Russell Westbrick Discussion: Clipper Gonna Clip

They're all mostly friends off the court I would guess.

Probably moved past it and can play a pickup game or 5.

Westbrook still bricking jumpers I see.

At least he had a dunk.

Shrugs.

 

I forgot about the John wall signing. I wonder if PG would push for Russ anyway.

 

lol, we trade russ, he's cut and goes to the clips. klutch/wall get mad he's usurped, ask for a buyout, and wall comes here. finally, the wall/westbrook deal goes down (again).

 

It must be the off-season.

 

the "endless" offseason is so much longer when you don't even sniff the playoffs.

So this is what it's like being a Clippers fan 99% of the time.

 

It's definitely been a struggle
Don't want this again

 

5 Brutal Russell Westbrook Trades LA Lakers Need to Actually Consider

https://bleacherreport.com/articles...ok-trades-la-lakers-need-to-actually-consider

Swartz explains the why for each team in the article but here are the trades:

1) Los Angeles Lakers Receive: SF Gordon Hayward, C Mason Plumlee

Charlotte Hornets Receive: PG Russell Westbrook, 2027 first-round pick (unprotected), 2023 second-round pick

2) Los Angeles Lakers Receive: SG Tim Hardaway Jr., PF Davis Bertans, SF Reggie Bullock

Dallas Mavericks Receive: PG Russell Westbrook, SG Austin Reaves, 2027 and 2029 first-round picks (unprotected)

3) Los Angeles Lakers Receive: C Myles Turner, SG Buddy Hield, PG T.J. McConnell

Indiana Pacers Receive: PG Russell Westbrook, SG Austin Reaves, 2027 and 2029 first-round picks (unprotected)

4) Los Angeles Lakers Receive: PF Julius Randle, G/F Evan Fournier

New York Knicks Receive: PG Russell Westbrook, 2027 first-round pick (top-5 protected)

5) Los Angeles Lakers Receive: F Doug McDermott, G/F Josh Richardson

San Antonio Spurs Receive: PG Russell Westbrook, 2027 first-round pick (unprotected), 2023 second-round pick, 2025 second-round pick

 

Yuck

 

agree with this, but not the author's main point (we have to trade westbrook for whatever teams shove down our throats).

speaking of:

this is the problem with so much sports writing being vomited up by basement bloggers. only a laker hater with a pretty loose grip on logic puts this out into the world.

first, he names his premise:

there are teams that could use financial relief. so, they're obviously entitled to significant draft compensation so that they can...also get the thing they need? that makes absolutely zero sense.

then, the d****** admits that the lakers have already signaled they are NOT going to do what he's about to suggest:

AND misses the point that lebron needs us as much as we need him:

further, he ignores something he's basically stated already: lebron has already tried to pressure us into taking horrible westbrook trades, and he got shut down. how does everyone miss this? it was a talking point at the deadline!

but here's the coup de grace:

OR POTENTIALLY FLIP HIM IN ANOTHER TRADE!!?? WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!

it takes 2 unprotected 1sts to get the dallas mavericks' two worst contracts and swap austin reaves for reggie bullock (who failed here once already)? but dallas can then just magically flip russ to someone else then? are you f***ing nuts?

again, it's less about me hating the trades (i dislike every single one of them, as they're all variations of things i've suggested but with tweaks that make them unpalatable). it's about the complete lack of logic, sentence to sentence, in these exercises. you have to be fantastically stupid to conjure such a document. it's hater fantasy fiction.

what's his next piece going to be? the lakers have to attach 8 1sts to swap anthony davis for pascal siakam, as it's the only way to move on from this (2 years removed from a title) mess?


edit: btw, if you subtract austin reaves and 1 1st from every deal, i probably do them all! i'd do the SA deal if the pick was top-10 protected. my point is that the logic is shoddy, and it artificially inflates the price in every deal.

 

The trades being thrown out there are trash and we’re wisely avoiding them.

I do think we need to get the Russ situation resolved before training camp. Hurts us more than LeBron or Klutch to keep him around UNLESS he fully buys in to what Ham is saying (which I doubt).

Even if he buys in, this team just isn’t good enough to compete right now and Russ’s contract is one of a handful of ways we can improve the team.

 

Most of those trades in that article are indeed trash and don’t move the needle enough to warrant giving up everything in those proposals.

But on the “wasting Lebron’s year” take. Feel like many of us have had this back and forth various times throughout the summer, but as someone who doesn’t want to “waste Lebron’s last years”, I feel obligated to chime in with my perspective once again.

I guess my issue is with how this topic gets framed.

