2019/20 Players' Transactions: Breaking News , Trades, Free Agents, And Rumors

Yeah, in that camp too...

 

I'm with Abeer 100% here...I absolutely HATED the D-Lo trade when it happened because there was no urgency or reason to do it.

Fast forward to September...and OKC has Paul George and Melo AND got Westbrook to re-sign which I did NOT expect him to do.

I knew when OKC got Melo, that we needed to worry. Melo is a perfect fit for OKC and I think even with a 2nd round exit, George is staying in OKC simply because Westbrook has already committed.

Only way he doesn't stay now is if they get upset in the first round.

Time to stop thinking about Paul George and move on. We'll focus on DMC and LeBron now

 

www.ihatelebron.com

 

Fab4: What part of the Dlosing generation are you trying to hold onto? We all agree that Luke with the right personnel and more importantly, the right culture, is a great coach (see the Dubs). So he came in last year knowing that we lost Kobe...oh little did he know that there was alot more losing to come down the pike.

So what was the urgency and trading DLo? How about trying to rid the stench of our recent losing culture. If the PG is supposed to be the "coach" on the floor and the leader in terms of making his mates better, then that was a colossal failure. In changing that position, we changed the culture. Or would you rather have the dude slide to the 2 and play alongside Zo in the backcourt leading us to yet another 30th ranked defensive unit?

So yeah, we need a 2 way player like PG out on the wing...but till then...

Praise to the heavens, cause now its our turn to eat on opposing offenses (and not the other way around).

 

Vash, my Indian brother, we go way back (13 years now since CL days)...I've always respected your opinions but I think you missed the point I was trying to make.

I'm not upset that we traded D-Lo...I understand there might have been some chemistry issues with him and I was one of D-Lo's biggest critics. While most of you on here were talking about D-Lo becoming a superstar, I was one of the few who was vocal about him not ever becoming one.

With that being said, I didn't think D-Lo could be a PG of the future, but could he be our SG? Could he serve as a 6th man? Could he be of some value to us? Absolutely. And with Ball coming in, why deal one of your best shooters so quickly ? I just didn't like the way the deal went down and how quickly it happened. There was no rush to do it. And we did it because...cap space? How has that worked out for us so far? Having cap space hasn't done anything for us yet. I'm just sick of the Lakers continuing to swing for the fences every damn year and taking on one-year rentals to make that happen. The D-Lo deal, while it may have been the right move for the team culture and all that, was premature because we had no guarantee that George or any other FA is coming next summer. With Cleveland loading up, and OKC loading up...what are the chances of LeBron and PG coming now? Not to mention, Russ re-upping after OKC got melo? There's too much time between now and next summer and we'll have to hope OKC crashes and burns because I think even a 2nd round exit will keep PG around now that Russ has signed that extension.

I know that Ball and DLo would have been a disaster defensively, but you still shouldn't be rushing to trade D-Lo the way we did so we can have "cap space". If KCP and Lopez end up working out beautifully and we're a better defensive team as a result, then ok great, Pelinka and Magic look like geniuses. BUt if they dont and they both leave after this year and we dont get lebron or PG or anybody noteworthy next summer? Welp...I'll say I told you so.

Side note: If Kuzma blows up, this is all moot lol

 

There was urgency because it allowed us to get rid of one of the albatross contracts and not get bent over trying to do it later in crunch time. To be able to get a max salary star in. Let alone 2 albatross contracts at once later. Not only that it brought back a far better player at the 5 for this important season we need to show great progress and maybe the future (with a short window to do that with Lopez likely), plus got us another first round pick .... Kuzma. Who will wind up being a better player for the Lakers in the long run. Plays D and and can probably more consistently shoot the 3 ball than DLO with no jump quickest of draw shooting styles. Don't understand still questioning the urgency.

 

Fab4: Thanks for the clarification bro! Respect right back at you homie! Apologies for sounding agressive, but its just a defense mechanism I built up when someone regrets or insinuates that we should step back into what was. Guess since our team never played defense, I should try to cover for it.

