Are you not arguing against your own point? If it was health that kept us from the WCF in ‘21, and I agree that it was, then why the HELL did he blow up that roster? Why not keep Dennis? Why ship off Kuz, Trez, and KCP? Why let Caruso walk? That was a GOOD team, the only one he really built IMO (2020 he made some decent moves like having Danny Green wait for us, but AD was handed to him by Klutch, the rest of the roster were recruited by LeBron/AD from what I remember), so why the f*** did he tear it down and do the opposite of what was working for us? Why go away from size, why double down on having so many guards this season, why throw our most versatile wing in as a salary dump in a trade? Rob is as mediocre as they come, put him on any other franchise and he’s not being defended for the moves he’s made. Ugh I don’t even know why I’m arguing this, we’re stuck with him for years now, it is what it is, I’m done.
Let's not forget Rob pulled us out from under those terrible Deng/Mosgov signings with little real damage as one of his first moves. We also brought in Lebron James a year later in part because those contracts were gone, allowing for another superstar signing in the future. He worked under the lazy and incompetent Magic and outshined his work ethic so badly, Magic took his ball and went home. We got a championship in his 2nd year. He has dodged some bullets, the Schroder contract offer, and frankly, if we had not signed Russ we'd be stuck with Hield on our books for another 2 seasons. I still haven't figured out Lonnie Walker but maybe he'll turn into a good trade later in the season. He held fast with our FRPs even though they are for '27-'29, after this contract extension he just received, and he did that with an LBJ whose clock is ticking.
What a joke. A really bad one. Unfortunately, it’s on us, the Laker fans who will have to continue to watch Mr. Overcorrection continue to make awful choices until the next Superstar forces his way here.
Can we change the title, moderators? Just a suggestion. Maybe to Extended or something. Idk. Feels like He's Scrambling is played out, but idk.
I get what you're saying Weezy, and I've gone on record saying I dislike how we are run as an organisation and the nepotism that's in our front office. But let's be objective. + for positive moves and - for negative moves 2019 offseason: + Fired Luke Walton & hired Frank Vogel + Traded cash for a pick that became THT + Traded Ball, Hart, Ingram, 4th Pick & 2022 & 2024 Unprotected 1st, Plus a pick swap 2023 for AD + Signed Danny Green, Avery Bradley, Rondo, Howard, McGee & Dudley + Resigned KCP & Caruso + Signed Morris midseason - Signed Cousins, Quin Cook & Troy Daniels (they didn't do much) 2020 offseason: + Extended AD + Traded Danny Green & 1st for Schroeder + Signed Marc Gasol, Wesley Matthews, Montrezl Harris & Morris + Resigned KCP to a multi year contract + Signed Jones & Drummond mid season - Traded JaVale McGee and a 2nd for Jordan Bell and Alfonzo McKinnie (pretty sure McGee asked out) - Let Jones go after the 10 day (ownership decision) 2021 offseason: + Signed Reaves that went undrafted + Signed Melo, Howard, Monk, Nunn & Rondo + Signed Stan & Gabriel midseason + & - Signed THT to a 2 year contract (both his rookie contract and followup contract should of been executed better) - Traded KCP, Montrezl, & Kuzma and 22nd Pick 2021 for Russ and 2 second round picks - Signed Bazemore, Ariza, Ellington & DeAndre Jordan (terrible vets) - Didn't resign Caruso (ownership decision) 2022 offseason: + Fired Frank Vogel & Hired Ham + Traded cash for the pick that became Max Christie + Signed JTA, Brown, Jones, Bryant & Schroeder for minimums + Didn't capitulate and trade our future draft picks to dump Russ inconclusive: Traded THT & Stan for Patrick Beverley inconclusive: Signed Lonnie to mMle 2019 & 2020 were great offseason. 2021 wasn't so bad when you realise letting Caruso go was an ownership decision and trading for Russ was Lebron & AD forcing it. He still went out and got us Reaves, Monk & Nunn while bringing in Melo, Howard and Rondo as productive vets. Midseason he signed Stan & Gabriel. With better health maybe that team goes to the 2nd round like I said and it's not all doom and gloom. This offseason we have gotten considerably younger, better defensively and have upgraded our coaching significantly. And MOST importantly we didn't get rid of our draft picks for bad packages. On the inconclusive points: - I know Pat Bev is hated, but he should be a more useful player than THT around our stars - although throwing in Stan was a negative for me. - I didn't believe signing Lonnie to the mMLE was the best use of that asset, but there wasn't many better options. However, if you look at Lonnie's first game, he defended really well so maybe this could actually a good move. Like I said I consider it 3/4 good offseason. By no means is he great. But who are these better GM's we could of realistically hired and what better moves could we have reasonably expected. I'm sure this conversation will just turn back to the Russ signing at the end of the day.
