Former Lakers Majority Owner Mark Walter Discussion

I was digging through NBA teams and their scouting department; Spurs, Heat, OKC, have the 3 best. One o

Board, my bad. Important distinction because he "confirmed" that he saw different boards from both parties and both had different options of players.

It just speaks to the disconnection they had; maybe Rob really liked JHS. He's a bust, but for all the chatter, I did a search on all the supposed draft gurus and their scouting departments including names and such and went down some list; every team has some really bad misses. Including the darling OKC, Spurs, etc.

Now that I saw that, I'm more sympathetic to Rob, lol.

 

Prepare to be frustrated. If Magic is involved in any capacity with the Dodgers, why wouldn't he be in some capacity with the Lakers? That doesn't make any sense.

 

yeah, i'm constantly begging the people that hate our FO to just take a gander at others. i mean, sam presti is the same guy who made the bad decisions that led okc to dismantle a potential dynasty before riding the tank to current glory.

nobody just beats everyone in this kind of game.

 

Jerry West was a pretty good GM.

 

definitely. now, do you think i couldn't comb through his archives and find some damning doozies?

 

i meant more along the lines of putting him back into a role where he's making personnel decisions

couldn't care less if he's involved in some kind of ownership/consultant role

 

yeah, my current concern is how does one go about finding rob's complement/replacement coming from the outside? i get that walter has been successful before, but i understand that it took a while to make the FO hires that everyone's pleased with. here, that could mean punting on luka's prime by accident.

the doofuses who bought dallas didn't understand the nba enough to stop harrison from trading doncic. i don't think we're in that kind of situation at all, but there's still some danger in the transition period--including how does rob act when his job is on the line. my feeling is that rob stopped making bad decisions after the westbrook trade in part because he got some kind of guarantee/support that he was going to be here past the klutch/lebron era. if that changes, does he take an ill-advised wild swing?

 

does pelinka really deserve all the blame for westbrick though? wasn't he trying to trade for hield before lebron and AD overruled him?

 

yes and no. it's obvious that lebron and AD heavily influenced the move, but as many repeat: rob was the gm. he was the one who had to abort the sac deal and make the trade for westbrook.

my point--which i should have made more clearly--is that rob made the westbrook trade because he was worried about his job status if he overruled his star players. since then, i feel like he's been confident enough to tell lebron to kick rocks on his demands of the front office, and he straight up traded AD when his chirping became a problem (some of the stuff coming out now indicates he might have done so even if the luka situation didn't arise).

anyway, so we've seen rob make poor decisions when he felt compelled by outside forces to act. this time, the outside force isn't lebron demanding we trade 11 firsts for demar derozan or something, but it's more of a felt pressure of "if i don't make something amazing happen, i'm out".

before people say that you need expectations...of course you do. but i feel like patience has been our friend over the past few years and impatience has been our downfall.

i just hope whatever communication has occurred between walter and rob is something that doesn't put rob in position or in a personal headspace that will end up detrimental to team building.

i guess a shorter way of saying all this is that i sort of expected for rob to be out the door with the buss brothers or for him to remain in place for the foreseeable future. things in between (like him getting fired over the summer) seem more dangerous to me.

and maybe the answer is that we're going to be incredibly reluctant to make any in-season moves, leaving clean books and all the trade assets intact for rob's successor.

 

Where's magic? Where's magic?

 

Aside from saying he wanted to play alongside a Center, what was the other “chirping” coming from AD?
Based on my feeling that the LeBron/AD pairing was done winning, I would have been fine with him and LeBron being traded.

 

https://clutchpoints.com/nba/los-an...ud-new-details-reveal-luka-doncic-trade-spark

 

LOL.

So, we traded one out-of-shape, often injured star for another out-of-shape one.

The irony…

 

Thanks. I had no idea the Lakers were frustrated with AD’s lack of dedication.
This makes the trade even more lopsided in our favor.

 

Morale is so much better with him at the helm.

 

Presti s*** is annoying - he didn't even initiate the Clippers trade. Kawhii is the one who started this cascade. I'm not saying Presti is bad and he's a good drafter but this hagiography is getting ridiculous. He lucked into SGA and let's face no one knew SGA would become this version of himself either. It's not even Ainge like level of machiavellianism as he was able to tank by trading away two stars who didn't get them anywhere.

 

Yeah I tend to agree with you, Presti messed up two title teams with his inability to judge talent.

He kept Perkins (why?) instead of James Harden. Then for the following 5-7 years he couldn’t put the pieces around Durant and Russ that was needed, namely 3&D pieces.

Then he retooled with PG and Russ and brought in Melo, when all he needed was some 3&D pieces.

This time around he seems to have gone all in on 3&D pieces, and lucked into SGA, who during the trade looked like a decent piece that could be a third option on a good team. He shouldn’t get credit for the improvement of SGA or the fact that the clippers are giving them yearly lottery picks.

He’s a good GM but not the world breaker he is made to seem in hindsight.

 

i return to this thread to repeat that there is no GM that fans think exists, imo. 85% of these guys are good at their jobs to a fairly similar degree. some get lucky, some have some advantages (owners with cash, particularly pre-2nd apron), but i don't think it's like with players, where some of them just can do things others can't.

presti was allowed to fail in ways others couldn't. i'm sure sam hinkie is sitting there like...i totally tried this and didn't have the same luck.

anyway, this is the walter thread, so what he can do is make sure our gm--whoever it is--has the best staff around them and a clear, sensible organizational structure.

afaik, the rambii and tim harris are still here. when that ends, i'm happy. but i'm not sure presti outdoes rob given the circumstances here the past several years. in fact, i wonder if presti would have gotten into bed with klutch and forged the nico relationship that led to our biggest moves. this also led to our worst moves (russ, mainly, but also nunn, THT, etc.), of course. but that's the business. right now, rings are 1-1.

 

Magic has zero decision making on roster construction and development with the Dodgers. He is the bridge to good relations. That’s it. He will be the same with the Lakers.

 

Let's hope you are correct

Don't want him anywhere near the FO decision making