Don't backtrack what you said originally. You were willing to trade Ingram to please your kang. Ingram along with Julius and Clarkson is half our core. I'd trade Julius for Lebron straight up in a millisecond. When was that even brought up? Don't put words in my mouth. You're proposing gutting our team to get a scent of your dream player who ain't even coming.
i'm making perfect sense. they had james harden established as an in-his-prime allstar before anyone would look at them. how did they get him? they traded their "core".
Wow let all that hate out. Feel good? How's it feel to put Julius Randle over the Lakers? Make you feel like a real strong fan does it? I bet it does. You're the fan we've all needed to rescue us. Thank you so much for being here. I haven't backtracked anything at all. I'd trade Ingram in a second if it got us 3 max level players on the roster. I wouldn't blink or hesitate. All I care about is #17, I don't give a flying squirrel if these kids are here when that happens. I'd trade this whole roster for the Warriors but I guess I'm not supposed to say that because... honor? Julius is as much a part of the core as you are at this point. So was Dion Waiters at one point in Cleveland. Ingram is certainly part of the core. So was Wiggins once upon a time. I'm good though. Give me Love and a title. Your love for Julius has hit a complex level. You do you and keep him forever. When he's gone to Atlanta and our team is more competitive, maybe you can follow him over there. My loyalty is to the Lakers and LeBron gets us closer to a title than Julius. End of story. Go ahead and vilify me so you can feel like a "real" fan. It's fun to watch you defend Julius against all logic and against the Lakers.
LOL what are you talking about? I'd trade Randle for any allstar player. Your fanboyism for Lebron is the real issue here. Anyways, moving on.
Huge elephant in the room, that I'm sure most folks want to "dodge" today. That being said, emotions are on edge and heck even the weather is acting up in LA as a result. We're all Laker fans here, but some of us are really tired of waiting on the youth to grow, especially if they've already been give a fair chance. We're thirsting for #17 and the 2018plan gets us there the quickest. I personally would choose that route as opposed to waiting out the Warriors to see if this young core really has it or not. We're the 3rd youngest team in the league and even if it takes some sacrificing of that youth to bring in a star, I'm pretty sure we'll still have some of the remaining young core in tact. Randle's 3 year tenure here along with his contract stipulations makes him the easiest target to move from the core IMHO. You put any of our young core in Randle's shoes and it would be them that was put in all the trade rumors. The timing has it where Randle's pay will balloon just when notable free agents become available. Its not Randle hate...its common sense. If you had to choose, you go with the star...and especially you go with the option where you could get 2 stars. The reason most of us want LaBron is cause he's the best player in the league right now and has proven that a Finals projection can be expected. But more importantly, when LaBron is part of the equation, other stars are also involved. Even as LaBron heads into his twilight, you have another star to build around as a result. Bron always likes to buddie up, so wanting LaBron in LA means we become an instant contender all while having more than just one star come along for the ride. Factor in that most of our youth, including our own budding star (Zo) wants to play with the guy, and its a match that makes way too much sense not to explore.
Of course we should explore that route, but the 2018 plan, like any other plan, could fail miserably. Randle is our backup plan should we strike out on the Big 3 FA's. We could end up losing him for nothing, but I prefer having that insurance over trading him for a future 1st.
I see what you're saying, but lets look at some of the current star trades. Irving trade involved a 1st rounder. Butler trade involved 1st round swaps. PG trade didn't involve a 1st rounder. Carmelo didn't involve a 1st rounder. OKC was the only team that voted against draft reform. Looks like Presti/OKC values those 1st rounders. Hypothetically, if OKC does not work out and the trade deadline approaches, would Randle or a 1st round pick intrigue Presti more for a PG deal? With a 1st round pick, you don't have to worry about salaries matching up and you don't have to worry about contract extensions and losing the player in free agency (ie Randle). That is why Real and I prefer a 1st round pick if Randle is truly not in the longterm plans. Potentially trading for a star player puts you over the top if you have a 1st rounder as a trade asset. Presently we don't have one to trade away. Will trading Randle hurt in terms of wins and losses...absolutely. But we've seen star players come to losing teams, as long as there is the potential to get better in the short term. We got trade bait with our young core and we've got the most cap space heading into 2018 (even with Deng on the roster).
lol, i'm actually arguing two points on either side: 1. randle hasn't proven to be a core-worthy player. 2. i wouldn't trade randle (or ingram) for more magic beans (cap space). probably not clarkson, either. any of them are out the door the second a non-declining allstar's name is on the other end of that phone, though. if i were management, ingram would be an indiana pacer right now.
