he's best at backup 5, which luke had already determined, imo. he could be a starting 4 if your starting 5 is say, jokic or m. gasol (big enough to defend starting 5s and board, but skilled enough to shoot and pass--there's like, two of them). that said, given how terrible the team's been, it's fair for randle to ask for a chance to start at 4 next to lopez and with lonzo. it's not like we can much get worse. seriously. and THAT said, i think we'd be just as bad if not slightly worse, and we won't be playing the kind of basketball walton wants to play. he said defense...
Or Embiid, or Capela, or DeAndre, or Cousins, or Nurkic. The problem is length. I'm not saying Randle isn't the best we have at the moment, but I'm saying it's not the right move. While I agree he's improved defensively, primarily on the pick and roll, he does not have the defensive instincts be an anchor, and our team rotations are far too slow to try to cover that up either. We need someone inside who can disrupt the paint and allow our perimeter players to stay at home and focus on grabbing boards when the big is getting drawn out defensively. Another big component we've been sorely missing has been Lonzo's rebounding. When Lopez/Randle/Bogut are forced to help, no one is there to box out and rebound. Zo usually comes down and helps which was a big plus for our defense not giving up second chance points.
Randle was born and raised in Dallas. Woj came out and confirmed talks between LA and the Mavs revolving around Randle and Noel. Which came to be nothing cause Noel had gotten surgery done on his hand and just a couple days ago went to Cleveland to have the cast removed. There were also reports that LA was not willing to attach 1st round picks to Deng to dump him. You should know by now where this is going....but everything leading to this point implies LA is negotiating with Deng and Randle in mind as a package deal. Dallas has enough cap space to absorb both and give Randle a fat extension. They'll have roughly 35M in space this summer and would open up even more if Matthews decides to opt out of his 18M (which I doubt) and if they find a way to pay Dirk even less. Right now I can see a package of Deng/Randle for McBob/DHarris/Noel and I'm sure Dallas is trying to haggle for our future 2020 1st rounder. Also note that both Bogut and DHarris's contracts become fully guaranteed on Jan. 10th. If we can go get 2 stars and retain Harris and Noel at meager salaries, I'm totally fine with a trade like this even if that means we deal Randle to a team within the western conference. Now if we want to dump Deng and deal Randle to an Eastern conference team, I'm still looking at the Bulls cause its a big market, Deng and the Bulls have a familiarity with each other and the Bulls also have Butler's fat trade exception that would allow them to deal for our salaried players without sending more salary back to us. Also, come Jan. 15th, Niko is allowed to be traded and he has not rescinded his trade demand and indicated that he had no problem waiving his no-trade clause if the destination is to his liking. I believe in retaining Randle at a modest price point, but anything close to the max is a no go for me. However, I'm willing to do next to anything to dump Deng off onto someone. The 20xx plan gets so much grief, but the guys that just took over didn't contribute to the MozDeng deal (which was the cherry on top of the unsatisfying sundae that had us continually scoop out in free agency). I still don't understand how anyone can penalize the new FO due to the previous FO's failures. We need to clean this workspace up..or would you rather the current FO sat on their hands as nearly 40% of our cap space either sat at home or sat at the end of the bench?
Where is this report that states they wont use a 1st to dump deng? During the draft they supposedly offered an unprotected future 1st to move deng, so i don't see how that transition to not adding one now. Heres a logical question Vash, if dall really wants Randle, why absorb deng when they can just offer Randle a fat contract on day 1 of fa?
@Khmrp Dallas would do it we heavily incentivize it. I believe LA is haggling with Dallas about adding that future 1st rounder to a Deng/Randle package. If you pay attention to the dates that these reports came out, they were both right around Dec. 21st/22nd. Not to mention, the Deng report came from Bobby Marks and the Randle-Noel swap came from Woj...both them dudes work together at ESPN. IMHO, that just tells me both teams are negotiating through the press. Also, Dallas controls contract stipulations with Randle if they trade for him and his bird rights. They can pay him more that way, all while controlling how he gets paid in year 1 of his contract. You can't do that type of deal via free agency and you certainly have no control in bringing Randle in if he's a RFA this summer and the Lakers can match any competing offer.
Everyone around the leagues knows mgmt wants 2max, matching randle doesn't go with that plan....n dall should lean from wes mathews contract, giving more $ to a player for the hell of it is moronic....give randle his max rfa offer n watch magic/rob baulk at matching it -ill gladly eat a big fat plate of crow if a trade goes down as you proposed
i thought dallas was a good partner for randle/deng a while back, but the more i think about it the less workable it seems. dallas would like to be rid of noel (whose contract situation gives him zero value, nevermind his pathetic play), but they like their vets. i'm certain they'd love randle for noel, but that does jack squat for the lakers. the mavs have no use for clarkson, who i think plays well enough and has a contract palatable enough to be moved with randle. honestly, given the FA outlook, i think the organization needs to be thinking hard about really trying to work with randle for the rest of this year. i know they don't want it to be, but re-signing him may be the biggest splash they make in the summer.
LJ, actually I can totally see it happening. Randle's hometown is Dallas, so like we sent his other client, DLo, to a favorable market in New York, Mintz can find his client, Randle, a new contract back home so that his other client, George, can also head back home. We check the boxes there. For the longest time Dallas has been trying to get a frontline player. Since Tyson Chandler helped them get a title and then left, the Mavs have been trying to get that lightening in a bottle back. First they traded for LO with us, then they tried to get Dwight, then tried to get Tyson back and then thought they got DJ only to have him stolen back away by the Clips, then they tried to get Whiteside only to get blindsided again. Getting Randle finally puts an end to that search and as this season has shown, Randle can actually play as a small ball center if he's called upon to do that. Also being the defensive coach Carlisle is, I'm sure he will appreciate and effectively utilize how Randle flies around the court on the defensive side of the ball. With the Lakers publicly saying no to adding a 1st round pick to a Deng dump via the media, I'm sure Dallas wants us to sweeten a Randle/Deng package and of course the compromise would be that LA relents and adds the 1st round pick to the trade but only if it's heavily protected. Dallas agrees and now we got ourselves a deal. From the way Dallas has done business with Noel, im sure they want to use Randle's RFA status to their advantage....The only way they can is by trading for him, and with marquee free agents denying Dallas for years, maybe they look at a home town boy at the expense of eating Deng's contract as a win.
I actually liked Randle in the starting lineup at the 4 last night. Sure, we had a sluggish bad start, but once we got going I liked how Randle in there looked with the starters. They looked like a legitimate starting lineup for the first time this year. I think Randle's inclusion made things easier for the spacing with Lopez who played well IMO. The defense was better too. On top of that Nance played perfectly off the bench. He was the energizer bunny we are used to and he looked relieved to just play his natural game. He's so much better served in the bench role.
I can't put benching of randle on luke (few things i can give luke a pass)....imo randle treament is purely FO decision
Since when do LA players vent to Frank Isola? I don’t know, this story just seems off. Julius may not be here long term and it doesn’t really matter WHY his minutes were limited at this point, but he was playing very well and he’s played fairly well (with some slip ups) since being inserted into the starting lineup.
