I'm starting to lean that way too. If we get a big (which for whatever reason I think is likely to happen if we are lucky enough to keep our pick), then I'm okay with getting Rondo for value. I might trade Kelly and Sacre if I could get a pick for them. If you can get Rondo for 12-14 million, then you've got 8 million to spend elsewhere. Maybe to keep guys like Davis and Ellington around who really want to be here and can help be a foundation of a strong bench. Not to mention maybe you can nab a guy like Danny Green away from San Antonio. Rondo- 12 Davis- 5 Green- 3-4 Ellington- 2 (BAE) Rondo/Clarkson Bryant/Ellington Green/Young Randle/Black Towns/Davis That's a rock solid lineup and bench.
sign kris middleton draft a C and throw some $ @ brand knight/gasol/aldrige. If it doesn't work you always got 2016
If we draft a big though, I'm not sure I go the Rondo route, even at a value price (i.e. 10-12 million). I like Rondo more than most around here, but if we get a big through the draft he's going to need the ball. So will Randle. If we are going to develop two bigs then I want a PG who is a great passer to the post and an outside shooting threat for spacing. I'm not convinced that either Rondo or Dragic is that guy. Now if we were to draft a wing, then I wouldn't mind having a Rondo or Dragic if he comes with a more reasonable price tag. Marc Gasol is still my dream signing but I don't think it happens. And if we luck out and draft a Towns or Okafor then I'd rather just develop one of them and spend elsewhere.
Greg Monroe posted a solid line tonight. His 2 missed free throws down the stretch hurt, but otherwise he played well and hustled all game, unlike Reggie Jackson. Still not sure he's a max guy, but if the Lakers end up with a guard in the draft he may be our most realistic free agent option in the post.
Definitely showed some good and some bad. He's a reliable half court scorer that's for sure. It seemed like he was pressing a little like he knew it was an audition tonight to be a Laker next year. I'm still very high on him. We could do a LOT worse than pick up Monroe this summer. A 25 year old with his skill - set along with Randle, Top 5 Pick, and Clarkson? That's a hell of a young core.
I've wanted to post an in depth response to the Rondo at a discount discussion for a few days but my downtime while working is random & usually very short. Any time that I can step away from the office is spent doing what I can for a loved one who recently fell very ill. I wrote this up during random downtime over the last few days. It's a lot to read & I apologize if my thoughts are hectic at times but I think the logic behind every scenario is sound & only differs based on opinions on players involved. Before even considering offering Rondo a deal starting at 10-12M, we need to first: - See if Dragic really gets the max or close to it. If it's Rondo for 10-12 or Dragic for 14-15, I'm giving Dragic 15. - Explore every option for getting Brandon Knight &/or Jimmy Butler. We'd have to get really lucky with Chi or Phx not matching a max offer, or something happening to make 1 of them want out badly enough to threaten to pull a Monroe & play for the QO & become unrestricted. Noone lets these type of players walk for nothing. It'd turn into a S&T where the highest bidder wins. We'd have to give up atleast Hou 1st/Clarkson/2nd rounders. With Chi not looking to rebuild I could see them wanting Young too, & possibly wanting us to find a 3rd team that will give up a veteran for Clarkson. I'm high on Clarkson just like the rest of you but I don't see him being as good as either of these players, especially Butler. Landing either player makes a ball dominant Rondo a bad idea at any price. ^ In all 3 of these scenarios, we could dump Kelly/Sacre/Young(if not already traded) to create the room to sign another good FA(Middleton) & bring Ed Davis back. Dragic would be my last pick between those 3 players for a straight up FA signing , but keeping Clarkson + the picks makes it my #1 choice. - Explore every potential trade for a younger starting PG that isn't as injury prone. Put everything except the core on the table. Houston's 1st, 2nd rounders, absorbing unwanted salary, Young, Hill(before we decline his option of course), S&T Lin, Kelly, Sacre,Targets could include everything from rookie contracts to guys almost Rondo's age without the injury history/signs of decline. Some examples OTOH: Payton, Burke, Lawson, Knight, Conley, Bledsoe, Jrue, Lowry, Walker, Teague, IT. Don't put Clarkson, Randle, or our top 5 pick on the table unless it's a deal we'd look like idiots for turning down. I had a long list of potential trades but they were so ridiculous I edited to avoid looking even more delusional than I already look for the other ideas. Just to give you 1 example of the madness, Okafor or Towns + S&T Lin, or Mudiay or Russell + Hill for Payton + Vucevic. All of those options are better than Rondo in my opinion so it's worth trying, but they range from unlikely to fantasy land. So assuming none of it happens & our top 5 pick is our only major acquisition, in order for Rondo to make sense at 10-12M we need to: - Draft a C or wing, most likely a C given our track record. If we draft a PG in the top 5, Rondo completely exits the picture. I'm going to assume we draft Okafor or Towns to avoid another page of scenarios for drafting a wing or PG. - Find out as much as we can as fast as we can about our young core. I'm very confident in Randle & Clarkson because we've already seen them play at the NBA level & show flashes of being anywhere from solid starters to stars. It's just a matter of continuing to improve & staying healthy. We can't expect much from the Houston pick or 2nd