I disagree. Clarkson has been a better player than Rondo since given the keys to the car. You can argue that he's not starting guard material, despite the fact that he is putting up numbers comparable to many guards in the league. But he has improved a talent-less Laker team that is now winning games (unfortunately) and knocking on the door in several others. Rondo has weakened the Mavs. I'm done with the whole "It's not the right team for Rondo to thrive" excuse. He only ever thrived when he had 3 HoFers around him. And let's say that he needs a specific team built around him to thrive. Is that team ours? I mean, seriously? It would take us 2-3 years for players to be added/mature to get to the point where he might be able to thrive. At which point he'd be 31 years old...a 31 year old who has already declined physically in his mid 20s. He has zero jump shot to fall back on to keep teams honest once his athleticism really starts breaking down. "whether due to injuries or just lack of talent around him, he's still a highly regarded point guard in terms of talent." And therein lies the problem. There are a lot of guys with talent. But injuries are part of the game. He's hurt all the time. You can't just gloss over injuries and his inability to play with a lack of talent (since the pgs #1 job is to elevate the play of those around him).
I like this. The one thing I disagree with a bit is that JC's growth would be stunted if we grab Russell or Mundiay. They are both big enough to play either guard position alongside JC. They theoretically could play together quite well.
Agreed about Rondo; if anybody could figure how to use Rondo effectively, please apply to Scott's coaching staff. If Carlisle couldn't do it, Scott certainly isn't. Oh, by the way, Rondo doesn't have the lateral ability to get by his man anymore, so what does he utilize a lot of? The pick in roll. Scott doesn't like that unless it's a late game situation. I could visualize Kobe being doubled in the post (when he's playing), Rondo's man doubling on Kobe, Kobe passing it out to Rondo and BRICK! Not to mention, his health sucks; so, yeah, let's pay $12 million for Rondo instead of any other wing(s) that we could invest into our future.
I don't think his growth will be stunted because of a rookie guard, it's more so Kobe. If we draft a guard first (and don't get one in FA), then that guard will start alongside Kobe. There's only so much time available. Yeah, Kobe's minutes will be scaled back and he'll miss games which will give opportunities, but it's still Kobe. Even if he has to saw a leg off, he's going to do everything he can to go out his way. I agree the rookie guard could play with JC, it's just a matter of opportunity. And that's not even addressing Swaggy's PT.
I often wonder if people actually have watched Rondo lately. He is an absolute shell of the man who dueled Derek Rose in that epic playoff series, to say nothing of being an bonafide malcontent. He may not even be a top 20 pg in this league. In fact, in one thread, I named 15 that are better. Nobody argued them. So is stunting Clarkson's development (a man who has been better than Rondo this season since becoming a starter) worth it? Then project ahead 2 seasons when Clarkson leaves because we don't have the money to sign him because Rondo is now making 13-14 million a season.
You don't think Kobe can play the 3? He might actually be better off guarding 3's at his age. Not quite as quick. It's not like 3's have post up games these days. Monroe/Davis Randle/Black/Kelly Kobe/Swaggie Pee Clarkson/Kobe/Swaggie Pee Russell/Lin?/Price?
He could, he's done it before. But there's some serious drawbacks to it. 1) Size of the starting 5. That's an awfully small team. 2) Where's the D? A team like that would be worse than a MDA squad defensively. We'd have to get Jordan at C to cover for everyone. 3) Having to "guard" the Melos, Brons, Durants, and bigger wings won't be good for his body at this point. I use the term "guard" lightly because Kobe hasn't played D for years, he'll get up for certain matchups but mostly it's gambling and playing the lanes. He's dropped a lot of weight since the last time he played a lot of SF minutes. Can't put that weight back up because he'd be sacrificing his body holding up under that excess weight. In addition, a lot of the other SFs are corner snipers. Kobe doesn't exactly enjoy covering the 3 point line defensively. 4) Offensively that'd mean more Kobe on the block. Brings me back to the weight issue. He's smaller and his body is more fragile. Not sure if he can handle the night-in-night-out pounding from the paint and the more frequent run ins with the opposing bigs.
You're right. But if he breaks down, do we really care? I mean, Kobe going down to an injury next season means nothing to be honest. We aren't making the playoffs short of RoY campaigns by Randle AND our pick (if we keep it).
I like monroe too, but if the lakers have a chance at towns/okafor they should go that route and push for a solid backcourt FA and pray that a young lakers core can interest durant
The only way I go after Monroe is if we go into full scumbag mode. Have Shaq go have an unofficial meeting with Monroe. Shaq tells him he thinks he has what it takes to join himself, Kareem, Wilt, Mikan. Monroe is excited & ready to sign the contract. Shaq tells him it's not going to be that easy, he wants revenge for the 04 finals. Has Monroe tell SVG that he'll take a paycut if he finds a way to create the cap space to sign Dragic along with keeping himself & Reggie. Mitch just happens to call about some random player like JL3. Stan shifts the conversation to Jennings. Mitch tells him the last time he took on 1 year of a mediocre PG's contract he got a 1st, & that mediocre PG didn't have a torn achilles. We end up with an unprotected Detroit 1st for absorbing Jennings. Monroe stages a fake argument with a player or Stan & then signs with us. Even if Monroe doesn't work out he's a tradeable asset & we get a lottery pick by sabotaging the Pistons.
