2022-23 Team Developments: News / Trades / Free Agents / Rumors

I’m losing hope with this Kyrie situation. He’s so weird mentally I wouldn’t be shocked at all with a “Kyrie has signed a long term extension with the Nets” news.

 

I have to think Warren knows he'll be heavily used in Brooklyn next year. To me, seems like KD and Kyrie are gone. Why not go to LA, Miami, Boston, Milwaukee, etc?

 

these Lonnie Walker's positive takes REALLY seem like this year's version of all the people who were here trying to sell us Westbrook as a great trade last year.

 

I have nothing against Lonnie Walker, by all accounts he is a great guy and the SA community love him, he is introspective and thoughtful and a generally good human like Pau Gasol.

He is also extremely athletic and young and has flashed some potential as a up tempo guard. But he isn’t a good shooter, scorer, playmaker or defender. But we should give him the benefit of the doubt.

The reason why I’m annoyed is because our offseason speaks one of two things. Nepotism towards klutch or incompetency from our front office. Neither of which is good.

We were in the price range of numerous wings that could of helped this team regardless of Russ or Kyrie, and we didn’t get it done.

 

definitive. noted. recorded for posterity.

warren:

wouldn't shock me if warren misses a good chunk of the year and is a negative defender again.

nobody knows. but that's not stopping us from whining about him either trying and failing or not trying. maybe he tried and failed. would that make everyone happy? maybe he heard warren's unlikley to be ready to start the season or something.

would have gladly taken him at minimum. the whinefest is why we didn't use the mini mle on him when literally nobody did. how is that not maybe...information?

 

We’re blinded by our desire to get rid of BRICK, we thought this has an actual chance of happening this off-season but the truth is Brick’s contract too HUGE, the degree of difficulty getting out of it is unattainable.

 

you literally just said it was a horrible signing.

have you been asleep? this is definitely what we do. it's not going to stop until lebron's gone.

btw, our repeated (and oft-maligned) signings of kcp helped get lebron and AD here (not to mention that kcp ended up being, you know, pretty good).

this is rob's long game. and yeah, maybe it runs out of gas, but a one-year mini mle to a guard with potential is not the cataclysm folks are suggesting.

i disagree and have since prior to FA. still think warren going for the minimum might mean something. am i to believe that with all the smart front offices out there, nobody saw that they were going to get a near allstar wing for the mle? not a single team? in a league full of teams wanting near allstar wings?

if the lakers got caught flat-footed here, then so did 28 other teams.

 

There is a wing in summer league (Mr. Brown)- actually, he's probably more of a 4/3

I think he deserves our second two-way spot...

 

"If all fails" --- as in next year or the following. Even including the last 2 years, AD has played 60 games on average for his career.
Meanwhile, Durant is 34 years old and has played a grand total of 90 games the past 3 years. Kawhi? 35 games on average the last 5 years.
AD and his injuries are way overblown. He will definitely demand at least 4-5 FRPs if he plays his average of 60-70 games this year.

 

Kyrie and Curry/Harris are negative defenders. Lebron is below average at best. They are a small defense with no length to guard the wings that they will face in the West. It will help if AD can play 70 games. Roberts is average on defense but below average on offense. They will still have some of the same problems defensively that we saw last season.

 

Compare that to Lonnie. Warren has him beat in every major advanced stat listed there. And Kuzma for that matter. This doesn’t even take into consideration his raw stats and efficiency numbers.

I’m surprised you’re arguing against a low risk high reward player but you aren’t more annoyed by the nepotism shown towards Klutch?

 

I don’t hold it against him that we signed him to that. And I’m not going to actively cheer against him, I genuinely want him to succeed. But I do want to WMC against our FO for the poor offseason up to this point. And the mMLE was one of the major assets we had to improve.

Front offices make mistakes all the time. Jokic went 41st, Harden became an MVP. No one wanted Monk or OPJ last season either. It happens.

The argument that 28 other franchises made the mistake isn’t a good excuse. It’s the same excuse as AD missed a ton of games, but so did Kawhi and PG.

Just because others have mediocre results doesn’t mean we should too. If everyone calls us the premier organisation in basketball we should act and perform like it across the board.

 

Although I agree that we need minimum two wings and it does seem as though that should have been a higher priority, I think you are undervaluing a roster of youth as opposed to the aging guys we had last season.

AD is key for sure, but I also think younger quicker players will be a huge advantage over the snails we filled the roster with last season. I do agree we still need to find someway to find 2-3 wings to have a realistic chance...

 

FWIW as a fan I am not as concerned about whether or not a specific deal gets done, but rather the longer term dynamics of the FO worry me. These reports tend to come out when we’re not doing well, and winning/acquiring star players does mask it all, but the underlying instability has never gone away and could rear its ugly head the moment things get ugly.

For example, I am starting to see some growing intensity in the Pelinka vs. Rambis/Harris politics, and I think we all know who Jeannie will side with when she needs a fall guy.

 

Looks like we got Thomas Bryant! Glad to see it.

 

There's been instability with the Lakers for years. We could go back to the 80's all the way up until presently. Does the winning mask it all? No, but it does s good job of masking the majority of it because when you're hoisting trophies, who cares about all the other stuff?

It also help when you have the greatest owner in sports clearly in charge of things and while not perfect, he was probably one of the greatest owners and leaders in sports history.

Outside of LBJ coming and saving us, we'd still be sitting in futility looking to tank and scouting draft prospects.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/sports...1-year-deal-for-likely-starter-041158313.html

OK..welcome back young man.