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

I agree with you, we should not have to give up picks in a AD/Westbrook for KD/Kyrie situation. You could argue that in a KD/AD trade straight up, the team that gets AD wins the trade. They missed about the same amount of games last season but AD is younger and has never torn his Achilles. That is a big deal, you have to consider the longevity aspect. KD will be 34 at the start of this season, and realistically might have maybe 2 more All NBA caliber seasons left in him. AD is 29 and could have 6 more all NBA type seasons, it’s always been health permitting for him but that now is the same for KD.

Because of that, and how Kyrie isn’t as much as a negative as Westbrook, it ends up being a fair deal for both sides.


But if we are seriously entertaining AD/Westbrook for Kyrie/KD, I would much rather do a Lebron/Westbrook for Kyrie/KD. In this case, the longevity arguement can be made against Lebron and the Lakers can maybe compensate for that with the 2 first round picks…… and I would gladly do it.

Someone posted a Lebron/KD/Kyrie trio would annihilate the league. I think the same could be said about a AD/KD/Kyrie trio, with the benefit that the contender window is longer. Instead of a 2 year window, it’s a 5-6 year window.

An AD/KD/Kyrie trio may actually also mean that the 2027 and 2029 picks may not be as valuable because chances are we might still be a playoff caliber team by the last year of KD’s contract (2026).

 

Jeanie will never allow a LBJ trade. She considers him a Laker's legend for coming here and as a result making us a desirable destination for AD and getting us the championship in 2 years. She'd let AD go but never Lebron. The Lakers don't do business like that unless LBJ dunks it and yells "pay me" to her.

 

Lebron might not necessarily dunk it and yell “Pay me!” to Jeanie, but he might actually just tell “No Kyrie, no extension!”

I don’t know if that sort of pressure on Jeanie to give up the picks would change her thoughts on trading away Lebron, the Lakers legend of 4 years.

 

LeBron is too powerful, no reason to trade him to a place he doesn't want to be. It's bigger than basketball

 

yeah, it's also bigger than the current move. i know everybody loves boston/ainge for that nets trade that killed the nets and made the current C Bags, but it's also one of the reasons stars generally don't want to go there. the franchise has gotten a rep as not being friendly to stars, imo (see the isaiah thomas treatment, too). fans and media love the cut throat/i'm the boss here approach, but it cuts both ways.

if lebron came to management asking to be traded, i think you just do it. i'd ask him to do it quietly, though.

btw, i think the nets should have dealt with phx prior to ayton getting an offer, too. phx could have put together a fair offer, but bkn was too busy trying to set the market, and now they find themselves in a rough spot--of the teams kd wanted to go to, they had the best package, and they're not an option anymore.

and maybe their endgame is to try to do what we did with kobe and wait him out. but kobe was, what, 26 then? durant's 34. one more injury, and you won't be able to trade him for anything.

i'm rambling now, but to weigh in on the latest talk:

would trade lebron if he asks (don't see that happening)
would not trade AD for KD (both are health gambles, one is substantially younger)

 

Also, given how much we rely on Klutch for free agents, I don't think we'd burn that bridge unless a front office overhaul was on the way.

 

If Wayne Gretzky can get traded, Lebron can be traded.

 

Including his upcoming option year (am assuming he has one) when it happens and free agency for AD. But then with Entitled Laker Fan .... with short term memory and thinks players of AD and LBJ's quality grow on trees and all want to be Lakers, those two's issues not notwithstanding ALL things considered. And forgets how none of those players would give us a sniff post Kobe, until James came. Plus the Big needle moving franchise players are pretty much all locking into long term contracts for the insane dollars now available to them. Not saying to allow LeBron to dictate player moves any longer.

 

Jeanie to loyal for a selfish guy like LeBron

 

It's different.
LeBron will be involved in the game forever. He has Klutch. He will probably own a team. Many players of this and next generation worship him. He's involved from the agency side with young talents. If we make that move and create that bad blood with him, it will haunt us for a long time whenever we want to sign a big name.
It's not worth it.

I'm not saying we should be his b****. But we don't need to backstab him with a trade against his will. Rather just don't re-sign him next year and try to move on from him smoothly

 

oh yeah, no way you move him without him asking, and no way you don't offer the extension from a political standpoint (assuming he indicates interest in re-upping).

my point was that if he asked to be moved, we should just do it immediately for the best package that lines up with his desired locations. really for all the same reasons.

 

Yeah. I'm not against moving on from LeBron as its going to happen relatively soon anyway. But there's definitely a correct way to do that.

