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

The wife thing has this making all the sense in the world. No way a VP will stand for that, which is why someone leaked this to Woj and Shams.

Rumor has it there could be two women... Oops....

I'll die laughing if this makes the organization and team crumble. Come on home, JT.

 

I don't love the trade, I don't think Trent Jr is worth 2 first round picks and I think McDermott has negative value. It seems like 3 first round picks and 2 decent players gets you a star. We'd be another first round pick and something like Nunn away from landing a star with that package - so I'd pass.

 

Counterpoint: I don’t think the punishment should be made worse just because it’s a personal grievance of a VP.

Like if sleeping with the wife of a low level employee would have gotten him a week suspension, sleeping with the wife of a VP shouldn’t suddenly become a full year suspension (assuming all other factors are equal in terms of workplace dynamics, consent, etc).

Reading social media, it’s already not a great look for Boston the way this report was leaked. In particular it looks terrible that they are considering giving Udoka the same suspension for a consensual relationship that the NBA gave to Sarver for legitimately racist/sexist behavior.

But… since this is the C Bags, I’m all here for anything that causes turmoil and bad optics to them!

 

so did udoka sleep with a female staffer? or was it the wife of a team employee?......or both?

considering the punishment, i'm leaning towards the wife of a team employee being involved for sure. something tells me if he was just having a relationship with a female staffer that the punishment wouldn't be this harsh

 

Save the 27 and 29 first round picks for Tatum

 

That's true - a lot of players move to where they want to go. Plenty of examples, with a few being: Melo went to NY. Jimmy Butler to Chicago. AD to the Lakers. Harden to Philly etc etc. You know what all large star trades have in common though? Plenty of draft picks.

So I'm not worried about players coming here to play with AD, unless AD is injured. I'm more worried about not having the trade assets to get it done. If we trade the '27 and '29 first round picks, we can't trade the 2026, 2028 and 2030 picks. We already don't control our '23, '24 and '25 draft picks. So how do we get anyone else to join AD?

I assume Anthony Davis will be a spent force by the time he is 35, so that's 5 seasons left. That means we'd have another 3 years of no draft picks after he is gone. If we keep the picks and wait for our opportunity we could have 2 or 3 years of AD and this new player.

I don't know how else to say this - unless we are getting a star back, we should not trade those picks.

I don't believe any of the things you brought up goes away when trading with Indiana. I think it'll just make fans feel better in the short term. This trade does not:

- Fix our ownership, who can't compete financially with other owners and have shown nepotism
- Fix our management, we don't have the best people in the business running this team
- Fix the age of our superstar in Lebron, who isn't far off retiring
- Fix the injury prone-ess of our second star in AD

For all the flack Slick gets, unless Lebron and AD stay healthy and play at top 10 levels, we aren't a contender. And when it comes to ownership and management, winning can patch over those problems, but to fix it we need good decision making over the long term at the margins.

 

I know it’s a highly unpopular take, but I’d still deal Westbrook for Randle. Especially now with all our smaller backcourt guys.

 

Why can't we trade 26, 28 and 30 picks?

Yeah man, come on. You listed those points that are all true, but no trade fix those right? It's a bit of an unfair argument

 

Randle is a bigger Russ man

 

Can't trade FRPs every year only every other year

 

Keyword “bigger”. The last two years have proven one thing to me, and it’s that I have ZERO confidence in Lebron or AD staying healthy. Randle brings us back the length, depth and athleticism we lost by foolishly trading Kuz. Randle can adequately guard 3-5 and is a matchup nightmare at the 4 and 5 on most nights. Good luck trying to stop a Lebron/Randle/AD frontcourt. I keep hearing “Randle can’t shoot”. Please tell me what’s the difference between him and us starting Javale and Dwight in 19/20?

PatBev/Shroder
Walker or Reaves
Lebron/Brown/Christie
Randle/JTA/Gabriel
AD/Bryant/Jones

That’s infinitely better than any starting 5 we can put on the court right now.

 

i've been on board with randle for russ, but there are definite downsides. first, randle's contract runs a long time. second, his defense is largely theoretical--he's been a negative most of his career on that end, and he struggled a lot as a back line guy at the 5 spot.

i agree that on offense he's no different (and really, better) than running bigs. AD can be the vertical threat, and it's not necessary to have two.

i just feel like ny would have to really sweeten that deal for me, tbh. again, that's a lot of years for a guy who's not highly valued around the league.

on the other hand, if you ask me which realistic FA next year is better than randle, i'm coming up empty.

 

Plus then you have to start AD at the 5 looks like or have a disgruntled Randle flashing back to the Boron / Magic Laker days. And lose the vertical game of Jones and hoped for shooting from Bryant.

 

more devil's advocate: randle as sixth man 4/5. plays center against opposing second units.

more self-rebuttal: honestly, russ as sixth man pg who runs roughshod over second-line players is equally interesting and equally implausible given the guys' egos.

 

Anything that is not a defensive monster and/or a 3pt specialist is not what we need atm.

Unless Randle went full-on into D-mode he is not a great fit, especially in his price range for us. His contract is fine for some small market team somewhere where he can go be a star but it's too much a commitment for the Lakers and our needs.

 

Very frustrating that Westbrook is going to be here. I'm not excited for this year at all.

 

his contract is basically 3rd star level, but the going rate for three point specialists is basically 2/3 that amount, and those guys get run off the court by the good teams (e.g., d. robinson, bertans).

i prefer randle to duncan robinson or bertans, but i understand the FO not wanting to go any of those routes.

 

Is the Lebron mini camp starting tomorrow?

 

Swider indicated today the 22nd on that podcast prior in this thread I believe not too far back. San Diego area. Waiting for police reports of a brawl breaking out with Russ and Bev and Schroder.

 

Well, Udoka was a Lakers guy first. So if this was his way of infiltrating the enemy, I'm all for it.

Vogel heading to Boston to embrace his true colors woudl be something, wouldn't it?

In all seriousness, pretty crazy that this has unraveled the C Bags franchise and I hope they do horribly this year so that Tatum or Brown want out