Don't get me wrong, I have real problems with our culture and we aren't run like the best organisation in the NBA like we should be: - We don't have spending ability from our ownership - We don't really build strong edges in any real way (apart from our scouting which is top class) - Don't like the nepotism shown to Klutch and to old lakers - What are the Rambii doing being involved? - We go for the 3 star model instead of the 2 star + good players - We have no continuity from year to year and are constantly rebuilding our teams So to answer your question. Why did he blow up the championship roster? Well Rondo & McGee wanted to leave and Howard couldn't wait on us. We signed Gasol & Trez to replace the bigs and we signed Schroeder to replace Rondo & Green. So we had to make some changes around the edges the first season. Then we blew up health wise that season. As a result Schroeder was gone after not agreeing on his contract. Gasol wanted to go back to spain. Trez wasn't happy with Vogel for playing time and was going to leave. I believe there was a consensus amongst the stars and ownership that we needed redundancy for our injury prone stars so things didn't repeat. We traded Kuzma and KCP who flamed out in the playoffs alongside Trez who wasn't coming back for one of the better regular season carriers the NBA had in Westbrook. In all of this Rob was trying to trade for Hield for his shooting instead of Russ, so there's that too. We know that Russ didn't work out, but I don't think the concept of regular season help was terrible. The main point is to get Lebron and AD healthy to the playoffs so they can take over. So to answer your question, he didn't blow up the championship roster, there was just natural change at the edges over time. Probably the biggest CONTROLLABLE issue we have is the lack of continuity amongst 4 or 5 key players that teams like GSW, the Bucks or Heat have. We should of kept Caruso and McGee around AD & Lebron. Now we have the potential to do that with Nunn, Reaves & maybe one of Jones & Bryant.
That's what people are going to focus on and how our team is judged at the moment. No one really cares about anything else. I think we need to improve on the way we manage the team at the margins and build edges over time. But Rob isn't some kind of terrible problem, his track record is decent enough.
By the way, I counted about 11-13 teams that will tank or are likely to tank this year. That's about a third of the league. Rob should be busy working the phones.
Rob has a NBA Championship, there aren't a lot of "superior GM's" with that accomplishment. What was Jeanie supposed to do? She got us a chip after a summer of folks picketing Staples, talking about how she should sell the team. She opened the purse and we had the 3rd highest payroll in the league last season. Her two best players only played in 27 games after the bubble, that team struggled to beat anyone without them. Her two best players pushed for a trade, she acquiesced to their trade demands, why not? These guys just lifted this franchise back to the the top of the league, then they turned around and played in 21 games in the next season. That's not her fault, everybody is applauding Balmer for spending all this money, and getting his best players everything they asked for, players, coaches, superior FO staff. Yet Leonard and George, have missed more games than Lebron and AD, and haven't won jack****! But hey...Balmer is a this "great" owner? The 21 team couldn't win without Lebron and AD, If we brought them all back, they weren't going to win s*** last season with James and Davis playing in 21 games either IMO. We would be in a similar place today, pinning everything on Lebron and AD being healthy. Let see how it plays out.
So our team gets excused because or injuries, but Balmer isn’t actually that great despite his stars being injured MORE than ours… ok, sure. If the Clippers were healthy the last couple of seasons they’d have been the West favorites and rightly so. Doesn’t mean they’d have won it all, but their roster was far superior to ours, I don’t see any debate there. Our team is better last season if left as it was, the whole “they wouldn’t have won jack” thing doesn’t track for me because they’d have at least been competitive with LeBron and AD missing time, got us to the play-in same as they did in ‘21, at least been entertaining to watch unlike that absolute dumpster fire that was last seasons roster. This is entertainment above all else, put a good product on the floor, not a bunch of geriatric players who don’t care or 80 players that play the same position. Lastly, seeing how it plays out would have been not extending Rob, you know, SEEING how it plays out. That’s over now, they’re not interested in seeing how it plays out, it’s already played out through 2026, they don’t care about being the best clearly. A FOUR YEAR extension for the crap job this guy has done, mind blowing.
If Lebron and AD had been healthy last year we could have won the West. The Clippers roster was supposedly superior to ours in 19 too. You don't KNOW what would have happened. I didn't find the 20 team all that entertaining, they couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with a machine gun, without James and Davis playing. Most of them went MIA in that Phoenix series. Yeah...we could have still beat them, with Lebron on a high ankle sprain, and AD playing on one leg. That wasn't the supporting cast, that was Lebron and AD. Hell the only reason that team got to the playin game, was the cushion that we had built up before AD went down. What was their excuse? Lebron and AD were hurt. Last season they play in even less games and it was a full season, and Nunn never played at all. Same thing. This is the NBA, signing a 4 year extension doesn't guarantee that you will be around for 4 years. Winning a Championship isn't crap dude, I'd much rather win a Chip then be "entertaining", winning is entertaining.
Anyone defending this contract extension is crazy. Why do it now? We all know Jeanie is too cheap to fire him while under contract, so we're stuck with mister "i'll tell you a bs story" till 2026 minimum. Awesome...
i think svtzr laid the case out pretty well, and i've yet to see much of a rebuttal. predominantly good moves, with the russ deal just looming over everything. no gm in our organizational structure would have been able to resist the russ deal, though. replacing rob won't change that. we'd be better if we cleaned house and brought in masai ujiri, but that would require an ownership change, too, so it's kind of a moot point. extending rob keeps him from making a desperate move to save his job, like trade russ and two unprotected firsts for turner and hield.
