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

Russ's defensive ratings according to Raptor for the last four seasons.

21-22 = -2.1
20-21 = -2.2
19-20 = -0.6
18-19 = -1.1

He's now 34 years old. It's wishful thinking assuming he'll ever get back to being a decent defender.

 

What are you 12? I was talking about PG. Assists are how they are measured. You are trotting out some guys that avg 3-4 assists, haven't played a game in the NBA and are listed by Basketball Reference as shooting guards. Yet height somehow means something here. Curry and Smart were the starting PG in the Finals. Cp3 and Holiday in the year previous. How tall were they? Kyle Lowry is 6'0.Kyrie is 6'2..Rondo is 6'1 Bradley 6'2 they say. Didn’t WE have the best record in the League before Covid and win a championship with those PG?
I'm looking for these big PG with all this success besides Lebron.
Sliding into the next phase, that Lebron guy is 6'9, the tallest PG in the League.
So your entire diatribe was to prove that they are guys taller than Westbrook that are called PG? And?
Back to the wings everyone says we need size. Ok..every team doesn't play the game in the same fashion. Here's the roster why are we lacking in size? Oh I forgot..you have decided who will play and who won't all on your own.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/LAL/2023.html

We've already yapped about shooting, now we peruse the heights.
So for the sake of giving you something else to do. Why don't you take all these other rosters, and show how these other teams are soo superior based on how much more height they have.

Impress me. You get a D- so far.

 

Yup that’s dumb.

 

I'm confused as to what those numbers mean. I prefer this one

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/ru...has a defensive rating of 105.9 in his career.

So you are saying that it's more that he's getting older than playing on 3 different teams in 3 seasons? Is there a stat that shows that players don't defend better because that got older? Curious

 

One interesting idea that would make this extremely fascinating, where the players, fans, coaches, front office, etc. will take this super serious is….

…. have the reward be that team who wins the tournament will have the 5th best odds of winning the season’s NBA lottery. The NBA lottery would remain the same, where the 4 worst teams get the best odds 1-4 to win the lottery, but the winner of the tourney gets the 5th best odds.

For example, if Milwaukee play great ball this entire year and finish with the best record, and also wins the mid season tournament… their draft position moves up significantly, where instead of picking at #30 that year, they will have a top 5 lottery pick.

It would be extremely fascinating because it would definitely discourage these long term tankathons and draft pick hoarding teams like OKC and Utah are doing because this would also mean the top 4 teams draft odds actually drop because now you got a playoff team moving into the draft lottery.

In the long term, it makes building real franchise dynasties in any city more possible as well. Imagine if this was the format we always had.

The Lakers and Spurs of 1998-2015 era would probably still be damn dominant today, because it allows good teams to always have a shot at adding a top 5 prospect to their team every year. It would change the format to how GMs build their teams too, because most teams can really afford only 3 or 4 max contracts out before it really hurts via the luxury tax.

So imagine if the Lakers won the tourney twice in the Shaq/Kobe era, once in 2001 and again in 2003, and we end up with the #3 pick both years… and end up picking up Pau Gasol in 2001 and Carmelo Anthony in 2003… so the Lakers team going into the next tournament would have had a Shaq/Kobe/1st year Pau/Rookie Carmelo team. Good freaking god, how interesting would that have been for the league.

Free Agency would be dramatic too, because teams would eventually fall into the dilemma of… “I have salary cap for 3 max contracts, and if I have 4 all stars… I have to decide which one do I let walk into free agency? In the same Lakers example (for the sake of this example, let’s say Kobe and Shaq got along great)… by 2006 when Kobe is up for a extension, Dr. Buss would have to decide to either trade one of Kobe/Shaq/Pau/Melo to a team with cap space or pay 3x the luxury tax of that players salary. So Dr. Buss’ decision would be… Crap, Pau is up for rookie extension and is 22 years old and can average 22 lbs/12rpg and is a top 5 PF in the league already. Do I extend him knowing that I really want to Extend Carmelo in 2 years as well? If I extend all 4… I would have to pay $800 million in luxury tax because I’m already in the repeater tax.

