2019/20 Players' Transactions: Breaking News , Trades, Free Agents, And Rumors

Abeerstradomus... seriously, you're the one claiming I'm wrong. Please...

Why were we even in AD talks? So how did Bron come into our space? How did we even have cap to sign all these guys if not for the stopgap deals last summer?

We're in this space cause we created it. My beef is in how we inefficiently created it (which alot of you had extreme issues with) and how we used it. I don't care if Magic is here or not. Rob's the constant and he hasn't efficiently used our assets, whether it's player or cap...it hasn't been used to it's highest potential.

Kuz, a 2020 1st round pick, a non-lottery 2021 1st round pick, THT and minimum deal Caruso are our immediate assets towards a win now team.

Green is 32 and on a 2 yr deal that won't be moved to another ring-chasing team cause we'll be in the same boat with Bron/AD. Why move him unless it's a parallel deal like the Turner for Baze Blazer/Atl swap.

Kcp can't get traded without his consent.

So our remaining assets are 4m or less salaried players and a few of those being on pseudo 1yr deals.

We got limited control of our 1st rounders past next summer and we don't have a 2nd round pick till 2023.

Bring is someone that can hold these dude's hands through the fire.

Boston goes to s***, but still gets a max guy to choose them. Weird but true.

clips are a laughing stock that treats their assets poorly, yet they were chosen by a max guy.

Presti couldn't keep a potential dynasty together with KD, Harden, Russ and I aka but still somehow found a way to get all their draft capital back and then some and that should help a small market team rebound nicely.

Hell, even Htown was going through turmoil, with everybody on the block, yet Morey comes out and says s*** is fine and even if it's BS, they made their own narrative instead of the media creating a s*** storm of it.

I'm aware of the anti-Lakers media tilt, but that still doesn't take away that our FO needs better people in charge of our bball ops.

Believe me, I would love to be wrong about Rob and our current bball ops.

 

Lakers about to sign Avery Bradley for 2 years 13 million.

 

lol, everyone told you the clips were well-managed, and you scoffed. what changed?

and oh yes i'm claiming you're wrong and have been a lot.

you also really missed the boat on "abeerstrodamus"...

we cashed in all of our assets on anthony davis. it was a good idea. they weren't strong to begin with and were depreciating. not having bonga isn't going to matter.

not having russell did seem to matter in retrospect, however! not going to rehash the 2-max thing because we won't agree--i'll never say we needed 2, and nothing that's happened supports the idea that we ever did.

again, thank the sweet basketball lord we're done with the cap space nonsense if only for one year.

 

I think you're confusing what I'm saying. We could have been in Russ talks without Russ coming to us. We had the most cap in the league to facilitate any tedious trades (which is what the Russ to Miami potential deal falls under).

So 14m for Danny Green and then having roughly 19m to absorb deals with assets attached (to replenish our post AD treasure chest) is worse than what we currently did?

I disagree completely.

 

miami wouldn't attach a first to drop dragic in the butler deal, iirc. but they're going to now? do they even have any left? okc's going to drop the asset for facilitating the deal? they're in asset acquisition mode.

if we still had space right now, i'd be livid.

 

Am I assuming other guys took the vet min while Kawhi was in a holding pattern (see WCS, Jeff Green, Vonleh, Jordan Bell, Wilson Chandler, etc)?

Am I assuming Miami needed to get under the tax apron at all costs (see Anderson stretch)?

Am I assuming that in terms of 2 year deals, there wasn't other options other than KCP @ 16m (see Taj Gibson and if it had to be Klutch, see either Morris bro)?

Looks around the league and available free agents like Danny Green only had us or Dallas to get a cash grab. Also even with Bron & AD, the Kang always wants help or were you not paying attention while he was in Cleveland? So we grabbed AD how exactly? With future draft capital. That same draft capital greases deals through to bring in a game changer asap for this win now team.

