2020-21 Players' Transactions: Breaking News , Trades, Free Agents, And Rumors

Nah. Tim is one of the best out there with analytics.

And Demar has had plenty of opportunity to shine with the Spurs. He’s not a good three point shooter and I’m not sure he’s a better defender at this point than Green or Kuz.

Honestly Pop actually being willing to trade him to us is reason enough not to do it. He has no desire to help us and seemed to like Kuz a lot.

there’s no way Pop deals us a player he really thinks would help us.

 

Right. It only works if we can bring in guys like Gallo. Even then I think we would be giving up more on the defensive end than we’d like.

 

also as an FYI, he spells out what his metrics mean more at the link here.

He’s a good follow on Twitter and does a lot with the Laker Film Room guys.

 

Your explanation is just based on being a fanboy of Kuz rather than the reality of the situation. We know Kuz can't shoot. Sorry but he averaged 31% from three. You can't tell me DeRozan being a mid-range player can't generate a higher percentage shot than Kuz shooting 31% from three. You keep saying DeRozan can't space the floor... Spacing the floor isn't entirely just shooting from three. Kobe wasn't known as a three point shooter but a mid-range player. Obviously you'd rather have the three point shooter every time but this narrative that a mid-range player can't succeed because he doesn't shoot threes but a player like Kuz's 'perceived threat' while shooting 31% from three would work is just baffling to me.

Kuz isn't a better defender and saying his defensive versatility is what won us a chip this year... Man, total fanboy here lol. What won us the chip this season was AD shooting 57% from the field and having a dominant mid-range game as well as LeBron playing like the best player. Kuzma's defense was actually a huge liability for the Lakers when he started fouling and giving up more points defensively than he made up for on the offensive end. While he has improved defensively, it's because he went from being one of the worst defenders. There was nowhere else to go but up.

Butler had a bunch of three point shooters around him in a way that the Lakers could still improve on. You're making it seem as if the Lakers got DeRozan, they won't be able to get any shooters out there. Even IF we keep Kuzma and Green, we still need to get more shooters this season. I wouldn't even consider Kuzma a shooter so really, we're losing Danny Green's shooting for DeRozan's overall better play in every other aspect of the game minus probably defense.

Not sure why some are so high on Kuzma here. He shot 31% from three after he spent an entire offseason working out with LethalShooter. His defense is nothing to brag about and he's a terrible rebounder for someone who is 6'9. Kuzma can't create plays for others as shown by his horrible AST/TO ratio. What are we really giving up that we can't replace? I'm so confused.

 

Also, for the record, I don’t think we will move Kuz.

 

Derozen next year would help us more than Kuzma. The way this franchise is going, it seems fair to say Kuzma isn't a long term plan.

If we can get a guy like Derozen for that combination of players we'd be foolish not to (if that's our best option with the "assets" we have).

I kind of feel like Demar is underrated overall. Dude played with Bosh one year, hung around and played with guys like Rudy Gay and Bargnani until he got Lowry, then they went on a really nice run for many years in the same conference as a prime LeBron James.

He gets traded to a Spurs team in a loaded West, playing with Aldridge and the ghost of Rudy Gay and Pau Gasol, wins 48 games and takes the #2 seeded Nuggets to 7 games in the first round. 22/7/5 on 49% shooting, leading the team in minutes, points, assists, and steals.

Not saying he's a must have, slam dunk type of guy to add, but he's a damn good basketball player. If he can be had for that package and not else more (not giving up Alex, etc), you have to do that if that's the best option available. Monster talent upgrade and zero loss to cap flexibility in the future? That's a gift.

 

Trading for Demar definitely wouldn’t be the end of the world or anything.

 

that was my point--though it might not have been clear. joining the favorite that lost isn't really better than joining the underdog that won, right?

 

DD isn't a 3 point threat, but he's shot 40%+ from the corner 3 position in 5 of his 11 years in the league. He's averaged 17+ ppg on several different types of good teams for a decade. That's about as dependable as production gets.

My primary goal, other than repeating, is Lebron conservation. You ask him to do as little as possible during these 72 regular season games. DD does that, Kuz does not. You can hope that Kuz will 1 out of 5 games. DD will 5 out of 5. If you get DNPs in the post season from DD, don't care. Worth it for what you gave up and he served his rental purpose as far as I'm concerned.

 

remember when kawhi leonard beat us by just walking guys into midrange shots over and over again.

derozan can do that. still.

that 3rd scorer/guy to carry the offensive load when lebron's out? that's derozan.

are there better fits? yes. but you can stagger his minutes quite a bit and preserve lebron a lot more than we did this year, imo.

i'd be on board.

and yes, it would worry me that pop would do it.

anyway, this is the kind of deal that moving kuz makes sense for: derozan's contract is short, and he's a legit starter/bona fide iso scorer.

 

There's a lot of SA rumors at the moment, more than usual. Has me very curious what they're up to and which direction they're trying to go in. There's LA to GS, DD to us, Mills to MIL/6ers.

 

Honestly, I just don’t trust Pop and that may be making me pause more anything else here.

 

Regardless this is looking like it could be a wild off season. In addition to the scurry of teams shuffling draft picks, the following have all been rumored to potentiality be on the move...
CP3, Holiday, Dipo, Gordon, Lavine, Hayward, Aldridge, DD, Turner, Rockets all of them (implosion), and Philly (Morey moves more players in a year than some teams do in a 5 year span).

And then you have playoff teams being extremely aggressive in trying to get better: GS, Mavs, Bucks, C Bags, Philly, Clipps, and Bucks. All linked to at least one of those above. And when teams get confirmation on Giannis' intentions, that'll spike even more.

 

i know he's hurt us at times, but i'm not a huge fan of his game, and i don't think he'd come cheap. not sure he'd be worth giving up kuz, for example.

 

I think gianni's lil bro tht and cacok