could end up backfiring hard. i'm still willing to test the theory, but i can see why coaches shy away from it. if our sf was a jaden mcdaniels type and we had quicker guards, i think you can play AD at the 4 more, but with both lebron and AD at this point, adding a big slow 5 could be bad. when we were a good defense with old gasol, we had kcp and caruso still. we don't have anything like that now. almost none of them get the only roster spot available to a team that really needed immediate help, though. tyus jones is playing for our competitor with that slot. not that jones would have signed here, but dinwiddie (also winning games for a competitor) definitely would have, imo. did he get lebron and AD to say they brokered the russ deal? how? this theory is not supported by any facts. i'm not sure, either, but i trust him more than magic or rambis.
Kyrie... Rob didn't want to pay Kyrie on a long term deal. That's all it was man. Stein is the only guy that said anything, about the owner not wanting to trade him here. And he only said that it was " A presumed objective " .Very careful wording there ..he never said, that it was a direct order. The owner himself, said that he gave Rob permission to speak with Kyrie's people, and Rob never even called them. Kyrie himself said, you'd have to ask the GM's and team presidents , why the Laker trade didn't go down. Not the owner didn't want me going to the Lakers. Caruso Lebron said I told them to keep Caruso He didn't say I told them to keep Tucker and Caruso. Caruso said the Lakers didn't even try to counter anything he was offered. Even the first offer from Minnesota. He said Rob asked about dumping Gasol's contract in a sign and trade. Rob made that call on his own. He lied about telling Alex to sit tight, and he'd get back to him after the Chicago offer. Caruso said that was not true at all, I believe Alex. AD AD played with Bigs in New Orleans,and he was 1st Team All NBA twice. He won a chip here, playing with bigs. He's been saying that he prefers the 4 in every season that's he's been here. You think he and Lebron haven't discussed that? I think this Lebron at SF stuff is overrated too. He's still a better defender at SF then Rui right now. Rob hires the coaches, they are supposed to back up his wishes, he's their boss . I think this AD at 5 stuff is his idea. Bronny Meh..he gave Brony a sweet deal, that's probably Jeanie right there, good PR move. Treating Lebron like a King on his way out the door etc Westbrook Yeah Lebron and AD took some credit for Rus, there was a long article on the subject detailing how Russ wasn't the first choice too. I do know that both of them were against the Buddy Hield trade that Rob was about to make. And again Kyrie was the perfect out from that situation and IMO, Rob whiffed. I don't know if I trust him more than anyone. I think Magic would have gotten Kyrie, I don't know about Kurt. I'm not sure if either would have went for Westbrook TBH.
we've been over it. why call if you're not going to be able to broker the trade anyway? and i'm still ok not giving up reaves and two firsts for kyrie at that time. he was a distressed asset. oh give me a f***ing break re: lebron. that's a huge reach, even by your standards. and again you believe everything lebron says but nothing rob says. they both lie. difference is only one of them sort of needs to in order to do their job. the other one could just stfu every now and then. we didn't pay caruso because we didn't have the financial green light to pay caruso and THT. the idea that we just hated caruso is totally f***ing insane. guarantee rob would already be fired if your story (that rob just completely misunderstood caruso's value and went against lebron's wishes to resign him) were even remotely close to the truth. that's not how it works, at all. you're supposed to empower coaches to get the best out of the roster. the gm doesn't construct a roster and then find a coach to execute his strategy. he works with a coach to construct rosters they both think can win. you're right that if we're going to play rui at sf anyway, it's dumb not just play a big center. if rob was directing the AD at the 5 stuff, i honestly think AD would have asked out by now. more likely is that we haven't been able to find a center worth starting next to AD with our assets. magic might have gotten kyrie...if he hadn't already traded austin reaves for alec burks or something. and he would have sold the entire farm to get kyrie, and we still wouldn't have another ring.
Nope..you just don't want to admit that Rob, didn't want to give Kyrie the 4 years he was asking for. We could have gotten Kyrie in the summer man. The Reaves stuff came up right before he was traded to Dallas. You just keep hanging on to what Stein said, and again that wasn't as definitive as it was made out to be. Maybe he just thought he could get Kyrie on a shorter deal, and Dallas just made their play. The roster was already in place when Ham and Redick were hired dude. They weren't a part of building anything. First year coaches, what are they supposed to say? I need my type of players in order to take this job? They both knew what they were getting into. They were hired based on their opinions on how to make Rob's roster plan work. AD wasn't going to ask out, he won a chip here, and then was injured for most of the next two seasons. He will probably ask out now if we don't go get at least one quality big tho, because he knows Lebron is about to hang em up. Lol..you might be correct on the last one. But we'll never know. We just have differing viewpoints on some stuff. We both know that we suck right now though, no squabbles on that.
yeah, we're bad; i'm just not as sure as everyone else that our main problem is at general manager. any other general manager would have to face the same challenges--primarily unrealistic fan expectations, intense media scrutiny, and managing the decline of one of the most famous and accomplished players ever. presti isn't ready for this kind of stuff. hell, he fumbled one dynasty already, and everyone's certain he's about to deliver a new one. our main issue is ownership and general operation of the franchise, imo. i think to some like anthony irwin, rob has become a symbol of some sort and is an easy target because of his personality. i wish we'd hire someone either under or over rob who has no previous ties to the organization but an excellent reputation as an nba executive. i'd feel much better about stuff.
