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

Possible..I'd cut a few players to make room for Kyrie. Two or three if needed.

 

A few guys like Reeves and Wenyen can continue on 1.5-2 million contracts and guys like Stanley Johnson, Damian Jones and Thomas Bryant can go on vet mins which have no cap impact. That's only 2.5-5 million against the cap there and if Kyrie will take a backloaded deal, no problem, start him in the low 40's.

 

Peeps talking about 2023-24 already lol

 

Does KD get along with anyone? What a panty-waist playin', needs his Mama there to yell affirmations at him, bad dreams about Steph Curry having, Twitter burner-account using wussy.

 

Doesn’t matter one lick if we enter the season with this roster.

 

Don’t buy it. If KD wanted Kyrie gone, he could have easily communicated that to Nets leadership behind the scenes without the public trade request, and they likely would have happily obliged.

Sounds like part of the problem here is that KD has been so cryptic and vague, leaving “insiders” to have to speculate.

 

What's wrong with this roster?

 

Randle is the next Russ. With 4y contract. I don't think he help us on the long haul and definitely doesn't move the needle with LeBron/AD.

I know we want to move from Russ and build a contender team every single season, but we need to think long term and I'm loving how Rob is valuing that, so far.

We come from 2y where our superstars didn't play enough time. Any roster construction is pointless if they have a similar season next year. We also at a point where LeBron is an expiry at 38y old at the end of the season and AD is on the line to see if he has a 3rd straight season spending more time injured than playing. I rather have another disappointing season and be in a good position to compete the next 3 than give it all to compete this season and then be a mess for 3 or 5 years.

I would still do the Kyrie trade, even with Harris. But I really don't think that would happen, FO won't want to spend. I think our bar is adding Curry and a pick on our side. We probably will try to keep THT to make another trade down the line. Nets probably do it IF Durant is traded. But actually what's in to them to trade for Russ? Kyrie is also an expiring so not sure if it happens without a 3rd team.

That's probably planted but it's a good report for us. We really need to keep PR clean, we don't need drama and hurt us a lot moving forward, regardless if Russ stays or not.
It seems impossible to believe Russ in the training camp but it may well happen, so we better start realizing that, especially LeBron for the sake of the franchise future. That I know he doesn't care, but our FO should

Not so sure. He still brings a lot of attention. Some franchises need that. You wouldn't get a massive haul, also because he would want a competitive team to contend, but you could get some picks in return which would probably be valuable considering he would leave shortly after and made a career leaving franchises dry after he's gone.
But I don't see it happening, at least until the Bronny thing is more clear

 

Lebron is no dummy, he won his last two rings with Kyrie and AD. I don't think he'd walk away from those two. Even if AD unfortunately suffered some other injury (God forbid) Kyrie is still a force that we could work around. He's going to retire a Laker with at least one more chip.

 

i'll have what he's having...

 

Some of you have concluded that Lebron and AD are some scrubs or something I guess. Not me.

 

Not scrubs, just players on the wrong side of their peaks. They need help or they go nowhere.

 

That's Klutch and their way of attempting to absolve any and all responsibility & blame toward the whole Russ situation from themselves.

Shrugs. Whatever.

 

AD is in his prime. James just averaged 30 pts a game. It hasn't been proven to date that any team can beat them in a 7 game series if healthy. I chose to remain optimistic on the injury front. If they play in 30 games or less again, then I'll have to agree with you. We go nowhere without them, it's not the role players.

 

Ooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

 

Actually, LeGM hasn’t proven he’s the smartest tool in the shed with forcing Rob to trade for the great Westbrick.

 

I’m actually not sure this is from Klutch.

Moreso than the substance of the article, what caught my attention was that it almost seems to be from Westbrook’s perspective.

The sources in this article reiterate that Westbrook has not requested a trade.

Then we have: “In his first season with the Lakers, Westbrook struggled to find a consistent groove and was largely painted as one of the central causes of the team’s shortcomings.”

“Painted as” almost makes it seem like the article is suggesting he’s been unfairly blamed for the team’s failures rather then actually being the cause of them.

Maybe I’m reaching, but the wording here is a far cry from a previous Haynes article that had ripped into Westbrook (IIRC).

I think this is Westbrook’s camp (who apparently would love to get traded/bought out so he can hit the open market) trying to paint him as NOT being a toxic malcontent. “See, Russ was open to make it work, he won’t cause problems for whatever team is willing to throw more than the minimum at him in free agency!”

Because I also don’t think this article does anything to make Klutch/Lebron look better. And the other idea that this is spin control from the Lakers to reinforce the idea that they’re okay with running it back (as a lie to increase trade leverage) also doesn’t make sense to me. If all this PR stuff is so transparently possible spin control from us, wouldn’t it be even more obvious to Sean Marks or other GM’s? Nobody is going to actually buy that the Lakers can make this trio work and therefore demand less out of a trade just because of this article.