well, I'd have to look at the salary list, but I'm pretty sure the lakers could snag three players on big ending deals and eat up most of that space. I hope that's not what we're looking at, obviously. I'm just being a realist. the pitch isn't much stronger this year than last. the roster is light years from contention, and lots of teams will have money (including the teams who currently employ these coveted FAs, btw). I'm sure every fan site has a Durant/horford join up here scenario, but most are going to be digging through the luol deng bargain bin...and probably not even getting bargains.
On the topic of Simmons and Ingram, this is starting to feel like the Wiggins/Parker season all over again. Good, but overhyped players, there is no savior in this draft, Simmons is not LeBron.
You seem to be under the impression that we are losing on purpose. Is it to give you hope our front office isn't that bad?
I think I said that a few pages back, too. LeBron's physical profile and athleticism were a level above simmons'. sometimes simmons reminds me of billy owens a bit, too. again, though, I wasn't sold on towns being a superstar, and I was obviously wrong about that.
No I think it's pretty clear the FO is losing on purpose. There's no way you can be this bad without trying to be this bad. That includes not making moves at the deadline to improve the team, not picking up guys off the waiver, etc. Tell me how are we only 3 games better than the Sixers if we're not trying to lose games? This is a not-so-subtle tank job and I don't think you go into next season TRYING to lose games like we are this season. Replacing Byron means probably 4-6 more wins at this point which would set us up to make a run at about 30 wins which is what I expect at the least next season assuming we don't make a huge splash in FA.
We're looking at over 60 million dollars in cap space. Here's the high contracts expiring in 2017 (assuming some of them don't opt out this coming summer): LeBron- 24 million Howard- 23.3 million Rose- 21.3 million Griffin- 20.1 million Westbrook- 17.7 million Parsons- 16 million Bogut- 12.7 million Ibaka- 12.5 million Curry- 12.1 million Amir Johnson- 12 million Jrue Holiday- 11.3 million Andre Iguodala- 11.1 million Zach Randolph- 10.4 million Tyreke Evans- 10.2 million Lance Stephenson- 9.4 million Taj Gibson- 8.6 million Splitter- 8.6 million George Hill- 8 million Teague- 8 million I can see maybe taking on a guy like Amir and Tyreke and maybe Lance, but that's still only a little over half way there. We're going to have to give a max contract to somebody out there. Whiteside seems to be the slam dunk pick there. If we came out of this season with Tyreke, Whiteside, and maybe Taj Gibson or Splitter or something then I think we've improved quite a bit. That's a team that, with a decent coach, can win 30 games and would NOT be purposely losing games.
i think the only sign of real tanking is that byron still has a job. it doesn't mean they're trying to lose, but it does mean that they're not trying their hardest to win. i thought the FO was trying to win in making the moves last summer, actually. it was reasonable to expect the lakers to win 30 games this year, imo. they didn't go full philly and just sign nobody. they took hibbert on without demanding a pick, which meant they thought he was going to help them win games. still, it was a somewhat half-assed strategy because they held off on long-term, big money commitments after the big fish were gone. i'm not sure that's necessarily a bad strategy, though. dramatically overpaying middling talent is the road to sacramento kingsville.
thanks for the list. whiteside has to take the max from la, though. there will be others offering it. rose is interesting. seems like someone that a) chicago's probably ready to cut ties with and b) the lakers might be willing to take on as a one-year flier. i'd consider that a good use of cap space, actually. it's a gamble, but i think you have to gamble some in the lakers' position. whiteside is probably just as big a gamble, if not bigger.
I don't know. I really, really want to believe that, but we went out and got Hibbert thinking he could find his form of two seasons ago, signed a couple nice veterans in Bass and Lou. I KNOW we went into the season trying to win. Did it switch to us trying to lose? I honestly think our coaching staff and front office might be THAT bad. There's a difference between intentionally putting out a team that will lose games and seeing that the current team isn't going to do anything and choosing not to improve it. Also, any decent player who was on the waiver wire was going to sign with a contender, not us. Like I said, I want to believe we are intentionally losing, but I think our coaching staff is trying and the team we have now (no injuries) is the same team the FO thought could win in the beginning of the season.
I don't believe they went into the season expecting to fail. I remember Mitch's frustrated comments late last year and I think he was genuinely ticked off at how bad they were. He probably understood then that there was only one course of action left: tank. I believe from about December on we've been actively trying to lose games. Yes Byron is that bad of a coach, but we've also done nothing whatsoever to improve. We've added nobody, subtracted none of the dead weight (why is Ryan Kelly here?), and made no trades at the deadline. We're doing absolutely nothing to win this year. I agree completely that if Byron is still here next season it's a de facto tank because he will be incapable of winning 30 games, but I find it incredibly unlikely that he keeps his job. There is absolutely zero support from him everywhere besides his best buddies. He's not good for business, not good for basketball, not good for our young team, not good for the fans... I mean what is he good for besides losing? Nothing. If he's here, we're losing. I agree completely with that.
I'm just not sure we find many real "dump" candidates. I don't see Chicago giving up Rose without getting anything worthwhile back. They'd absolutely demand Clarkson or Russell if we got Rose and I don't think the Lakers would make that call. I hope they wouldn't. I love Rose, but I do not trust his health at all.
my thought was that they might want to remove 21 million from the books to chase other FAs. as it stands, they can't be big players in FA this summer. and with rose's health woes, i don't think a lot of teams will be in position to risk that much space. the lakers might be an exception, though.
Yeah maybe, but if they're looking to dump Rose then I'm not sure what their goals would be. The Bulls will have about 15 million to spend this summer without that dump. I'd think they're looking at guys like Mozgov or something to shore up that gap. Heck maybe go the other way and get guard depth with Vazquez or something. I'm not sure they're ready to dump Rose yet. My point is that I'm not sure we're going to even be able to find enough big expirings to do what we've been doing. We've simply got too much cap space right now. We're going to hand out max deals to at least one guy and I'm guessing probably two. It all comes down to whether or not that or those guy(s) deserve it.
Not really news since we all knew this already, but the decision makers still slightly favor Simmons...
I don't get the "including Philly" blurb there. Is that because Noel and Okafor are considered PF's and so is Simmons? Seems like all he needs is a better shot and he's a tall 3 to me. Plus Okafor and Noel are clearly both big enough to play Center today. Or does he mean even Philly isn't stupid enough to take anyone else?
I guess that's what it means. If Philly lands the #1 pick, they will definitely have to dump someone. I'd like to take Noel off their hands as our center of the future. Defensively, he's exactly what we need. That's an interesting question. Let's say Philly lands at #1 and we land at #2 in the draft. Would you trade the #2 pick for Noel? Sign Batum. Noel/Black Randle/Nance Batum/Swaggy/A. Brown Clarkson/J. Brown Russell/Lou Luke as our head coach. I actually really like that lineup. Then next offseason we plunder Westbrook from OKC and move Clarkson to our deluxe sixth man.
