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

well, of course. still shouldn't have let west go across the hall. at any cost. i said so at the time, and don't feel differently about it now.

 

Agreed. I remember feelingg very uneasy when they got him. I was also confused on WHY Jerry West would go to the effing clippers of all teams...then I saw them make moves right away and thought "uh oh"...this is textbook Jerry West right now.

I'm def worried about them...and if anybody thinks this is the Clippers of old...they're not. They really shouldn't have the record they have right now...

 

I will never worry about the Clippers in any context. My DNA doesn't allow for it.

Death, taxes, and Clippers clipping.

 

Raps are 7-1 without Kawhi this year.

See bruh, the north don't need ya, so come on back home to the southland.

Either way, if dude stays up there, its great cause you need teams continuously challenging the cbags out east.

I fear the Logo, but we have his kin and the Kang. cLips will have to really manipulate their books to get enough cap space for both Kawhi and KD next summer....but I just don't see it happening and even if it does...I'd still take Bron/AD.

 

I hate comparing Paula to Kawhi, cause I just think they're vastly different personalities. Plus Russ placed his flag into Okc so he did his best to show Paula OKC is where it's at. Meanwhile there is no love lost between Lowry and Masai, so that Lowry-Kawhi dynamic isn't really comparable to Russ-Paula.

The only thing that I find comparable between their situations is that the Lakers were so linked to Paula that actual tampering charges were found. So if the cLips are super linked to Kawhi (showing up to 50-75% of his games and canning Bowen for talking reckless about him), I ain't going to sweat it cause there seems to be no sure thing in the NBA. And even if it is a sure thing, why send scouts to all these games. I guess they're not that confident in it being a sure thing.

And on that note, I think it's almost a sure thing that Bron and AD are bound to link up at some point...

 

We’ve already heard in the media Kawhi, Durant and Butler don’t want to play with Lebron. I get the feeling Lebron is in the same position Kobe was from 2012 onwards.

He is too old to be a long term piece and one injury away from the window closing. It’s one of the main reasons we couldn’t sign anyone to be Kobe’s running mate and not the false media narrative that no one wanted to play with him.

No star player wants to jump in with a superstar that is almost at the end of their career. Chris Paul might be another good affirmation of that principal if he has really dropped off this badly so far this season.

 

This is why we need to make a move for AD this season. We do that, and then we don't have to worry about convincing anyone to come here.

 

Or we need to pivot from the cap space plan and bring in two beal-level players before we find ourselves cap strapped with the current roster (a la Denver).

 

Look, none of us have a crystal ball, and I think we can all agree that parsing the tea-leaves of B-team sports "journalists" gets us nowhere. We've been led astray only to be blindsided by reality one too many times to read too much into any of this garbage.

My outlook is this: first, if we engineer a trade for AD (and that WILL take some engineering on our part, since AD would need to demand one before the deadline), then we have a bird in the hand and we don't need to worry about who wants to play with whom (to say nothing of having LeBron on the same team as Anthony f@$king Davis).

More importantly, if we construct the trade properly, we can leave enough cap space for Kawhi. Now, of course, that just brings us back to speculation mode, but I think no matter the circumstances, Kawhi is far likelier to come play here if LeBron AND AD are waiting for him. And if he doesn't, look at the bright side: we still have LeBron and AD.

 

Lebron and AD are enough! But it takes a lot to get AD. BI, Kuz, Hart and a ton of 1sts

 

I think you give up whatever you gotta give up to bring in AD.

 

I feel this way to an extent.

I also can't shake the feeling that Magic has something in his back pocket. I feel like he knew he had LeBron and knows he's got someone else or at least a very very good shot at someone else.

I'm kind of leaning a bit toward Klay but we'll see.

I just honestly don't think we're going to end up empty handed. I do understand the concern here though.

 

Im happy as long as we keep one of the Ball/Kuz kids. Other teams can come up with better "packages" than us, so he better demand a Lakers trade... which he won't.
If Magic and Rob can somehow pull this off though, FO LEGENDS.

 

First I understand that we need to capitalize on Bron's prime, while its still here...and what I'm about to propose wouldn't be anywhere close to my preference in moving forward.

But imho we only cap-strap ourselves if we prematurely pull the trigger on moves that may not move the needle dramatically. As is, we appear to be in position to compete but not be favored to win it all. Would a Beal type player (25m+) or 2 (50m+) really make us one of the favorites to win it all tho?

Then consider if we just stand pat...we whiff on free agency this coming summer and the Pels refuse to deal AD and/or he does not come out with a trade demand. Then we can just treat BI as we did Jules and hold off on extending him. He would then become a restricted free agent in 2020, when AD also can become an unrestricted free agent via opting out of his option year.

So with BI's QO (caphold) of 9.5m that summer and the salary cap being at a projected 118m we would only have Bron, our kiddies, Deng's dead cap hit and an incomplete roster charge: which leaves us with about 35.8m in cap space and AD would be projected to be a 30% max player that summer which would max him out at 35.4m.

Yeah, we would be out 2 years of Bron's contract by then, but that window of signing AD outright in 2020, while we keep ALL our kiddies gives us all the leverage in trade talks next year for AD.

That possibility alone is why we should not prematurely pull the trigger on dealing our kiddies for sub-star players like Beal.

 

Can someone please explain to me where these "We need to bring in AD" nonsense comes from? I feel like so many say it like it's about to happen. How? NOP isnt trading their franchise just because rumors are out that the Lakers want him.