Yep, you don't get it?

 

You know what's funny, if we had not gone all in on kawhi and instead got butler or kyrie, the narrative would have been.."Lakers fo sucks for not going after kawhi when he was available. "

We did the right thing by choosing to go after the best FA. The thing is, kawhi purposely lied to us. This much is obvious. So unless we bugged uncle Dennis' house, no way we would have known.

How can you blame the FO when kawhi purposely led them on?

We had a plan B ready to go and we executed it.

For some, our FO will never be able to do anything right.

 

kcp > morris bros. and is a sg and not an undersized pf, of which we have enough.

 

@abeer3 this pertains to your post too..

Miami had to get under the apron and since we're in the business of getting up to 2 year deals we could have taken in Johnson, Olynk or Waiters along with draft capital.

We could have also taken on Dragic's or Anderson's expiring deal with some incentive.

Dallas burned Miami once so they were they only ones other than us that could take on salary wont angering going back Miami's way. Riles wasn't going to turn to Cuban again. So we were in the driver's seat.

We could have brought in assets via the Whiteside trade (forget Kawhi, what about Meyers Leonard or block the cLips from getting that pick in the Harkless deal)...or we could have brought in assets independent of that deal so that Miami could avoid stretching Anderson.

Either way, there were alot of 1-2 year deals in the NBA that summer terms were probably willing to get off of due to the repeater tax.

I would have gone that route cause you know those larger deals were given to somewhat good players instead of out right scrubs.

For example, Green by himself can bring in a 19m player. Dragic by himself can bring in a 24m player. Aggregate their 33m and that could bring in as much as 42m in salary (which is more than enough for an unhappy max guy).

To each their own tho, but I would have handled a contingency differently...and still go get Boogie with the room exception. Guys like Caruso and Cook were so close to the vet min anyways that they probably agree to those terms. So in reality all it would cost us is Kcp, Bradley and Mcgee. s*** even Boogie us roughly 700k from his vet min amount. The room exception could have still been given to McGee or Bradley with Boogie taking the vet min.

And if you doubt these dudes could take such a pay it other GMs have done it, so why not Rob?

 

It's not about wrong or right, it's about asset efficiency.

Post-Kawhi, the remaining free agents could only leverage our space with Dallas. We were the only two teams that could offer 15m+ annual deals. Kcp could have gotten about 9m from another team's non-tax MLE, but then his full bird rights go away, which only we could offer him.

We had something like 8 S&TS this summer and nearly all of those teams were capped out so the danger of hitting the tax apron was real. You got to exploit that via buyouts, RFA renouncing or salary dumping trades. Or just wait for the next disgruntled star trade (like the Wiz did with us in taking in assets for free).

 

So wait you are now pissed at the plan B team the FO immediately assembled under the gun while they were still available .....after being sucker punched by Kawhi, the Clippers, PG and OKC .... because we weren't able to wait on an immediate new Plan C and MAYBE jump into some crazy scenario with Westbrook in case it could work? And not put the team together we just did with a great chance to win a ring this year? Incredible. You outdo Jenkins sometimes.

 

I just laid out Miami and Portland examples for you haha.

Boogie's 3.5m is pretty much right there in terms of his 2.8m vet min. So he doesn't need to leak into our cap. We potentially lose Mcgee, but Vonleh, WCS and Bell were all had for vet min. Noah is still out... TyChandler as a time share to Boogie is still out there... Klutch klient Kostas Koufos is still out there.

We could have absorbed salary and still had Danny at a reasonable number cause like I said, it was only Dallas that was a threat to snaking any reasonable free agent.

And if that occurred, Iggy relents on lower buyout number to make it back with the cap we had remaining if Green went to Dallas.

Alot of woulda shoulda coulda, but you can't argue our asset/cap medium was utilized to an optimum level.

Rob can certainly negotiate up contracts (see Kobe Achilles contract), but can he negotiate them down?