rounders, if we luck into another Clarkson I'll build a shrine for Mitch, but my expectations are low. Our top 5 pick is my main concern. Even eventual greats sometimes take a few seasons to make any kind of impact. Workouts & scrimmages aren't ideal for evaluating what his immediate impact will be, but it's all we're going to get before it's time to make a decision on Rondo. I trust Mitch to know what we have. Hopefully Cap will come watch the kid too, we know he'll always tell it like it is. - Not a subject I enjoy reading others write about, let alone write about myself. But of course we have to wait & see if Kobe suffers another injury before FA gets here. We have to see if he makes a full recovery & can atleast still play like he did to start last season, hopefully with a little more life in his legs. Or see if he looks like he lost another step. - Before Rondo, sign or trade for a wing like Middleton or someone with a similar impact, around the same age, with no major red flags for injuries or being a bad teammate(no absorbing Lance's contract). Shouldn't be too hard to pull off. All of this is to make sure we have what it takes to be a playoff team next season without Rondo, & hopefully make it through at least 2 rounds with Rondo or even win the West if everything falls into place. So if Okafor/Towns looks like he's ready to make an immediate impact, Randle & Clarkson look like they've improved like we expect them to, Kobe is healthy & looks like Kobe still, we're able to get Middleton or a comparable player, none of the better options than Rondo are available, pull the trigger. Sign Rondo for 10-12M for as many years as it takes. The Middleton signing is key because he's good enough to start on a playoff team right now, but at just 23 he's also a great addition to our young core of Okafor/Towns, Randle, Clarkson. So it allows us to basically be a playoff team while also rebuilding. Kobe comes off the books & then the cap jumps up. Who knows how that's going to go but I like our odds of looking very appealing to anyone. Next we'd dump salaries to create some extra space for players we need more than Young/Kelly. There's no point dumping Sacre since his salary isn't much more than a cap hold & we Start with finding a team interested in Nick Young, He's still a very good player for the price. We need a bench full of shooters surrounding Rondo. Nick is a shooter but not the kind we need. We just need role players who primarily spot up for 3's & play D. We don't need him creating his own shot on this team but it's a a valuable skill that someone might want to trade for. We also need Nick gone because his contract is the only 1 big enough that dumping it allows us to bring back Ed Davis at a reasonable pricelike 3/12. With an unproven rookie C, I can't stress enough how important having a backup as good as Ed is. Hopefully whoever trades for Young will also take on Kelly & send us a last 1st/early 2nd or 2. We really don't need a player in return because the rest of our needs are available in FA. Orlando, Indiana, Chicago, & Detroit will all be after Young in my opinion, after Harris leaves they'll all be in need of a scorer on the wing. Hopefully there's enough competition for him that we can get a 1st from someone. It's tough to calculate cap space correctly without knowing the exact amount Middleton & Rondo will get, but assuming it's around 20 combined with Ed starting a little over 3, I think we have 4M remaining + the room exception starting at 2.9 & minimum contracts. We don't know what position the player we draft with the Houston pick will be or if they'll be traded/make the team, so I'll just fill our remaining needs as if they aren't there & add it at the end. We need a backup PG who can hit the 3 & split minutes with Clarkson if Rondo gets hurt. We need a veteran stretch 4 to give our young bigs at least 1 mentor type & stretch the floor next to Rondo. We need a backup SF who can knock down the 3. If he could also play D & get to the rim that'd be a nice bonus. The obvious choice for the stretch 4 is Scola. There's more competition for the backup SF spot with DeMarre Carroll, Dunleavy, Gerald Green, Danny Green, Singler. I would hope for DeMarre or D. Green but settle for any of them. Assuming Carroll is happy with a raise from 2.5 to the 2.9 room exception & Scola takes 2 of the remaining 4M, we should be able to get Stuckey for 2M. Rondo/Stuckey Kobe/Clarkson/Ellington Middleton/Carroll Randle/Scola/Hou 1st or Black Okafor or Towns/Davis/Sacre Either I'm undervaluing these roleplayers, getting the cap numbers wrong, both, or it really is possible to build a very good team around Kobe & Rondo .
The Draft pick will define the strategy for the Lakers. I really like Monroe, but the team is being built to win the championship, and Monroe is not a guy you have confidence in him to run your defence. so for me it's about combination from what we get in the draft and what we sign. Towns in the 3rd/4th pick and signing Monroe will be perfect. you get Randle's and Monroe's offensive weapons while Towns and Ed Davis keeping the basket clean. if we don't get Towns, and go after a PG in the draft, the FO needs to go after a Diandre Jordan kind of guy in FA.
Great and epic post up above LakersN4. I pretty much agree with the gist of what you are talking about re: Rondo at the discounted price and I like your other scenarios and reasoning.
The only issue with Butler/Knight being RFA is waiting on an offer sheet from both the player and originating team. Now, I don't know the specific rules on if we can rescind an offer sheet if say, another UFA or RFA accepts an offer, but I would assume that it will put a time strain on signing other free agents.