Either way, without stepping on the floor I think we already won the trade by replacing Zo with Dlo as the floor general. I feel that as both competing #2 picks, they would obviously try to not make it a big deal, but internally, they would wonder and plant seeds as to why ownership would pick one guy as the leader over the other guy. It was a dangerous risk to take with both players being so young and how it may impact their futures going forward as well as the team and our delicate chemistry to this point. So I'm really relieved we cut bait on one of them and just chose a decisive direction rather than peddling our feet in the mud to pacify both parties (think going young and rebuilding while extending a win-now player like Kobe and making him the richest player in all of the land.)

Then when you think we got rid of an albatross of a contract in the Mosgov deal and added Kuzma while clearing cap for 2018 shopping, its a solid deal IMHO. The urgency of course is that we wanted to change the culture asap. Not tomorrow, not at the deadline, not at the end of the year...but now! So I'm happy they did so with a team full of impressionable young'ns who still have a fresh palette to determine what type of player they will become.

DLo had to go and kudos to the FO for making that decision, even if it did cost us a previous #2 pick.

Don't be worried about next summer....I'll be the one telling you, "I told you so."


Edit: Just noticed that LT beat me to most of what I wanted to say...so yeah, what he said haha

 

Be honest.. Westbrook & Lonzo aren't a good combo anyways.
I don't think this signing affects PG's long term situation at all.

 

Beggars can't be choosers. We don't want Russ because he's a bad fit. We don't want Bron (who fits perfectly) because he's a douche. We don't want Boogie because he's a headcase and a bad influence.
Time to forget about PG and come up with a "new plan". I don't feel like waiting another 5+ years to se some decent/winning basketball again.

 

What to do, what to do.....

 

We traded DLO because we didn't want him on this team. Players like DLO and Young are detrimental to building a winning culture, and their departure is independant from creating cap space, so please, do not link FA talk with DLO. I honestly don't know why this keeps getting brought up.

 

and now we'll consider ourselves lucky if demarcus cousins takes our call. do you understand my point?

the two positives i keep hearing are cap space (which means you're not granting the opening point: our cap space isn't very valuable at this moment), and kuzma (folks, we had the 28 and would have taken him there--unless you can prove to me bkn was going to take kuzma at 27).

the other point is that dlo was a chemistry killer, most of the "evidence" for which came out after he was traded, conveniently.

if preseason game 1 was any indication, excising russell won't be the cure-all his detractors suggest. man, how that narrative turned in such a short time...

anyway, last time we had fistfuls of cap space and no interested players, we got mozdeng.

 

Actually, there are more positives in that trade.
1. Getting rid of a player the FO did not like in DLO
2. Creating cap space for 2018
3. Getting a near allstar C in Lopez
4. Ability to draft Kuzma to sweeten the deal

Even if we strike out on the big FA's next year, we'd still have 3 other positives to fall back on. And the current FO has proven to attract better players (KCP, Bogut) with better contracts, and we have the insurance of being able to resign Lopez at worst, so there's no validity to your MozDeng argument.

 

lol, how could you possibly know that? neither bogut nor kcp were sifting through offers. i agree: we'll be able to sign unwanted players to one-year deals. but we did that for two years prior to mozdeng, too.

if lopez is a long-term keeper who benefits the franchise, then that point stands. but suggesting that was the plan at trade time is disingenuous. if someone asked you if you'd trade an adequately performing #2 overall pick for someone like lopez prior to the lopez trade, you'd have lost your s***. like pretty much everyone did. then the rationalizing machine kicked on and kept running...

 

KCP and Bogut weren't unwanted players. What makes you say that?

I'm not rationalizing anything. My position on the DLO trade has not changed. I liked the deal when it happened and I like it even more today. I could quote my posts (minutes after the news broke) from the DLO thread that proves my position.

If it were our other two adequately performing #2 picks, yes, I would have lost my s***. But DLO? nah, he wasn't worth squat to me. I was more upset about the Lou trade to be honest. Ask yourself what Lonzo or Ingram would fetch on the trade block and you'd realize why we wanted DLO gone asap.

 

Abeer: Look at the package Pritchard accepted from OKC. Sabonis is a young rookie frontline player on a team friendly contract. Oladipo is a scoring wing player on a cap restricting deal. Indy rids George to the West where he doesn't directly impede their success had he been traded to the likes of the Cavs or the C bags.

