- Hopefully he can advise whoever is handing out these absurd free agency deals over the years that are for too much money and too long in years (Mitch's biggest weakness) that he should pump the brakes and learn market value Luke (player), Steve Blake, MWP, Nash, Kobe legacy deal, Mozgov, Deng - And he can advise whoever it is (Mitch, Jim) that thought letting go of Ed Davis, Bazemore for cheap and missing out on IT for cheap only to save/rollover cap to sign two worse players for more money (Deng, Mozgov) was the best idea for the franchise. - And he can also advise whoever (Probably Mitch again) who doesn't understand pick protection in trades (Top 5 protected for 40 year old Nash, eye rolls) to smarten up a bit so that we aren't having to tank to save draft picks. Thankfully Brooklyn has the trophy for dumbest trade moves involving picks. - And finally he can advise whoever it is (Hey Mitch again) that when we have assets that are guaranteed to be gone the following season to trade them before we get nothing for them.... Pau, Dwight - Magic can stay away from the people that draft though because we have done quite well in that department.
It's easy to look at everything in hindsight and comment on how good or terrible Mitch's decisions have been. But with a little context at the time, it's really not as clear cut at the time: Luke: The year before he signed his contract, he averaged 11.5/5/5 and shooting 47% from the field and 39% from 3. He was signed to a relatively cheap contract at 5m per year and looked to be a cerebral player on the up. It was tough to forecast how bad his back would end up. Steve Blake: considered a great backup PG, he averaged 7/6 the year before we signed him and shot roughly 40% from 3 and was a season away from 11/6. Hard to forecast his confidence dropping off a cliff when he came to the lakers. MWP: won us a ring - he gets a pass. Plus he gave us two and a half solid seasons. Nash: just came off his 8th All Star appearance putting up 12.5 points and 10.7 assists per game on 53.2% from the field. He was leading the league in assists and was still a 50/40/90 player. No way Phoenix trades him to us for anything less, they despise us. If he doesn't bang his knee with Lillard in that game - we probably have a totally different year and Kobe probably doesn't get injured. Kobe: gets a pass for me, it's Kobe man, how can he not! Mozgov: no real pass here, should be 3 years not 4. But in saying that, the contract value has raised astronomically and I feel people haven't adjusted mentally yet so everything looks awful. Deng: baddddd! Ed Davis: was a solid player putting up some decent numbers, but we had just drafted Randle and had signed a veteran in Bass to bring him along for the year. It made little sense to sign Ed Davis, a younger player, to get in the way of Randle. Bazemore: solid player putting up decent numbers on a bad team, but was predominately asked to backup Kobe. This was the year we were going after Melo to team with Kobe and Pau and every dollar mattered, Bazemore didn't wait for that situation to sort itself out and left. IT: was considered a 6MOY candidate and not an allstar, we asked him to wait because during that offseason we were trying to put together Kobe, Melo and Pau for another run. He didn't and developed like no one could of envisioned. Pau: awkward situation, he had won us 2 rings and after we had traded him for Chris Paul it was just a bad situation and teams didn't want to trade a bag of chips for him. Dwight: I remember a rumour we could of traded him to Golden State for Klay and Green. But they hoped to resign him, he was the best C in the league the years before. I think Mitch's decision making has been good. Especially for what we were trying to achieve by going for another championship for Kobe. I also think he has done a pretty good job in getting and keeping our draft assets and signing & trading for some solid to good players: Lou Williams, Nick Young, Trevor Ariza, Jeremy Lin, Jordan Hill, Carlos Boozer, Antwan Jamison, Matt Barnes, Steve Blake, Ramon Session, Brandon Bass, Tarik Black, Ed Davis, Kent Bazemore, Jordan Farmar, Herny Xavier, Jodie Meeks, Wayne Ellington, Roy Hibbert, Chris Kaman, Ron Artest, Lamar Odom So clearly Mitch can get decent players onto the roster through trades and signing, but he just doesn't have the two All Star calibre players that are necessary to make it into the play offs and have a deep run.