If I say “I don’t want to punt this season and waste one of Lebron’s last years” it makes it sound as if I care more about Lebron’s success than the franchise success. And for what it’s worth, on the other hand when I hear “I don’t care, it’s his fault we’re in this mess” it comes across to me as if you’re more concerned about punishing Lebron than our team success.”

But I don’t think either of those accurately sum up how each respective side feels about the situation, and we could probably come to more common ground.

Maybe a more accurate way of framing my view would be “I don’t want to punt this season and waste possibly our franchise’s last best shot at championship contention this decade”. And yes, Lebron is the reason I feel that way, but I don’t really care that much about his personal success. I just think he gives us as good a shot at a championship as we can hope to count on.

Yes, I think Lebron at 37 years old is still a better playoff performer than an imaginary free agent or draft pick in the tail end of the decade. I think the reports of his demise on this forum have been exaggerated. Yes he stopped giving a crap on defense this year, but when the stakes are high and he has a team he can depend on, he’s still one of the best players in the league. I would bet good money that if NBA execs could do a fantasy draft for a single postseason run, Lebron at his current age would still be a top 3 pick (if not the #1 pick).

So if we can bolster the roster around him and AD enough, I think we’d have a legitimate chance depending on how health shakes out. I also don’t think 2 of the multiple draft picks we still have this decade would necessarily “cripple” the franchise. So IMO, I would pull the trigger on that Indiana trade if you took Reaves out of the equation (and ideally add some protection to one of the picks). But again, it’s nothing to do with Lebron himself, I just think that trade would move the needle enough to give our team a shot at a title.

And going back to your view about “I don’t care, it’s his fault we’re in this mess”. Like I said, to me that reads as if you’re more interested in punishing Lebron than the team success.

But I’m guessing that’s not how you actually feel, and it would be more accurate to sum up your view as “I don’t think Lebron at this age is good/dependable enough to give us a good enough chance at a title to make it worth sacrificing long term assets”. That’s a take I would disagree with, but I think framing the discussion that way at least turns it into a basketball discussion that we can agree to disagree about, rather than the “wasting Lebron’s final years” framing that IMO subtly drives a wedge between the fanbase’s allegiances.

 

Addition by subtraction

 

i don't think lebron is good enough that simply adding kyrie irving (much less hield/turner) makes us a favorite in the ring chase, so i'm on weezy's side here.

the lebron/AD team wasn't those two and vet mins. several of those guys were and have continued to be better players than literally everyone else on our roster. we emptied the chamber for russ and failed. don't fall prey to the sunk cost effect. it's done. if lebron wants to re-up at a much lower cap figure next year, maybe our window cracks back open a bit. but it ain't open right now.

 

I don’t think those trades make us the favorite, but I don’t think you have to become the absolute favorite to make a trade worthwhile.

IMO, either of those trades make us enough of a title contender as we can hope. If you take the “blow it up and rebuild” strategy, I don’t think you can depend on being as much of a title contender anytime soon as one of these trades would make us this year.

I don’t know why you’re suggesting that we’d still be a roster of just Lebron + AD + minimum players after one of these trades.

The 2020 title team was Lebron + AD + Kuz/Green/KCP and then essentially all minimum players.

The Indiana trade for example would make us Lebron + AD + Turner/Hield/McConnell + minimum players.

I’m not sure if Kuz/Green/KCP is that much better of a trio of role players than Turner/Hield/McConnell could be. I’m not sure if our current supporting cast of minimum players is that much worse than our championship season.

We didn’t win the title because we had some amazing supporting cast. We won the title because Lebron + AD were absolutely dominant, and we had a good enough supporting cast that fit well together and bought into their roles. I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that we could recreate something similar via a good Russ trade.

 

i think that in order to sell out your ability to make any trades involving future draft picks AND risking giving up two high lotto picks, you need to feel like you're in the driver's seat right now. you don't give that up for a puncher's chance.

my goal is not to be unwatchable for 7 years again. that was brutal.

feel like that's something of a technicality with caruso, bradley, howard, and mcgee all vastly outperforming their deals (and a couple of those guys proving that it wasn't just our environment that did it).

it's possible. though this is all pretending lebron is the guy from that year, which was part of my premise. i firmly contend he's not.

again, i agree, and again i don't think that that lebron is walking through the door ever again. so your cast needs an upgrade. and again, if lebron wants to take a 50% pay cut in the offseason to help us bring in two turner/hield level players without draining our assets (which would allow us to use this in other trades), we'd be much better off.

my whole argument rests on the idea that lebron's not the lebron you're talking about. i don't think we're going to agree on that, though.