Kawhi Leonard Discussion: “I’m A Snake Clipper Guy.”

add a second max next summer, then, if need be, use deng's expiring to bring in a third max-ish guy the following year.

profit.

 

Not trying to undermine your well thought out post Alcindor, but I'm with abeer in that the 3max window isn't necessarily closed.

My personal endgame would be to add Kawhi and AD. Considering that AD is underpaid @ 25m this year and 27m next year, I would use our young stable of players to trade for him while using our cap to max out Kawhi next summer.

I doubt NO takes on Deng's contract, so we would either have to trade for him next summer and absorb some of his contract via a Deng stretch (btw, the deadline for 7.4m for 5 years is Aug. 31st, while if we waive him after that then it would count as 6.3m over 3 years of dead cap) or trade for AD this year with a combo of our 1 year expiring deals along with our youngns and then stretch Deng next summer to create enough cap to max out Kawhi.

Next summer Bron is @37.4m, a Kawhi max is @32.7m, Zo is @8.7m, BI is @ 7.3m, Moe is @2.1m, Kuz is @2m, Hart is @1.9m, Svi is @1.4m, Bonga is @1.4m and a Deng stretch is 6.3m of dead cap...so for 9 players (about 2.5m for an incomplete roster of 3 spots) our team salary is about 103.7m with cap space of about 5.3m. That means we can at the very least absorb AD's 27.1m into our cap space and have to send out about 17.4m in salary to complete a legal trade. That implies that we can still hold onto BI, but will have to trade Zo along with Kuz, Hart, Moe, Svi and Bonga to have enough salary to trade for AD. We can't hold onto Zo and send out BI in his place cause we would be short about 1.5m in outgoing salary. If we wanted to spare more of our youth, we also have the option to send out Zo and BI and only have to include either Svi or Bonga in that package. So its pretty much BI vs Kuz, Hart and Svi or Bonga in terms of who to spare in a potential AD trade, if we had a choice in the matter.

Either way, pairing AD and the Klaw with Bron makes us instant competitors and I think its absolutely worth sacrificing our youth for that trio.

Speaking of the Klaw's paws....





Make that man a Laker asap please!....unless of course AD is a real option, then we would have to wait to add Kawhi next summer via cap space rather than trade.

 

Believe me I'd love to be wrong and get a 3rd max FA and keep our youth pr most of our youth. I'll even be positive enough here to say that someone surprisingly develops (like a Zu or a Mo) and we can package off Deng with our picks for the foreseeable future and off-load 20 mil right there. The big problem is, and this is before even getting into getting rid of some core youth that may look a lot more un-expendable come 12 months from now, AD is still not a FA next summer and there would be plenty of competition in a bidding war for him not the least from the C Bags but from many others.

I didn't meant to say there wasn't way to get a 3rd max FA if we were willing to give up the farm, the barn, the roosters, the main house and the '62 John Deer tractor 'round back and I understand what a catch AD is but I think it's easier said than done and done at great expense. I still think we get our 2nd max FA, preferably Kawhi and see what these 4 kids are doing a year from now before penciling AD. What I meant was that getting Kawhi while on his current 20 mil deal gave us a real way to the 3rd but No doubt Rob and Maj need to have all option such as the above on the board as one of many possibilities. It's just that now it's a real long shot because the money is a real issue along with the many other issues.

But really, that plan works a lot better with a complete dump of Deng and btw I really think there is no intention to stretch Deng next summer, only as a last resort. I think MagRob did well not panicking and waiting until his deal's final year. I think they feel they can dump him for pics (like all of them) and a non core piece say Zu and Bonga.

LBJ 37.4
Kawhi 30.5
Lonzo 8.7
BI 7.3
Mo, Kuz, Hart = 6.0
a couple more mil for Svi etc.

Resign and offload Zu and Bonga with the pics (for instance) that would be about 90, mil. Subtract a couple mil for room for error and we have 16 mil cap then assuming we off Deng entirely. A lot closer to the 17 mil needed. Then the other problem and the real problem I believe, becomes the other offers to NO. There will be massive packages being offered. Also AD is too nice to pull off the "I'm only going to the Lakers" bit. Probably wouldn't even do it.

 

Oh no doubt AD is pipe, considering that NO is also in the West and NO would probably send him east like SA did with Kawhi (which is why I hope the NBA changes the postseason format to the top 16 teams make the playoffs regardless of conference...that will make the trade market more fluid since teams will be more willing to trade inter conference.) But AD is and has been my end game for a minute. No matter what TIME it is, I trade up to 11 players easily for that guy. Also, if a 3rd team isn't involved, fans can't expect to dump Deng onto Toronto or NO and trade for guys like Kawhi or AD, respectively....that's not realistic no matter how much leverage we have in trade talks.

Also if we trade for Kawhi using anybody but Zo and BI then we'd have his 32.7m cap hold on the books next summer. So lets assume we got off of Deng's contract in a Kawhi trade, then along with Bron, Zo, BI and a 8 player incomplete roster charge (about 6.5m), we would have roughly 16.5m in cap space....not enough for even a 0-6 seasoned max player (27.3m) to outright sign and add to the team. So that would mean we would HAVE to trade one of Zo or BI to get another max player and that's the thing, at the very best, we will be able to keep either BI or Zo in a 3 max player configuration, but certainly not both.

