Lakers VS Slippers Discussion

Let it never be forgotten that the “spotlights” won a championship that very year.

 

So happy to no longer see all that Clippers hype trash on the giant LED walls at L.A. Live any more.

 

Yeah. Really nice win.

 

Always the jv squad

 

The many comments to that are gold …. much like reading Cookie’s Clipper DOOM.

 

with no tradeable assets and no control over their 1st rounder until 2030, ballmer better open up that checkbook during FA these next few years, or that new arena is going to be a ghost town pretty soon. harden's contract is up after next season and kawhi's is up the season after that (if he makes it that far)

 

i also think the PG/kawhi signings were a weird situation that won't repeat itself. you had two kind of odd guys who happened to be from la and seemed to have an axe to grind with the lakers, both available at the same time. good luck with that kind of planetary alignment again.

 

well they certainly won't be able to trade for a player of PG's caliber anytime soon considering their lack of assets. only way they can stay competitive for the next 5-6 years is if ballmer opens up his endless checkbook and makes some big signings in FA

 

^^^..... yeah, Luxury Tax be damned.

 

but what's weird is that they sort of negated that advantage. part of it was the new cba was definitely aimed at the warriors, clippers, suns, and nets (and soon, C Bags), but they didn't have to give up when they did, imo. ballmer had the cash to keep going over the second apron in perpetuity, and that was their real advantage. they got norman powell because they just kept paying even their least useful players 10+ million per. eventually, they'd become expirings you could convert for better (but overpaid) players. you could then use bird rights to drive those costs high enough for other types of salary matching deals.

the new cba made it harder to do some of that, but the general principle still works.

but they just let PG walk, and they really have no way to quickly get back to using ballmer's cash.

that was all a long intro to stating that ballmer's cash means nothing when you're operating under the cap. so yeah, if and when they get another star to sign on, his pockets may matter again, but he won't have the advantage he had for the first 10 years he owned the team.

all that said, i wonder if the next cba might loosen some of the restrictions, as the deep-pocketed ownership was the way smaller markets could compete with the lakers, imo. if the luxury tax apron stuff really limits total payroll variability...we're loving it. and like, okc* and milwaukee are hating it.

*holmgren makes 13 this year and next, jalen williams makes 6-7 per. they'll both get 35+ the year after, and okc will be back to where they were when they had durant/russ/harden and have to make some difficult choices or have them made for them.

 

Hate to see it

 

Kawhii I kind of understood - he wanted to be Lebron's equal not on the same team.

Paul George - that one I still don't understand. From LA and he was going to end up on a team with Lebron and he had to know they were planning on AD (hell the whole league knew). Yet he chose to stay with OKC and Brick after languishing in Indiana.