Deandre Ayton Discussion: This Is A Platform I Can't Run From

If we’re going to act like a premier organisation, it starts at the trade deadline. We have the expiring contracts of Gabe, Kleber & Rui as well as Knecht. Either we renew them or we trade them to keep the salary slot.

I’ve spoken numerous times over the offseason but we have combinations of salary where we can trade for a contract in the: 10-12 range, 15-17, 18-20 range, 21-23 range, 25-27 range, 29-31 range, 34-36 range. So I fully expect us to do this.

If we can find an asset with bird rights that is inline for a bigger pay day and we can use those birds rights to go into the luxury tax. I expect us to also do that. And then we can resign Lebron, Reaves, Rui (if he stays) and the new asset using bird rights.

 

Nobody will ever convince me that the Brick trade didn’t set us back five seasons.
We totally lucked out on Luka, but we are still a couple of pieces away from contending. We are very unathletic and it shows with our inability to cover a fast break- even after a made basket.
That team last season would have been absolutely embarrassed by OKC, Indy or NY in a series.
LeGM ruined any chances of winning another Ring by forcing Rob’s hand.
I’m hoping next season, with the right moves, it will be our first real shot at surrounding Luka with a proper team.
Maybe we get lucky at the deadline this year and can make a little run. Stranger things have happened.

 

I also think a decent amount of penny pinching set us back.

Caruso should still be with us, we didn’t keep him because of luxury tax.

We let Brook Lopez leave and he had a further 7 productive seasons.

We let Malik Beasley, Lonnie Walker and Prince expire.

We lost DFS because we were too cheap. Imagine right now:

Luka / Caruso / Gabe
Reaves / Beasley / Bronny
Smart / DFS / Vando
Lebron / Rui / LaRavia
Ayton / Lopez / Hayes

 

Bunch of nonsense. We should have won a chip after trading Westbrook. If was all good, until Tinkerbell went MIA in the Conference Finals. We should have kept those contracts, we picked up from that trade too. Anyway we already have, a proper team right now.

 

The Caruso one was dumb because the Lakers essentially chose THT over Caruso since they didn't want to pay the luxury tax for both. Lost out on an elite role player that every team wanted because of that.

Malik Beasley, Prince, and Walker... Not exactly coveted pieces when they left the Lakers. Beasley had a great shooting year for the Pistons but was never that same player for the Lakers. Sometimes, the lights in LA are too bright for some players. Not exactly upset by them being gone.

DFS wasn't because the Lakers were cheap but because the Lakers didn't want to commit long-term with DFS since they're trying to clear cap for the 2027 free agency.

I'm just going to be honest and I'm probably going to get some flak for this but IMO, it's the truth...

Since LeBron came to the Lakers, the Lakers only won ONE title... That's with a prime AD.

We traded away Ingram, Lonzo, Josh Hart, and 3 first round picks...

I'm starting to wonder, what if the Lakers just allowed these players to develop all along...

Lonzo, Ingram, KCP, Kuzma, Hart, Brook Lopez, Clarkson, Caruso, Zubac, Randle, etc., That was the Lakers roster at one point... but once LeBron came, players were moved, traded, and are now making huge contributions to other teams. And all for just one title? IDK, I think the Lakers would have eventually won one if they built on those players and made smaller more efficient trades to fill positions that they needed rather than gutting everything.

I get it, getting a guaranteed title is always worth it but I'm just saying.... if you told me we had LeBron + prime AD for five years and only won one title, I'd be disappointed. When the trade happened, we assumed the Lakers would win multiple titles.

I'm just not that high on LeBron anymore. I'm still glad he came but I think he somehow believes he's done more for the Lakers than any other Lakers player with his attitude and it's coming off as entitled.

 

yeah, it wasn't a real choice that big spending owners even make their gms make. you just keep both.

with beasley it was the salary slot. we could have used him as a 15m expiring. this was just pure cheapness.

also, if we kept DFS, we likely don't have a center besides hayes. this wasn't a tough choice, tbh.

hmmm...really not sure we'd have won a ring without the AD trade. at all. i'm also not sure i expected multiple rings, either. lebron was old even then. a lot of folks said lebron would never win one here from the outset.

i think without the russ trade, we might have been able to get another ring, but slick is right that AD was basically out for two years (i'm pretty sure we win in 2021 if he doesn't go down against phx, btw), and lebron has been banged up a lot throughout as well.

of all the names you list, there are like 2 total allstar appearances and most of these guys have been moved by their subsequent teams.

i didn't love our prospects when lebron came, and i was just fine selling all of them for AD.

he lost me after the russ trade, and not immediately, but when he started complaining about his supporting cast. that was his doing. he knows it. bad form to fuss in the press about it in an obvious effort to protect your legacy.