Speaking of trading our youth, here's a clip of Paula explaining how salty he is that LA didn't come get him and how he didn't give Magic/LA a meeting. Its from the 41:45 mark to about the 47:20 mark of the video.


First of all, we don't want you...so go enjoy the rest of your days with Russ in OKC. Secondly, I'm almost certain that dude and his agent got wind that we didn't want them and would rather have Kawhi instead, so they chose OKC at midnight and tried to save face.

Also, I love how he pretty much confirms Mintz is a s***ty agent and states he wants to go to a contender yet is completely tone deaf that if we gutted our team to trade for him (as Indy wanted to do), he would be incapable of making us a competitor with his candy a** leading whatever remnants were of that team. Also not giving us a meeting is terribly disrespectful and disingenuous when we made trades to accommodate 2max players....we had enough cap to just sign Bron with the DLo trade, so go f*** off Paula with not wanting to "waste people's time"...you wasted far more than that you douche.

I maintain that getting him on the Lakers would have been valuable in the sense that we had another trade chip to better the team, but I'm so happy his soft a** mentality isn't part of this team. Kawhi is that dude and him over Paula all day, so hopefully we can make that happen.

Also Kawhi's and Paula's are different paths. Folks want to compare the 2, but I see them as incomparable. Russ wanted Paula there in OKC with him and didn't feel some kind of way with Dipo heading out...meanwhile Lowry for sure feels a certain way about DeMar heading out and may never connect with Kawhi. Also Palmdale, Indy and OKC are pretty similar while San Diego, San Antonio and Toronto are vastly different. Kawhi is coming back home...no doubt in my mind, but will the cLips swoop in and cp3 us again....that's my worry.

 

Who's Paul George?

 

Spoiler: You goddamn right I am =)

 

Done with Pauline. The Laker's ship left, he wasn't on the dock. As for his talk about possibly coming here later, like we are a retirement home or something for players that shunned us and now are are older and looking for that that last huge contract and retiring at home in LA? Forget it. It don't work like that. Stay in Tulsa or wherever. Eventually they'll hang your jersey up on the clothes line for making them a top 3 team in the Northwest division. Maybe you'll even get a guest appearance in the corn field on Hee Haw.

I like Paul and I actually respected his decision to go to OKC. Man's got to do what's right for him and his family. I though it was a dumb decision, both basketball-wise and money-wise as OKC won't contend and his contract with them was not max. They were cap-strapped whether he took a discount or not, might as well go for the bank. But where he crosses the line for me is when they talk about LA, he implies basically that he can still come here, it's not his last contract. Like it's his decision at that point. We will have so moved on by then.

 

palmdale puss can sign with paperclipps

 

Kawhi/LABron/Lakers talk starts @ the 9:45 minute mark and ends around 25:30 minute mark.

 

Recap?

 

Kawhi may or may not end up coming to the Lakers

 

So still no footage even from stoopid vertical phone camera person types of him playing any ball. Only the still image of his ginormous hands being spotted at UCLA the other day. Going to turn out to be fake just like they faked the moon landings.

 

Nothing really new. But Woj does feel like this situation is different than Paula's since Kawhi is a different man (well more of a man) than Paula is and Kawhi initially didn't want the trade to Toronto, unlike Paula, who gave OKC a fair chance and was open minded to staying even after he was supposedly "hellbent" on coming to LA. Nothing of note in the pod other than Woj still believes Kawhi is more likely to bounce from Toronto to head to LA and not pull a b**** a** move like Paula did.

I find it interesting that Shams was the guy that gave cLips a real shot at getting Kawhi, but clearly Shams has intel into the Spurs (broke Pop was already meeting with Kawhi in SD when others like Woj saying he was enroute to meet Kawhi and just yesterday broke Manu retiring). So I think Shams was actually peddling Spurs propaganda in increasing the Lakers offer by saying how much Kawhi wanted to go to the cLippers because he wants to be the man, rather than join LABron on the Lakers. But just like not getting squeezed by the Spurs pre-June 30th into making a deal to secure LABron, we never increased our offer after we locked up LABron, so Kawhi was sent to Toronto and the Spurs got what they wanted in that at least one other team didn't think it was Lakers or bust and pulled the trigger.

Woj has been consistent in that his Intel still maintains that Kawhi prefers the Lakers over the cLips even after Bron commited to the Lakers.



Imho, I love Shams, but I think this whole cLipper thing was a SA leverage ploy to get more out of the Lakers, but that rumored "godfather" offer never came...instead, it was just another way for SA to get a deal done.

 

I agree regarding the whole Clipper crap... I believe it was a leverage ploy too.

 

One d****** picked OKC over LAL. Can't imagine Kawhi picking tennants over us... but hey, stranger things has happened

 

Send LeBron your avatar and tell him that's how his beard should look.

 

This one is my favorite for some reason. It just fits, but I could make his beard longer.