What I don't like about PG13 is he has the Wizards/Westbrook syndroma , he thinks he's better than he really is . He still refuses to closely guard Ingles on spot up situations and the Aussie keeps draining these open 3s. Utah was clearly the better team before the series and still is after 4 games but Westbrook and PG13 still underestimate it .
Dayam! For those wanting to blow young talent out so we can have 3 max salaries at the top of the roster ...
funny thing is these "super max" designation was probably another "anti-laker" rule to prevent small market teams from losing their franchise player. Instead its destroying these small market teams cap. John Wall contract will be that ugly soon too.
Westbrook after Game 3: I’m shutting that **** down (Rubio) Westbrook after game 4: “it’s not about me and him.” This guy is a clown and I wouldn’t be surprised to see PG tank in Game 5. I think he’s ready to come home.
Flame me all you want, but I’m not getting giddy about PG coming to LA. I just don’t think he makes teams that much better. I’ll take him simply because he’s an upgrade over KCP.
He would be fine , he's somewhere between a 2nd and 3rd option , nothing more , nothing less. You're looking at a 5 to 8 wins bump with him ( if healthy from 45 to 48 wins) He's far from a Lebron or a Kawhi , but this is not news
I think you guys are underestimating the impact this guy would have on our team. But hopefully we will find out soon
Nothing has changed since the summer of 2017. 1. Paul George wants to be a Laker. 2. Westbrook, George, Carmelo are a terrible fit. The writing was on the wall and we're seeing it unfolding. PG in P&G is a lock. Never had any doubt.
In my opinion with the way the current CBA is constructed, there are two potential ways to increase your chances of contending via team building and beating the competition in regards to team structuring. 1) The first is kind of obvious, rookie contracts. But it’s not just as basic as having good rookies. It boils down to two things ultimately; 1-A) Draft a rookie in the low first round so their contract is cheap and make sure they can contribute like a good quality starting caliber player in this league - think Kuzma or Donovan Mitchell. Getting a rookie that can produce that well for a fraction of the cost (3 or 4m or under, Kuzma is 1.6m) is literally a franchise savour. 1-B) The other kind of rookie contract that helps you contend is a very top pick (picks 1-5) that produces like an All-Star caliber player. Think Porzingis, Embiid or Simmons. Basically you’re getting an All Star for 6-8m. This involves great scouting for the first part - finding diamonds in the rough whenever you need them is close to impossible - and great luck for the second - be bad in a year with generationally good prospects. The worst kind of rookie contracts are high draft picks that are paid a lot 8m+, but don’t contribute much at all. It’s just a waste when you could of signed a starting quality caliber player instead. Less worse are the lower draft picks that don’t work out. Based off this we have one really valuable player in Kuzma and three decently valuable players in Hart, Lonzo and Ingram based off contract size, current raw production and wins added. So our scouting department is great. 2) The second way to increase a team’s chances of contending is once kinda obvious; know how to give out good max contracts. It comes down to two parts again: 2-A) The single most important factor in this league is we don’t have uncapped contracts for stars and can’t pay them their truth worth. So the truly great super star players in the league - top 5 or so - are paid the “max” while the other “semi-stars” are paid the exact same. IF you can nab a superstar on a max contract - Lebron, Curry, Durant, AD, Kawhi - you’re almost guaranteed to be in the playoffs every year and if you add another semi star player on top of them or some decent supporting cast you have a chance to contend and win. On the flip side if you sign a player who isn’t a top 5 player to the max, your ability to truly contend becomes much harder - Derozan, Wiggins, Wall, Cousins, Paul George etc - there are far more of these players then the top 5. It’s not impossible to contend with them, just much harder because their win shares won’t be as good as the truly top guys. 2-B) The Super-Max aka Franchise Hamstringer aka Your Friendly Team Anchor aka the Deng of Contracts. I’m almost certain that a super max or designated max is going to be a good contract maybe 5% of the time only. Giving one player that much percentage of cap just doesn’t allow you to surround them with enough talent to compete. Even a duo of Kobe and Shaq needed help, with the new supermax, chances are we wouldn’t of had the supporting help to win 3 rings then. Say goodbye to Kobe/Pau/Odom/Metta/Bynum team with the supermax. This is the single worst mistake you can make giving this to anyone not in the top 5 for the whole duration of their contract and who’s to say injuries won’t affect them or age slow them over a 5 year deal. — It makes much more sense to me, to try and trade for a top player if possible so you can’t give them the supermax and be especially picky in who you max in general. Based of this I don’t believe Paul is one of those guys who makes it easier to contend with what he brings to the table.
All good points. I think a little of the shine came off of PG this year, but if we do max him, I think we just have to hope he looks like the PG of a few years ago in our system
yeah, because of the cap on maxes, having an mvp candidate is just such a trump card (and why i'd trade everything for one). the supermax thing is really interesting. sac already made a good choice (sac? good choice?) in just punting on cousins rather than facing the prospect of a supermax, and i think the spurs/leonard issues are probably somewhat related to this as well. long-term and overall, i think this is good--the top-shelf talent needs to be distributed throughout the league, and having one guy eat nearly half the cap might help this along. however, the giant loophole is still the trade market. harden's getting 40 million, and next year, houston will get to pay paul similarly (and they'll be able to keep capela on a huge deal as well). nobody else got a shot at paul because of the odd manner in which they traded for him. this is why i'm in favor of operating over the cap in the new cba. as long as you don't totally albatross it like we did with mozdeng (simple answer: huge but short contracts for useful veteran players), you're always in position to take on an impact player via forced trade. as for george...the lakers just need a "win". i don't think george makes us a contender at all, but his signing could restore some of the lost luster of the lakers as a FA destination, and his presence could create a situation where the next star who demands a trade out wants to come here because he's already got a capable second banana in place. i'm also a bigger george fan than most here, i've found. i think he's firmly in the second tier of players in the nba, which means he's good enough to be the best player on a perennial playoff team. i like that he plays both ends and isn't an off-court problem. he's also not a ballstopper, even if he's not a real facilitator. he would look better in luke's system than he does okc's. i'd gladly pay his max for that. in addition, his game *should* age pretty well. as he loses a step, which will happen by the end of his next contract, he'll drop into that third tier, but his strength, hoop iq, and shooting ability will keep him at least useful throughout his next deal, imo. his style of play also doesn't lend itself to catastrophic injury (not to say it can't happen--he already had one fluke--but this isn't like wall or westbrook, who are likely to get hurt).
Well I was painted a hater for saying he wasn't. Or maybe it was for saying he was a souped up Trevor Ariza He's good enough to lead us to 50 wins while we wait to sign for that 1st tier star in 2019 or 2020. Or ideally one of our youngins could develop into a franchise player. Either way signing PG is a no brainier with how much cap space we have. Just don't confuse him for a top tier star, or as the second coming of Kobe Bryant.