I'm with abeer's point no.2. Not a fan of moving productive players to prepare for hypothetical scenarios. Trade deadlines and free agency are a s***storm. Anything can happen.
Woohoo!! (I guess .... right?) LeBron says he wants to be a Laker now that the 2018 season is over, and the Lakers playing by the rules so as not to get fined or worse, have waited until after the draft next year when FA formally starts to know this for a certainty. And .... wait for it..... PG wants to come too. Hot damn!! EDIT. To get it right I guess I should reverse the order. PG with all the brush fires and smoke first about wanting to come home. LBJ his sidekick? Awww g-dammit. ... we still got Moz and Deng's huge salaries still on the books. Wow how far do we have to bend over and spread em to get a team or teams to help us unload them now right in the middle of free agency so the Lakers can build a Super team again? What players do we have on the roster to make them want to do that REAL quick so we can figure out the rest of our off season? Versus what actually happened, when it happened and the way our roster looks today for a fact because of it. Hell yeah LBJ come on over and we can "tweak" a couple more things to have cap room to bring your boy (PG?) too. (or vice versa) Because we traded no defense, streaky offense, (bad attitude?) D. Russell back prior to the last draft and beefed up the roster because of it with that draft pick that came along with the player coming back and the "allegedly" near impossible to unload contract of "unmitigated disaster" T. Mozgov that stoopid Mitch and Jim signed at 12:01AM last year...... gone. Just like that. Out of the way. Taken care of. All for the cost of D. Russell. I'd be much more "annoyed " with the Lakers having that be their plan and getting reamed by any of the jealous teams needed to make all that happen in a short period of time once FA started next year.
To add to what LT said...The FO chose a direction/culture and committed to it. Why would you chance discourse between Zo and DLo? LA clearly wanted to change the culture AND add a star via the DLo trade. Indy wanted no part of that, so we circled back and went to Brooklyn. At the very least with that deal we established a culture, chose our definitive leader in Zo, got a lesser allstar in BLo, locked up Kuz (just in case BK was interested in adding to their frontline as seen with the Carroll/Crabbe trades after the draft) and... *muffled voice* #2018plan
I thought Randle was having a very good game until the terrible foul calls took him out of play. Those two "illegal" screen calls were just absurd given what I've seen in this league. 10 6 and 2 assist in 16 minutes. Hopefully the refs let him play more next game.
Agreed, thought he played well again. Refs screwed him all night with bad calls fouled him out. My favorite sequence of the game might have been the one where we got a block or a steal (can’t remember now if that was the Ingram block) and JC took it to the hoop and dropped it back for a Randle 2-hand jam.
I get what you're saying, and I agree to an extent, but at this point, Randle doesn't have to be our backup plan anymore. If LBJ doesn't come, we still have two power forwards under contract in Nance and Kuzma. Obviously in my dream scenario, Kuz, Ingram, and Ball continue to improve and become studs. We use Clarkson and Randle off the bench as our super-subs and we simply get a deluxe upgrade in PG-13 over KCP. But that's a lot of things that have to happen. We will likely need to let Randle go simply because his contract came up at the wrong time. But my hope is we don't give him up unless it's for LBJ signing here. I'd rather have Lopez + Randle than Cousins as a second all-star to PG-13.
Really enjoying Randle’s play. I know he will want the max at the end of the season and what I’m seeing so far from him, he probably deserves it. It just won’t be with the Lakers. His defense has been great and he is showing basketball I.Q.
Solid game by Julius (again). Glad to see he reached his daily quota of charge calls. LOL He seriously can't go a game without one.