 

If we don't trade for Russ, I do think there's a good chance we end up with Kyrie. Nets traded Dinwiddie, DFS, a 1st and two seconds for him in February 2023. We could have also just kept all of Kuzma/KCP/Caruso/THT, and then just signed Monk and brought in Reaves as a UDFA like we did that summer anyway.

 

I have my doubts about that. And anytime you pull in meaningful players on a trade, you are going to be forced to trade a bunch of guys to get them.

 

He looks really good on defense: I didn't see the second half but the podcasts stated he lost focus as the Lakers were up big against scrubs.

They need to assign Lebron to be an Ayton whisperer while he's hurt to keep focus

 

Sure, but it was marketed as "Lakers dynasty" when LeBron and AD teamed up and quite frankly, it's been a huge disappointment.

They got lucky on Reaves.

Then they got lucky that the Mavs were as dumb as they are and traded Luka.

We could have been looking at 2-3 more years of AD+LeBron not winning instead of Luka leading the team.

In hindsight, I still believe it's the correct move. But I can't rule out that if the Lakers had developed their younger guys and made changes where needed for a superstar player rather than gutting the team, they had a chance to win.

 

I think it's a disappointment because the Lakers got some bad breaks but I think that is the case unless you get incredibly lucky like OKC in the modern salary cap era
-Lakers easily IMO looked like the best team in the league post-bubble year when healthy. Lakers just wasted Phoenix the eventual finals team that went to 7 games and were up 2-1 when AD got hurt
-Lakers ran into Jocki into a bad time but would have been the favorite against Miami easily

-injury didnt happen, no brick trade, who knows how many titles the Lakers would have gotten
-just resign Caruso even with Brick trade and they probably beat Denver sigh (because they lucked out with Reaves).

Then again - injuries with an old Lebron and it's AD after all was a gamble and they took it. Lakers do it again in a heartbeat IMO. Look at the C Bags this new salary cap makes it hard for the old guard to continue to dominate even when the team has two young stars! Both of them one title in this generation of the Lakers/C Bags.

 

I can agree with most of these posts except I don't think they just lucked out with Reeves. I had him pegged for this kind of success and the Laker scouts had been phenomenal. I think they had a pretty good idea what they were getting. Some "generationally bad coaching" made it take longer to recognize than it should have.

 

He's an all-NBA talent - no other way around it. So much agility with that size and a nice touch to boost.
Really impressed with his defense - weird to see the Lakers have the biggest guy on the court and he can move similar to absolute elite bigs like AD.

But he's so frustrating - he's need to go up quicker on these lobs. Depends way too much on touch instead of force inside. There is no way a guy should be bad at hte FT line either.

 

His talent was never in question, it’s always been a question of his heart and effort.

 

heart, effort, but just mentality. i just don't think he's very competitive. it is what it is. people said that about gasol when he was young, but i think they were confusing physical weakness with mentality.

i don't know if ayton really knows what it means to go as hard as some of these guys he plays with. he's just so much more talented than most of them that it doesn't matter a lot of the time. it shows up against top competition and in crunch time, which is why i still think if lebron his healthy, we should probably close games with him at center.

 

He’s basically Kwame Brown with a mid range shot.
He’s the “I just know he can dominate if he just……and also could just…..” player.
There’s several reasons multiple teams have given up on him.
Anyway, maybe Luka will be able to make him into what everyone hopes he could be by midway through the season.

 

i would say phx maybe gave up on him. i don't think portland ever really believed in the first place.

and he's had much more success than kwame did already. i don't view them similarly at all, really. kwame truly lacked nba skill. his bad hands were just a big limiting factor. ayton started on a team that went to the finals and had other playoff success. the idea that he was the main problem in phx was silly--he was just the one they could act on at the time.

like kwame, i will say i don't think he's a bad guy, nor do i think lacking "killer mentality" is some great sin. he just doesn't have it, and you can see it on the court and in his interviews as well.

 

Lol

 

Yeah Kwame simply didn't have the hands or coordination like Ayton. Just nothing alike. Ayton had very good playoff games along with some real stinkers where he was accused of giving up

After Monty Williams flameout in Detroit you wonder how his career might have gone with a different coach

 

Yeah, we’ll see how much he’s not like Kwame at season’s end.