Is Magic Back To Run The Show Again? (Ramona Piece)

I was just looking for clarification on what exactly it is you were disagreeing with given I didn't initially see a tangible link between my post and yours. I guess upon further inspection, I am saying the Lakers had to settle for Mozgov whereas you are actually saying Moz is who they wanted all along because of Luke and that in order to pry Luke, they had to be willing to spend in free agency to help him out. I buy the latter. The former, eh. The Lakers pursued Whiteside and Horford. The Lakers likely never had a chance at either but it shows Moz wasn't the #1 choice and was a matter of settlement, even if he may have been a preferred option if Luke/Shaw on some level. If that's the case, then that's just makes the situation even sadder because now we have more than the FO office to blame for this blunder.

 

Fire Mitch.

 

No one in his right mind would sign Mozgov and Deng for 4 years, you basically tied the franchise's ability to sign local born FAs during the duration of those contracts.Mitch lucked out on Pau (with JWs help probably) but he was a mediocre dealer who always gets advantaged of in trades. Ainge seem to jedi mindtrick him into losing in deals, Payton, Banks.

 

While I wasn't a fan of trading for Dwight - good player but wasn't a fan of his character (i didn't think he'd fit on the Lakers at all) and especially didn't care for the fact that he was in a contract year - trading Bynum at the time was a great move. Bynum was coming off a career year but his knees were a major concern. So much so Orlando passed on taking Bynum in the deal and he instead went to Philly in that 4 team deal. And we saw what happened after that. The moves I didn't like during the Kupchak era were the cost cutting moves and really that fell more on Buss. The team traded away their 2009, 2011 and 2012 1st round picks to cut costs. That said, the Lakers have bounced back willing to take on cost to acquire picks (Lin/Calderon) so I appreciate that. Then there was also the ill-fated Steve Nash trade but not too many people were that upset about it. I noted in another thread, my issue wasn't Nash, his age/health or the contract but more so the cost of picks. I agree though that on the trade market, Mitch has been fairly legit. Likewise for the draft.

 

#backchannels

#undercoverbrother

 

His expertise is in scouting, drafting, and trades.

I like Mitch, and I want to keep him. However, he may needs to have his responsibilities limited to those aforementioned things.

 

I'm pretty much done with Mitch. Several years ago he had one pitch for FA: "We're the Lakers, your client should beg to be here". That rubbed agents and players the wrong way, word got out and now due to this and his unwillingness to play FA ball like the rest of his field does he has been back-peddling and scrambling. We just paid a mighty price for this ineptitude this summer with Moz and Deng. Jim is clueless and is just riding on the back of the bicycle. Worse, they were publicly humiliated by Aldridge when they tried to go up against Pop's pitch. His success in the draft is noted however it's the scouts doing the majority of the work there (Mitch didn't even know Zubac's name when calling it draft night) also note that we were extremely lucky to get our #2 picks these past few seasons despite our absolute tanking. This could have been far worse just by the roll of a couple balls.

We're suffering from the old adage: "Be careful who you kick on your way up, because they will kick you twice as hard on your way down". Mitch is not skilled in FA, the few scores we ever got under him (Malone, Peyton, Artest) all came of their own accord. I think he has left a bad taste in agent's mouths at this point and a house cleaning is all that's gonna reset our FA reputation.