The thing I love about Middleton is he can really do it all. He's played everywhere from SG to PF when the Bucks had holes in the roster & defended them all well. He has a good 1st step & handles, can get to the rim when they need him to, but that isn't his role currently. He shoots over 40% from 3, 48% FG, & 85% FT. He's not a point foward but he's an above average passer. When he's asked to take on a bigger role he steps up, for example in 35.9 MPG over the last 10 games, 19.4, 5.4, 3.1 on 50% from the field. He just takes whatever situation he's put in & finds a way to succeed, rare for a kid that's only 23.
I was wondering. He said that shoulder has been hurting him since 2001. Which was the shoulder he hurt way back in the day when he pump faked a guy into the air who landed on one of his shoulders and jacked him up for awhile? Probably no correlation. Just a random thought in the giddiness over the LOSS against Knicks tonight. WooHoo.
Maybe I should have left some of the trade scenarios in the post so you'd know I wasn't undervaluing Randle/the pick. It was stuff like Payton + Vucevic, Lawson + Nurkic, Collison + Cousins. Basically deals that no team would ever consider offering us for a top 5 pick. Kevin Love 1 year away from being 100% gone in free agency just netted the last two #1 overall picks + Miami's 1st. To place so much value on Randle or a top 5 pick that you'd only take Lebron, Durant, AD, Curry level players is just placing way too much value on youth. I know we've squandered a lot of picks chasing a contender, but overcompensating for that by overvaluing our picks & young players is just as bad. 2016 seems far away now but realistically this summer is 1 of our last shots at making this team appealing to all of the major FA's that will be looking to cash in on the rise in the salary cap. If some team is stupid enough to give us a star + another good player, we need to take it & laugh to the bank. I don't think you read the part of my post about RFA's like Knight & Butler very well, which is understandable because it was way too long. I said they're both too good for their teams to let them go for nothing & we'd probably end up having to give up Clarkson + Hou 1st + 2nd rounders in a S&T. In general I don't think you can gamble making offers to RFA's when they're max players because teams will just match & find a trade. Lower tier RFA's like Middleton, I think you can gamble a bit more. With the Bucks trying to develop Jabari & Giannis, I don't know how much they'd reasonably be willing to commit to Middleton. & waiting to see if they match doesn't prevent us from adding a max player. We saw Mitch last summer making offers to players, even having agreements announced before we were sure where the cap space was coming from. Besides, LMA & Marc are probably the only UFA worth offering the max to & they aren't coming here.
Honestly, I'm really high on middleton. I think he can be a diamond in the rough signing. I'd honestly prefer him over rondo
I think Rondo on his way to LA. everything around it feels like that. I'm just hoping Rondo will take the right approach to build fast a team to run on a high level, aka, take much less money than what he thinks he's worth. If it will happen it will be insane. People underestimate the amount of court vision with Rondo and Kobe on the court together. it will be present after present for everybody out there. if somehow Diandre Jordan comes (or Okafor), he will get alley oops all day long. and so does Randle. With Clarkson and Young off the bench. it will bring SHOWTIME back.
Screw Rondo. Mitch can't be that dumb, he or his staff watch games and see Rondo glued to the floor. And it's not because he doesn't want to be in Dallas. It's because he is done.
As far as I'm concerned, Rondo is a net-negative player. I've never liked his game even before his injury. I remember people drilling me when I said I'd take Lowry over Rondo in 2012. That has not changed. Sad thing is we could have gotten Lowry...TWICE, but the FO passed up on him. Rondo's "court vision" btw consistently leads the worst offenses in the league. I also don't want to overpay players. Dragic does not deserve the max, but I'd be willing to sign him for the right price. Most of all though, I just want some solid two-way players. 95% of our team either doesn't play defense or sucks on offense. There are so many good role players out there that are competent on both ends of the floor. Even if we don't get a star, I'd be happy to get role players that play on both ends of the court.
PG Mo Williams/CJ Watson SF DeMarre Carroll I think these are the affordable players I would personally target. Carroll especially for his defense, and he's a 38-39% 3PT shooter to boot. We could MAYBE STILL afford a top-tier talent with these guys as well.
It's not that I overvalue the picks necessarily, it's that the Lakers can have potentially cornerstone players on rookie contracts AND enough room to add max players if they get the picks right. So far we've got Clarkson, Randle, and probably a Top 5er coming this summer. Those three need to be the tentpoles that we build around. Mitch mentioned that this summer: we're going to base our FAs around where we draft. I'm not about to give up those picks unless it makes us a contender right away. The only players that are going to make us a contender right away are MVP-race kind of players. Otherwise we're giving up cost controlled assets that can be "home grown" (and thus easy to pay) when we don't have to do that. If we trade them for more 2nd tier players, where does that really get us? Older 2nd tier players instead of young 2nd tier-potentially 1st tier players? I'm not unwilling to move Randle or our Top 5 pick, but only if we know we're going to make the playoffs because of the move. Payton and Vucevic don't do taht. Lawson and Nurkic certainly don't do that. Collison and Cousins could... but they're on the same team right now and they're not going to the playoffs either. With RFAs you are tied up with how much money you offer them. Everyone is high on Middleton for example, so let's use him. If we have 20 million to spend this summer and offered him a 6 million dollar deal, then we'd only have 14 million left to spend. We wouldn't be able to offer the max to anyone else. We would have to either get someone for below value (which is where Rondo comes in even though people are really low on him that's kind of the point) or split that money between people and fill out the roster. The Bucks meanwhile have 7 days to decide whether or not to match it and if they DO match it, we're screwed because we now have wasted 7 days of free agency and some good players will have already been signed. It's just not worth it for us when we need to find playmakers and gamechangers. We need to add as much talent as possible this summer and we need to do it without restriction.