Now look at the Lakers deal to BK. DLo is a scoring wing player on a team friendly rookie deal. Moz is a frontline player on a cap restricting deal. Both sent out to the East so they don't impede our success as we make moves out West.

Those deals are very similar in cap structure and even personnel, but in terms of controlling their future flexibilty, Indy had more control of the situation with our deal, seeing how DLo was a former #2 pick (unlike Sabonis). I truly believe the only reason that our deal wasn't agreed to, was because of the spite and contempt Pritchard held against us and George. He didn't even mention the Lakers by name in a presser that he conducted once George demanded out of Indy. He threw out a tampering investigation against us and George. He dealt George away from us to a rival one of our own rivals, in OKC, and in doing so, he dealt George to a small market that was no different than the one he was trying to get out of in Indy. George's trade destination wishlist didn't even have OKC on that list. Pritchard wasn't about trying to help out both sides...in taking a lousy deal and being publicly scrutinized for it, Pritchard wanted to hurt LA and George even if it damned Indy in the short term. It was a d*** move!

The intangibles were that DLo had a bad attitude and Indy didn't want to build around him, so they went with Oladipo who has Indy roots and had the type of headspace they were comfortable with. So I'm not saying that those couldn't have been contributors to Indy nixing our deal, but I strongly believe that even sweeteners wouldn't satisfy Pritchard and he would have demanded the kitchen sink from us if George was to get his wish and be sent to LA.

According to David Aldridge, we keep hearing glowing endorsements out of George's camp that OKC swung for the fences to lock up Russ and even in doing so, didn't sacrifice a whole lot to still keep OKC competitive.

Using that same logic, I'm thinking George wanted to be dealt to LA, but he didn't want LA giving up too much to get him knowing that he still needed a team to compete with. So what does LA do...in good faith, they deal DLo to open up cap for 2018 when George can become a free agent. In doing that, they change the losing culture and also make room where George can handpick a fellow star to play with next year. If George's recent talks have shown that he appreciates OKC for swinging for the fences and still fielding a team that can be competitive by not sacrificing core players to do so, then how can he not look at LA from afar and appreciate our moves in trying to set him up for next season? Pritchard certainly noticed, hence the tampering allegations he threw at us.

We're doing the same thing as OKC did, but instead of making Russ the centerpiece...we would be making him the centerpiece even if it means teaming up with LaBron, since LaBron is approaching his twilight and would be sharing the keys with George since it is George's home city of LA and both would be coming on as "newbies" to this Lakers team. We also know that LA was at the top of George's wishlist and if it wasn't LA, then he wanted to team up with LaBron in Cleveland. where he would be second fiddle playing for LaBron's team and city. Of course, Pritchard made sure that didn't happen, hence the deal out West, as he should have.

I know that everybody is sick and tired of being the NBA's doormant and trust me, noone is more sick of it than I am...but the tides have truly turned with our previous basketball ops being ousted. For those that fear a 20XX plan turning into a 20XX+1 plan and so forth, there are new faces at the table now meeting with these free agents. For those that fear that our treasured cap space will turn into another MozDeng, again there are new faces at the table that will make sure that doesn't ever happen again, and have already shown you that they are trying to correct their predecessor's previous mishandlings (too bad that not even a future 1st was not tempting for any team to take on Deng). So trust that the 2018 plan will be much different than previous plans. Its just a matter of how quickly and successful it can truly be.

 

nobody signing them for two months? kcp admitting he had no other offers?

i used the second person rhetorically there. there were a few who were like, "yeah, obviously" upon hearing about the trade. but they (you) were very few.

don't know who those are. one hasn't played an nba minute, and the other was woefully unproductive in his first year.

again, how do we know what lonzo or ingram would or wouldn't have fetched in trade (lonzo's draft slot couldn't even buy us #5 and #10 this year; we tried)? if we do know that, say, ingram gets us paul george, how mad are we going to be about that in a year? how do we know russell wouldn't have fetched similar after his (more impressive) rookie year?