We certainly don't need to destroy anymore relationships out there with execs, players or agencies.

 

Best case scenario would be that Lebron decides he loves being a Laker BUT instead of a max extension now, he plays out this year to sign a team friendly 2 year deal next off season. He does this with complete transparency to the organization, no veiled threats of leaving in free agency this summer.

We get the cap flexibility to try to retool a championship team around him in his final years, without sacrificing the long term health of the franchise.

He plays out the final 2 years with minimal drama. If we can get Bronny in his last year in a reasonable manner, we do so. If not, Lebron understands, plays out his final year with us, then we amicably split ways and he signs with Bronny’s team for a farewell tour.

The alternatives (either us giving Lebron a long term max extension, or Lebron playing out this final year of his contract while leaving the organization in the dark about his long term intentions) would both not be great.

No way the Lakers trade Lebron unless it’s a mutual decision, and I don’t see Lebron actually wanting to leave until Bronny arrives.

 

I think we've seen too much evidence that a big three won't get it done unless there is sufficient defense and shooting. It's why the big two model works better. It leaves you with the resources to build a more complete roster. It's why we would probably have been better off sticking with LeBron + AD surrounded by the likes of KCP, Caruso, Rondo, et al.

 

I personally dislike how much the Lakers have relied on Klutch for free agents to be honest. Some of the players we get aren’t terrible, but then some we overpay for the priveledge of dealing with Klutch. The overpayment is the part I hate.

Recent examples include:
- THT, didn’t mind re-signing him to see if he can develop further. But is he really a player that commands basically the non-taxpayer MLE ($10 million)? If he wasn’t a Klutch client, I don’t think we would have offered him that much. $5 million sounds reasonable, it would have actually allowed us to keep Caruso too. With Caruso the breaking point was like a $3 million difference because we didn’t want to pay the luxury tax.

- Kendrick Nunn, if he’s healthy and productive that’s a solid signing for $6 million…. but that’s the problem. He hasn’t been healthy, so he isn’t productive at all. There were whispers that Miami knew about some underlying health issues… Klutch probably knew too but told Rob not to worry too much about it?

- Lonnie Walker for the Taxpayer MLE. I didn’t like the use of the MLE for Lonnie Walker. He’s too similar to THT, and also needs time to develop as well. His productivity isn’t even necessarily worth what we agreed to pay him. Other players who signed for similar (or even less) and could be better fits such as Donte DiVencennzo, Otto Porter Jr., TJ Warren, Derrick Jones Jr. All the players listed I would have prioritized over Walker, and they all signed for either the same amount or less in some cases.


It would be a welcome culture change if there's just more diversity in terms of agents lol. The Lakers have and will continue to be Team Klutch as long as Lebron is here, where 70% of the roster are Klutch clients.... we basically need to bring that ratio down, it'll be better for the franchise long term to start building positive relationships with multiple agents instead of just Klutch.

 

Oh I completely agree with you on that. I'd definitely like to see us bring that down.

 

people have very short THT memories. there was talk of teams prepping 80 million dollar offers and how we weren't going to be able to keep him. his number wasn't at all eye-popping when he signed it. people thought it was perfectly fair given his potential and what he'd already shown. he just came out and had a bad year after it. that's not klutch's fault, and it's not like they've stood in the way of us trying to move him since.

nunn signed for below market value and then got hurt.

curious to see how the walker signing turns out. pretty much 100% of people say it was the worst signing in nba history, and i'm guessing that's not accurate (actually, i know it, as it was a 1-year deal). i find it hard to believe we didn't call on porter (we did the year before), and pretty much everyone else signed for that amount was either unimpressive or a bad fit. tj warren has missed two years due to a foot injury and was never a good defender.

anyway, i don't think klutch has really hurt us that much in these ways. weirdly, my (minor) klutch gripe is that they're why we signed pippen, jr., whom i don't think is likely to be a useful nba player. and they pissed me off at the deadline with their grumbling about us not moving picks for junk that couldn't possibly salvage the dumpster fire of a season (though they quickly backed off that d******ery).

i do agree that if most of the team is repped by one agency, things get weird, and it should probably be avoided. but i don't think they've really cost us much at all so far, and we're probably still a big net positive from our involvement with them.

 

Like KD, Harden, and Irving?

 

It depends more on health than anything. A legit big 3, will most definitely get it done. Showtime Lakers, Boston twice, Chicago, Miami, Golden State, Cleveland, and Milwaukee all proved that. If anything, the two stars surrounded by role players and depth is the outlier.