I want to say - This isn't the first time I've said these things or commented about Mitch's negatives, some were during the time of these events. I remember posting at ClubLakers Pau trade ideas even before his final season and talking about going after the second tier players if we aren't the clear cut leaders in superstar sweepstakes. Luke - You don't give 5 year deals to role players. You just don't. You can pay the man, you can give him a 3 year deal (4 if young in age)l, but more times than not with role players, you are eating the last year or two if they are too long. Steve Blake - I would have never signed Blake in a million years and my hatred for him has resonated here and on ClubLakers about him for a long time. Never wanted him now or then. MWP - See Luke. Money is fine, years are not. I get the argument he got us a ring, but Mitch also put us in a bind with the length of his deal. Again role players should not get 5 year deals. He was cooked at the end. Nash - The revisionist history doesn't work here. Yea if he didn't bump knees with Lillard.....no he had chronic back pain, his leg healed fine, his back broke down just like it had been doing in Phoenix. Not putting at least top 10 protection on that pick is asinine. Only amateur GMs let go of unprotected/to minimal protection first rounders. (See Brooklyn this year, Clippers trading away unprotected first rounder that became Kyrie) Kobe - Yes it's Kobe, but I'll still complain. Mainly because he wanted his cake and to eat it too. Could have offered/taken 5 million less and given us flexibility to keep Bazemore (I think the same offseason) and go after Melo Mozgov/Deng - I see you are catching on to the don't give role players long deals theme. Davis - I'd be playing him at center and it wouldn't matter if we had Randle/Nance/Zu etc, we gave Black the same deal we could of for Davis so it's really just a matter of they wanted stars or nothing and put everyone else on the backburner and then failed and had to punt cap until this debacle. Bazemore - See Kobe IT - See thoughts on wanting 2nd tier players Pau - He became a bag of chips when we refused to trade him until his expiring contract at the deadline when teams could just wait until the offseason in FA. He had value until the Lakers FO put it into the ground. Dragic/Scola/Martin/1st round pick is what Houston gave up for Pau in that CP3 deal. That's not a bag of chips. Dwight - Dwight never wanted to be here before he got here, when he got here, after he left. That was so apparent, he was practically gone before he got here. Lakers were blind to that fact and got left with nothing. You had to trade him. As for the players Mitch got here......Boozer was awful here, Blake sucked, Sessions was a ghost, Henry couldn't stay healthy, Meeks sucked so bad, Kaman sucked. Mitch was solid in the championship years bringing that team together, but some of the names you added or not solid moves because they were no good here.
Of all those moves mentioned, not trading Pau or Dwight were just the most mind numbing. That resonates to me that Buss/Mitch were really gambling with an outdated strategy.
No doubt we agree upon a lot but have minor differences in points of view. I can accept your points regarding Luke, MWP, Deng & Moz regarding years. Steve Blake and Davis is just a difference in view. Nash: I don't think it's revisionist history at all. He had chronic back injuries since he was in his early 20s. That never stopped him before and he just came off an All Star season, he wasn't broken down. His level relative to his career highs, is similar to Kobe's level to his career highs before Kobe's Achilles. Nash's leg break, fired up all the nerves in his leg that sent referral pain up to his back through the sciatic nerve. It's a freak outcome for that kind of injury. We traded for an All Star PG, giving up draft assets that should of been at the end of the first. Kobe: I personally can't complain too much, it's Kobe, but I understand your point. Bazemore/IT: I think it was super hard to forecast their development, they looked like a solid backup and a 6th man of the year when we had a chance to sign them. We've got similar levels players now to the level Bazemore and IT were playing at back at the time we could of signed them - in Nick Young and Lou Williams. So I'm not going to use hindsight and argue that we made huge errors. Pau: My point is technically we did trade Pau, for Chris Paul. Afterwards he played terribly and we still wanted a ton for him. It was just a tough situation. Dwight: I agree, but which team trades an All Star and the best C at the league (at that time it was still considered to be true). This is easy to argue after the fact. Regarding role players, I listed roughly 20+ that we either signed or traded for, not all of them were great, but all of them were solid when healthy. That's a good GM! And it should give hope that if our rookies develop we can put a solid team around them.
