2024-25 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

The jokes write themselves with Luka being overweight during gameday

 

Well @abeer3, I owe you and a few others a drink as I definitely never thought this would happen in a million years. I have got yo read the behind the scenes info on this because I’m honestly stunned by all aspects of it.

I am an AD fan and will miss him. But yeah you gotta pull the trigger on a deal for Luka. There’s only a handful of guys you trade AD for and he’s definitely one of them.

 

I don’t think it’s rigged but no one got the sense that Luka was unhappy or that the Mavs were unhappy with him before nw. Mavs fans that I know are legit stunned and I can’t blame them.

 

This is better than shortening quarters to 10 minutes, right Commisioner Silver?

 

Gotta take a moment and thank the real mastermind behind this,

LeGM.

You really had me this time with the bromance between you and AD but it’s clear now you’d trade Bronny if you really needed to. thanks for leaving the franchise with another star on your way out of the door.

 

Yeah I agree with all of this. It’s why they hate us so much.

 

On a more serious note, the team has to reconstruct itself around Luka. Much prefer a soft rebuild around him than completely restarting from the ground up with draft picks.

 

So agree with the idiocy of the AD slights: have these people not seen his game? Really? He's often bestial. He's insanely good. I love his overall game, esp on the defensive end, and AD's offense was at times breath-taking. "We gave away Luka for nothin', man!" Blow me. You idiots: now you're competing as the top team in the West.

We expect Luka back after the All-Star break. 3 weeks. Who knows who our 4 and 5 is. I will miss Max's defense. I'll miss AD, period.

I get it now: this was a long-term move. We'll have Luka for 10 years. I hope that all pans out. I hope in 12 years we think of him along with Kobe, Kareem, Magic, Wilt, West, Shaq, Bron, Pau, even AD. But Luka seems the bizarro world version of Lebron's stay-in-amazing-shape-so-you-can-play-at-a-high--level-when-you're-40-thing. Does he have the discipline to stay in shape in LA?

I seems like more of a gamble than maybe some of us think. Can he stay healthy? He's only 25 and he's already ballooned, the DAL front office voiced concerns, but did he lose weight?

My personal politics are not "conservative." But when it comes to the Lakers I am conservative. I favor little change, but if it must happen, let it not be some drastic thing. This is probably a (demonstrably?) wrong way to look at things, but it's true for me, emotionally, as a Laker fan.

If you asked me two days ago: what would you most like to happen before the trade deadline on Feb 6th?
1.) we deal for a Big to let AD play the 4, which is what he and Bron had asked for; or:
2.) we trade AD and Max for Luka.

I think my first impulse, as a conservative Laker fan: #1.

Now I steel myself to be a fan of #2. Water is wet and it is what it is.

 

I would have sent him there for a top 59 protected 2nd rounder just to open the roster spot.

 

I think this team is well built for Luka with DFS and Vando. Losing Max hurts though

 

We have got to get a big now. No way around it.

 

This is how I see it. Long term move to rebuild the franchise around Luka. I can’t get behind it.

 

Ultimately, it’s clear by our actions that we were hesitant to go all in with the team being lead by AD and LeBron. It’s why several of us were frustrated and ready to just go ahead and start the rebuild.

in a sense, that’s what they’ve done. They traded for a guy they believe can be the franchise star for the next decade and though I will miss AD, I am good with this.

The team should now be able to fully invest on getting better.

 

I was just falling in love with Max's overall game. This just adds to the vertigo of the day, as a Laker fan.

AD was stunning as a player. Just conjecture, but deep inside the Lakers culture/management/owners, there might have been the "too soft" thing. I don't really believe it. But I can see how others might read the tea leaves for 31 yr old AD.

I will always love AD's style and game.

Luka was astonishing from the get-go. I do worry about his self-discipline, something we never worried about with AD, Lebron, Kobe.

 

We’re also the organisation that traded Pau for CP3 because he had a bad playoffs and was too soft. For all the reputation we build on how we look after stars, we can also be pretty cut throat when an upgrade comes along. Even to our greats like Pau and AD - that’s show business right