Neither do I honestly. I'm still not convinced that LeBron will play PF, I guess we will find out soon. With that said we didn't extract any value out of Russell. Our young core of Russell, Clarkson, Nance, Randle and Ingram... Well 4 are gone. At least with Russell we got rid of Mozgov. Throwing away seasons in which you tanked means your rebuilding has lost a year or two. In other words... That's how pretty much 20 teams are rebuilding ever since the NBA was invented Thats why winning is difficult and many teams have never won in their history... Never. I'm not saying Jules should have been kept etc... I'm saying you didn't handle the situation right. It's a setback that you'll notice later down the road. For example if LeBron slows down which can happen at any moment through an injury. That's when you have to start rebuilding again... Without the assets that you had accumulated through years of tanking. That's when you start at ground zero again. Why is Cleveland f'd up now? When you have a guy like LeBron you are all in... Trading away your future picks.. Trading young players for established one... But gifting away players is stupid. Also take into consideration that LeBron has only 3-4 years... God knows what he looks like in 2 years... And you lay all your eggs into his basket while the Warriors have a lineup of 5 Allstars...chances of us winning a title in this 3 year window is like 15% and we are 1 injury away from the lottery tight now. We are talking hypotheticals here. I know but that's all stuff that the FO must take into consideration. It's not about just bringing a star or 2 to LA and celebrating yourself like you are godsend. It's about sustainable success. And this move is against my understanding of sustainability. I'm sorry. Gifting away Russell was already borderline but at least worth the risk. George didn't end up here but at least Mozgov was gone. This one though... We gained absolutely nothing.
Can't believe that at the end we blew the asset that was Julius Randle if they had other plans and the disrespect shown him after he did his best to do everything the FO continued to ask of him physically, and change on him at the 4 and 5 positions. Vash outlined yesterday how a sign and trade for Julius and Rondo would have been so much more advantageous for all parties and both teams. WTF? Magic and Rob are supposed to be smarter in this area than Jim and Mitch.
You missed the point bro. Julius has absolutely positively nothing to do with LeBron. If you give the FO a free pass for LeBron, then that's nice. It absolutely does not make all of their other decisions smart by default.
My feelings exactly realdeal. I will truly miss Julius, he was my favorite young player. But was he essential to us winning a championship? I guess we'll never know. He (and his agent which can't be stressed enough) decided to go a different direction. The two parties never seemed to be quite on the same page. I'm saddened that Julius won't be a part of our team any more, but I'm Lakers first all day every day. If you don't want to be here any more, so be it.
I keep trying to figure out why you are so down on the Lakers FO decision making KB24 and I have to say I don't get it. Assembling one year veteran contracts with guys who can fill out our roster is a good thing to do in preserving space for either Kawhi or another top tier agent next summer in my opinion. I get that you don't like Rondo, I don't either, but I think he's going to provide a great role for us next year. He can be the bad cop to Lebron's good cop with Lonzo. Ball needs it for his development to compete with a floor veteran for playing time. That was a severe weakness for us last year and one that we shored up. Stephenson will be a tough and savvy vet off the bench. McGee will provide some rim protection at 1/10th the cost of DeAndre Jordan. Do we still have holes to fill on the roster? Yes, but I have faith that we will do so. And by the way I was right about Cousins. He did not offer to come here for MLE money like he did for GS. He wanted $15 million. Would you have wanted to pay him that much for one year while trying to recover from a ruptured Achilles? I wouldn't do it, and I'm glad we didn't. https://www.nola.com/expo/sports/erry-2018/07/193b8a37389548/new_orleans_pelicans_will_be_b.html
LJ nailed it. I'm not saying Julius has to do with LeBron (he does), but the FO has earned our faith. They came through with LeBron, doesn't that buy some benefit of the doubt? All this talk of them f***ing up everything else is fool's gold to me. We didn't have faith in their drafts the last couple years, they came through. We didn't have faith they'd make the right moves in trades, they came through. Some didn't have faith they'd pull a FA, they did. They've earned some patience from us.
Boom! Thanks realdeal. And let's not forget what we are coming from: empty promises, terrible signings, awful coaching hires and putrid regular season flameouts from Mitch and Jim after Jerry Buss passed. Magic and Rob have built us right back up and we are in very good shape.
This makes .... .... as we could have S&T him to where he wanted to go in NO for Rondo whom we wanted. Unless Vash was wrong yesterday. Letting a high draft pick with his utility and ability to stay on the floor, who wanted to be here, walk for nothing totally seems like an eff up. And simplest and my favorite take .... again
All reports point to the fact that he and his agent did not want to be here. Or at least with what the Lakers were offering him. Thus they cut him loose. I believe that S and T would end up effecting our cap in ways we did not want, but I'm no expert on that stuff.
We do not control that decision, Julius (and more importantly) and his agent do. A sign and trade is really only beneficial to us, if they're pissed why would they help?
Well Vash would have to answer as he brought it up. I don't think he gives a **** about NBA Discussion board here though ... Lakers only hard core. And the Lakers could have handled Randle better than they did all last year and this off season. They disrespected the f*** out of him after he did his damnedest to do everything the FO and Luke wanted from him. No wonder he wanted out. Didn't need Mintz there would be my opinion.
Fair, but if you're the Lakers do you do anything differently? The way things went down netted them LeBron. Sometimes it is what it is and you have to make the tough call. Going to New Orleans I believe is the Mintz effect. Go somewhere that makes the Lakers look bad.
bummer to lose a good player like that wish we had a spot for him, and that his skill set and price tag fit our team leadership's vision but it was not to be. and I now, with a heavy heart, get to archive about 20 gifs into the section of "no longer Lakers"
Please keep em also on the main for the most part all of them page as well. Where the other ex Lakers of recent years still reside.
While I applaud the FO for most of the decisions they've made, I do feel it's a bit hyperbolic to lump together Lebron's signing and Randle's departure. I think we will regret how we dealt with his free agency. Different circumstance but similar in impact when we lost Odom for nothing IMO.
Are you serious? How is that any different from Lebron's Chosen One tat or Check my Stats shirt? And let's not act like our team is made up by saints....Kuzma, Lonzo, Hart with their childish behavior... Rondo, Stephenson, KCP, McGee, Zubac aren't exactly high character role models either. Guys like Ingram, Deng, Lopez and Randle were generally low maintenance pro's last year.
I'm not saying it's different or comparing it to the players we just signed. What I mean is people act like it was a one way street on how we treated Randle last season.