Mitch is very good at finding the best scraps off the scrap heap at the tail end of free agency when we have struck out on every other tier of players. That said, they're still coming from the scrap heap, so that's not good. It's better than D-League and undrafted players, but only by one tier.
Luke and MWP's contracts aren't applicable to Moz and Deng's contracts. 5 and 4 year deals before the 2011 CBA aren't applicable to today's CBA.. Both Deng and Moz can have their contracts stretched if necessary. Luke and MWP's contracts couldn't before CBA 2011. That's part of the reason why the owners haven't approved amnesty for the 2017 CBA. The current CBA has far more flexibility to create cap room.
Regarding the Nash trade, I actually had no issue with trading for him and giving him a 3 year deal. My issue was giving up 4 draft picks for him. The concerns over his health were valid but IMO not enough to not trade for him. Giving up those picks though considering his age was just a serious mistake and that was before we had any idea that Lakers would be this terrible and risk draft picks this high. Regarding Kobe, I was a HUGE critic of his extension. I love Kobe but he didn't get a pass here at all. His contract was crippling to the Lakers. Granted it's easy for me to sit here as a fan and say he should have taken less money to assist his team - like Duncan/Dirk did. It's what he should have done and maybe he doesn't end his career on terrible Laker teams but all that said, I place more blame on the Lakers here. I fault organizations for offering up too much money rather than players for accepting too much money. Regarding Pau, the Lakers should have gotten what they could for Pau. It was foolish not to trade him, even if the return wasn't that great. The Lakers were no good and Pau was an impending free agent. You just don't let good players leave for nothing. Regarding Dwight, the mistake wasn't that they didn't trade him - granted they should have when it was clear he just wasn't a fit on the team. The mistake was trading for him in a contract year in the first place. The Lakers got overconfident in their ability to keep everyone. Dwight leaving for less money was just the first reality check of many in recent years that the Lakers just aren't the highly-sought after location that they once were. Kupchak is a good GM and a lot of recent errors can be attributed to Jim Buss. That said, Kupchak has made his fair share of miscalculations. No one is perfect. Not even RC Buford. Granted his list is really short. Of the top of my head I remember he gave up the rights to Luis Scola to salary dump Jackie Butler.
Ya but his drafting has been lights out. The core of this team is 19-20-21. It's just not realistic to say this team will starting winning deep playoff runs, yet, for few years unless they get a superstar. The one thing that could happen this summer though is if the Lakers kept their pick, lets say 3rd overall. I could see them trading the #3, Clarkson and Randle for someone. Cousins? Jimmy Butler? Lakers need a center like Cousins but I think Zubac will be a star for the team in 2 years. Lakers really need a 2 guard who can ball on both sides. I think that would be key. Nance Jr negates Randle (Just hope he stays healthy). Butler improves the 2 guard astronomically. 3rd pick is the incentive for the the Bulls to make the trade. That's about as much value as the Lakers could give without ruining their team. Russell Butler Ingram Nance Jr. (Deng could play there too) Zubac Williams Nick Young That team next year, if relatively healthy, makes the playoffs.
You lost me at Cousins. Especially that pick and players. I want no part of him in LaLa Land, let alone for a top 3 pick. Otherwise good post.
Cousins is intriguing. I was long in the Do Not Want camp because of his anger issues. But he's a monster talent and I'd definitely be willing to trade Randle and Clarkson for him. But that's about it. Not Russell, Ingram or anyone else for that matter. Let the Kings try to do better than that. I don't see it. Adding a 25 point a game big who can shoot from anywhere on the court? Yeah, I'd go for that. We'd still have Nance and Black off the bench too. Our front court is already stacked with talent, but Cousins is an All Star caliber player in his prime and that's a huge upgrade over Randle who is still trying to figure things out. Clarkson is good but has disappointed me a bit this season.