@LakersN4 there's a lot of good in there and some bad. For instance I'd never trade this pick or Randle unless we're getting back LeBron, Durant, Davis, Curry, Harden, or any other MVP candidate. I won't do it. We need these young players to develop a long-term base that leads to maximized Championship contention. I don't need to get their fast, I need to get there and STAY there. Another thing I'd avoid: RFAs. I know there's some good ones, but we don't have time to waste on them. There's enough high profile UFAs that we could use that we absolutely shouldn't waste our time with RFAs. I'd rather waste my team pitching Marc Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge than offer a large chunk of our cash to an RFA, have them get matched, and then miss out on a real opportunity elsewhere. The only way I go after an RFA is if I already have someone signed. For example- We have 20 million to spend. Chandler Parsons's deal started at 14.7 million. Let's say we offer Butler a similar contract using 15 million as an estimate. The Bulls take the max allotted time to match the offer, then we miss out on Dragic, Aldridge, Monroe, Gasol, Love, Rondo, etc. Great now we're settling for... Stuckey? No way am I doing that. I'd rather throw the kitchen sink at a UFA and let them have a huge paycheck than miss out on a potentially gamechanging player this summer. We don't have the luxury of missing this off-season, we need to get SOMETHING. I do however agree that unless Rondo wants to sign at a reasonably discounted price, we should look at all our other options. Dragic is the first PG I call this summer. Rondo is the second. If his demand is too high, I start calling RFAs and lower level UFAs (like Mo Williams, Lou Williams, even Lin). If he's willing to come for between 8-12 million then let's play ball. Rondo @ 8-10 million leaves us with a LOT of options assuming we draft our next big man. Just off the top of my head- Lakers have ~ 37 million with Kobe, Young, Sacre, Black, Randle, Clarkson, and Kelly. Draft picks are worth ~6 million, total is 43 million. Cap holds bring it to about 45 million. Estimated Cap = 67.4 million so we've got 22.4 million to spend. Rondo @ 10 million (leaves us 11.4 million to spend after Cap Hold adjustment) Demarre Carroll @ 4 million (leaves us 6.9 million to spend after Cap Hold adjustment) Ed Davis @ 5 million (leaves us 1.9 million with no Cap Holds left) Wayne Ellington @ 1.9 million Rajon Rondo/Jordan Clarkson/Hou. 1st Kobe Bryant/Wayne Ellington Demarre Carroll/ Nick Young/2nd Round Pick Julius Randle/Ryan Kelly/Tarik Black Jahlil Okafor/Ed Davis Waive Sacre to make space if you want to, or just keep him and don't play him. That team is rock solid and has a shot at making the playoffs because of their depth at every position. That 2nd unit has hung in games this season by themselves. Then Kobe's contract expires, the cap jumps, and oh hello Durant here's a perfect home for you to step into and bankloads of money and opportunities. Even if Durant doesn't come, we've got plenty here to grow and develop with anyway. I dig that team a lot and I'd be happy to root for them.
In general, I don't have a problem with RFAs, but the stars have to align before you push that contract in front of him. 1) You have to have a general feel for what the other team will do [we don't know what Chi is thinking] 2) You have to know that player has interest in playing for your team [we don't know that about Butler] 3) You have to feel confident about your backup plans if you fail to land that RFA [need vs. available talent not in our favor based on our empty roster] 4) You have to be prepared to wait a week to not get your guy [LA can't afford that] Currently, I don't think we're in a position to tie up our money for up to a week. While the team only has three days to match, as you saw last summer, the original team tries to stretch that as long as they can to F with the other team.
With the emergence of Clarkson, I see NO scenario where it makes sense to sign Rondo. Clarkson is better than Rondo RIGHT NOW. By any statistical metric and on the court impact, right now Clarkson is a better player than Rondo. For me, I do not see a scenario where we should sign Dragic either, although I do believe Dragic is a decidedly superior player to Clarkson at the moment. If we draft a guard, we play him with Clarkson. If we draft a center, we shore up our wing spots. People are looking at Rondo from 3 years ago. He is not that player anymore. He hasn't been since the ACL and the departure of 3 HoFers surrounding him. Do we expect him to be better with less talent around him here in LA? And all that is merely the on court stuff. Off the court he has had run-ins with 2 of the 3 best coaches in the game. If you are naive enough to believe that, "He has fire. Him getting into it with coaches shows he cares!" then you have given up on being rational, and are just painfully desperate for the Lakers to do something. It's one thing to have disagreements with a coach. It's another to be an obvious malcontent. I'd sign Lin to an MLE level offer before Rondo. At least Lin won't sabotage the team. And to be honest, he's playing just as well.
Q: On whether he has given management a list of free agents that he would want to play with: Bryant: No, I’m not involved like that, and I don’t want to be. You’ve got to give them space and let them do their jobs. They’ll come to me. (General Manager) Mitch (Kupchak and I) have had a great relationship, been talking. They’ll come to me when the time is right. http://www.nba.com/lakers/news/150310_kobebryant?cid=tw