So this causes even more player movement, where teams that traditionally small market, always suck and have poor management that always seems to screw stuff up for themselves (ie think Orlando, Sacramento) will have a shot at one of these high level players entering their prime… because a lot of the good teams who keep winning the tournament will have to make that decision because nobody can afford to pay billion dollar+ tax/year (if your a repeater tax violater multiple times), will have to make decisions to release one of their really good players every year.

Teams will then have to decide and plan their salary cap accordingly, where it will actually be a possibility for a team even in a large market with a big time rich owner to say “man… it sure was sweet to win the 2023 in season tourney, we actually ended up with Victor Wembanyama because we won the draft lottery by doing so and he’s a hall of fame level player. But now we have to decide, Victor is up for his rookie extension… but I’m the Warriors, if I give him his max contract, and I still have Steph at a max, Klay at the max, Draymond at a near max, Wiggins at a near max, extended Jordan Poole at a nice contract, Moody, Kaminga., etc. by extending Victor to a max it would cost like $1 billion dollars just for 1 season. The owner can’t afford it and needs to come down below the luxury tax. So he chooses he chooses to keep Victor, Steph, and Klay to get under the tax, everyone else has to be traded to a team with cap space.

The League will ultimately end up in a blend of teams who build around the strategy of either teams with 1 superstar with alot of depth, quality role players, 2 superstars with medium depth, or 3 superstars with vet minimum contracts in ANY market, big or small city.

So this idea would:
- Keep fans engaged and build long term loyalty. It creates more dynasties in any market.
- cut down on tanking and make the rebuilding process faster for teams
- make the league more competitive long term. Let’s be honest here, using Houston as the example… what if when that year comes where the Warriors make that decision, and Houston wants to max out Jalen Green, and is the only team with cap space. They would basically have to be traded the rest of the Warriors + Jalen Green, suddenly making Houston interesting real quick.

Would this idea not be awesome and make the in tournament wildly entertaining with such high stakes?!

 

Swap away! As long as Russ swaps jerseys and we get top end depth that addresses needs on this poorly constructed roster.

 

WHERE ARE OUR LARGE WINGS?

Another season and we have failed to fill this need. Troy Brown is an ok backup, Lebron isn't gonna defend the larger wings. Those 2 are essentially it, we need another and a starter quality large wing. I was/am hopeful we could swing a deal for Cam Reddish. He wants out, he's a good fit, maybe worth a few second rounders or even a FRP as he's 23 and maybe on the roster still by the time that pick is used. At 6 mil, a couple scrubs could do the money.

Love his size which we need badly and he can still grow especially playing with champs and fills an ongoing need for this team. That's a big front-court AD/LBJ/Cam

 

Yeah..we are desperately looking to trade Westbrook according to Darvin Ham.

https://heavy.com/sports/los-angeles-lakers/lakers-news-darvin-ham-russell-westbrook-nba/

 

On the flipside..who is going to be able to guard AD and a 5, and Lebron and still have enough size to hurt us with all their extra size? I like Cam tho..we don't have anyone to trade for him at the moment .

 

-Lakers want Westbrook to play Bowen/Draymond role?

How much crack shall I smoke to believe that will happen? Is there enough crack in the world right now?

 

How are Brown and Green even similar?

https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm...rfrom=2022&player_id2=brownbr01&p2yrfrom=2022

 

Brown is overated imo. I have been hearing his name mentioned recently and I don't know why. I guess because he plays for Brooklyn?

 

They are both kind of chubby? Idk man.

 

I guess in the mold of a do whatever it takes, do the little things and the dirty work kind of player. BUT that isn't nor has it ever been who Russ is.

 

Once Kyrie fizzled the other teams upped their price.

This is the risk we took by waiting out Kyrie. At a certain point, it was time to pivot to other potential deals.

 

Yeah, I just don't see how this is a realistic belief from the staff at all.

 

Signing Kyrie next year feels like a pipe dream they are selling fans to try to make folks feel better about whiffing on making a big deal.

 

Ham is going to make the best with whatever roster he has. I wouldn't expect any coach to come out and say they are shopping a player. Well, maybe Doc Rivers would throw Russ under the bus but other than him...