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

Sports Illustrated is reporting that Kuz wants more than 20 million a year in his next contract.

 

He deserves that

 

In the NBA you have to have guys who can make 3s. Right now, hours before the trading season opens, we have two guys who crack the top 100.

That seems...to be a weakness for us. To put it mildly. Furthermore, the first guy to show up in the 3FGM% is Lonnie Walker IV, who doesn't appear on the list until number 45 of all players who qualify. There are 30 teams in the NBA. Walker comes in at #45, shooting 39.5% from downtown.

You'd think a few other Lakers would fall in here, because we're already pretty far down the list, but our next guy is Reaves, shooting 37.6%, and he's #71 in the NBA.

I dunno, man. This seems like a problem, eh?

Now the problems: finding a guy who's available who can MAKE 3s, play some D, without further mortgaging our draft pick futures. Is Rob looking in the Slavic countries for these guys? I'm only half-joking.

 

It really is making the most of LeBron's final years and how AD is playing at such a high level.

You ask yourself if "going for it" now is worth taking on salary for next season (ruining our cap space) as well as surrendering future 1st round picks.....

I began with the answer of no and I am still skeptical, but the high level AD has been playing at makes me say now go for it- as well as how wide open the West is now.

Of course, the only way you do this is if the players you are going to trade for is ultimately going to make us contenders. It is the same two trades now that get mentioned that would have me saying yes.

Firstly, would be the Knicks trade and today (Dec 15th when many players are now able to be traded that we signed in the offseason) we will see how serious we are. Nothing wrong with doing this one first and waiting to see how things mesh, but ultimately I still say you have to move Westbrook if you want to contend.

Lakers trade G's Patrick Beverley and Kendrick Nunn along with C Damian Jones for F Cam Reddish and F/G Evan Fournier and a 2023 2nd round pick

Lakers would basically be throwing in the towel on our offseason cap space, but adding Fournier would for the first time since we have had AD/LBJ together in giving us a volume 3-pt shooter. A 19 million hit for 2023 is steep but I still think it is sorely needed on this roster. Adding the 23-year old Reddish would give us much needed size on the perimeter and another nice young project to add to the trio of Reeves, Walker and Christie

Alone however, I simply dont think it will be enough to compete for a title. Lakers need more shooting and an upgrade defensively. You simply aren't getting a wing player that can do that at the deadline, so since your cap space is basically gone already, they need to bite the bullet and make the Pacers deal, and yes that means sending off Westbrook and the two future 1st round picks. If you can get them to accept only one or either of them protected, great....but at best I think you might get a 2nd rounder back as part of the deal

Lakers trade G Russell Westbrook and their 2027 and 2029 1st round picks to the Indiana Pacers for C Myles Turner and G Buddy Hield and a 2025 2nd round pick

Lakers would still have tremendous flexibility for next year as none of the guys they acquired are hard contracts to move, even if all of their cap space would be gone.

Then the question is....would this team be a contender?:

1. Anthony Davis
2. LeBron James
3. Myles Turner
4. Lonnie Walker V
5. Austin Reeves
6. Buddy Hield
7. Evan Fournier
8. Cam Reddish
9. Thomas Bryant
10. Wenyen Gabriel
11. Troy Brown Jr
12. Dennis Schroder

IMO the addition of adding two volume 3 point shooters in Buddy and Evan and the defensive presence of Turner would be the next best thing to upgrading our perimeter wings (which is near impossible to trade for)

So my answer would be yes, we would be- and the sooner we make these moves the sooner the 4 new additions can mesh....

 

Wasting Bron's last years, seeing how good AD is playing is criminal. Make some damn trades... just tell Luka to be patient and keep a pick or 2 just in case.

 

with cade out for the year, the pistons are a) tanking even harder and b) no longer worried about having a high usage vet at pg:



I might give up a protected 1st if bey is added (which could work, mathematically). i'd add jones to their end of the take in that case, too.

i'm still on board with the fournier/reddish for bevs/nunn deal. feel like it should happen soon, too. as someone said, i don't think we're going to do a lot better than that, and time matters to us if we want to compete. we can still wait on a russ deal should something great present itself.

 

that team is a bit thin at pg and still has nobody to defend wings, but it's better than the current one.

i really don't think indy is going to salary dump turner anymore, though, so it's moot. if they move him (and i think they won't), they're going to try to get a prospect back for him, imo. we don't have that to offer. they may also try to get a solid vet on a longer-term deal given that they're a bad FA destination. turner for anunoby makes sense for both teams, imo. so might something involving turner and hield for capela and collins in atlanta. i think we're no longer in that game, in other words.

 

Lebron as the main facilitator ain't going to work anymore. Trading for Turner alone remains the best deal on the table. These high volume shooters are not going to pan out the way folks think, because they won't be getting those high volume shots here with Lebron and AD. Then folks will be complaining about this shooter suffering the "LA effect" and we tied up long-term money into them! LOL.

Turner 1st option...Bogdonavic 2nd..this Knicks idea 3rd. Myles is the most impactful player that we've discussed besides Kyrie. Stephen A Smith is still saying that Kyrie plans on coming to LA..I guess we'll see what Rob has in mind shortly.

 

We had 3 pt shooters last season, Golden State has them now....more to it than shooting a certain percentage from 3. We won a chip as the 21st place team in 3pt shooting. More size, rebounding and defense (Myles Turner) would have a lot more impact than shooting at a better clip from deep. Probably the least expensive option to boot.

 

…no trades yet huh. Our front office is filled with slackers.

 

IDK Jones....Turner was the only guy mentioned, that could make an impact on Defense. Putting more of the load on Lebron to facilitate, doesn't seem like the smart move to me. However getting off of Bev,Jones and Nunn for just about anything, is a good idea. Bogdonavic can shoot, that's not a bad trade, I have doubts that Fournier and Reddish, are actually any better the Reaves and Walker, but getting a 1st rd pick with them sets up other moves perhaps. Interesting days ahead

 

fournier and reddish don't have to be better than reaves and walker, they need to be better than bevs and nunn.

basically, instead of having a bunch of 6'1 guys, you now have a bunch of 6'5-6'7 guys, which is better.

AD/bryant/gabriel
lebron/gabriel/JTA
reddish/fournier/JTA
walker/reaves/fournier
reaves/russ/schroder

it's a better team than the one we have today, and we give up very little to get it done. i'd make this move now and sit on a russ deal in the hopes something great comes along.

and yes, i would try to get the knicks to throw in a 1st for two seconds from us or something, just so that we have russ and 3 1sts in our pocket in case of (other team's) emergency.

 

Yeah. If we can get back a pick from the Knicks then that trade ends up helping us in several ways.

 

Kuzma is coming back.

 

Possibly.