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

Phoenix eh, McGee for DAJ

 

I’ll take McGee.

multiple good proposals offered up by JSM too. Might get someone to bite at the deadline.

 

just don't sell THT for a veteran to try to lose 4-2 instead of 4-1 in the first round.

 

The thought I keep concluding is that Westbrook will never be part of a championship team. Even when his current contract expires and he agrees to a MLE deal when he’s 34 years old, unless he’s willing to come off the bench and play 20 minutes per game… he is too disruptive to a teams
Chemistry similar to what Allen Iverson was in the later stages of his career.

Having said that, this summer will either be a we dump Westbrook for nothing (addition by subtraction) which would likely also cost us a future draft pick to do, or we just ride with him next season as well but championship hopes will not be realistic.

The only way we could get other teams to openly want to take on Westbrook is if we do the unthinkable and try to blow it all up by packaging him with either AD or Lebron.

Gun to my head, I would rather package Westbrook with Lebron than injury prone AD mostly due to Lebrons age and he may only have 2 good years left.

The only teams I can think of that would take on a Lebron/Westbrook package would be contenders that think adding Lebron to their team would put them over the top even with the Westbrook package. Teams that fit this Description would be Chicago, Miami, Philly, Denver, and Utah. The return on the trade we basically would hope for would signal a rebuild where we try to get young assets back and picks.

The best returns in my opinion come from Miami, Denver, Chicago and Philly.

Miami we can get Bam Abedeyo, Lowry, and a sign and trade Tyler Hero where we pay him $25 mil a season lol. Miami does this to pair Lebron with Jimmy Butler and build around those two.

Denver we could try for a Michael Porter Jr., Jamal Murray and Will Barton package. Denver does this because they are giving up two young ascending players that have significant injury risk to go for it now by pairing Jokic with Lebron.

Chicago would be a package centered around Vucevic, Lonzo and Caruso lol.

The conclusion is the chances are slim to none for a championship this season and next if Westbrook is on this team. By the time that’s over, Lebron will be 38 and the free agency class of 2023 has no clear superstar free agents available and that’s when we have a ton of cap space.

So the logical thing is start thinking rebuild and try to salvage what we can….

 

lol, we're not trading lebron just to dump westbrook.

i don't see why westbrook can't play 25mpg off the bench and just railroad second units, even now. we've had success in different regimes playing different styles within the same game, offensively, so it's doable, imo. but westbrook has to buy in. given how he's responded to other requests for change, i'm concerned about that.

 

i'm all for staying quiet at the deadline. the only move i'd make is dumping bazemore/DAJ for picks

this team isn't making the playoffs and if they somehow win the play-in game, they're not getting past the top WC teams. make necessary changes in the offseason and run it back next season for one last time with lebron

 

I do agree with you from a overall standpoint.

Westbrook would be fine for us if he made $10 mil and agrees to a 6th man role, that way we could use that cap salary to properly fill out the roster with capable role players….

The premise of my post is that’s not possible and I’m in a state of depression where there’s no way out of this Westbrook experiment lol.

 

That is a reason why it is a good practice to buy low and sell high.

 

They're hard capped for next year too. Might be a repeat of summer 2021 with Big 3 taking up most of the cap and we have no flexibility to improve. We'll be filling out our roster with undrafted signees (ala Reaves) and minimum signees again.

I think Nunn will opt-in to his $5.6 mil deal for next year

 

We aren't hardcapped, that's 130 million max salary I believe. We are in the luxury tax realm though.

 

Might be time for the King to come off the bench. He could be the 6th man of the year for at least another 3 seasons.

 

Utah has lost 9 out of its last 11 games and looks like they lost Ingles to a serious injury tonight. Lakers are probably not going anywhere this season, might as well do some asset collection for next year. Try to see if a desperate UTA will pony up 1st for THT/Baze swap

Some noise last week that Mitchell will ask for a trade if this year is a 1st round exit.



I think it would be wise for the Lakers to cut their losses and go into seller's mode, attach THT with Monk even if its necessary to get a 1st or multiple 2nds. We can't afford to re-sign him this summer anyways

 

I understand your thinking Rock. But Lebron is 37, and we can’t assume he’ll have anymore good seasons left, we have to take each like it’s his last.

So I’m not selling any of our decent pieces unless we are getting an improvement in fit or skill. This is it, we have to go all in because we don’t know when we’ll have these caliber of players again.

 

we have AD in the books for a few more years after Lebron's contract expires in 2023.

I think its worth considering punting 2021/2022 and collect assets to make improvements around the edges to make a run at 2022/2023


The projected cap for 2022/2023 season is $119 million. Lebron + AD + Russ alone take nearly $130 mil. We have next to no room to improve

 

Yeah, this season is done.

Unless we're taking a chance on a younger player to audition, count me out of any major transactions.

This team sucks and so does the season.

 

If we are still stuck with Westbrick this summer, I would trade LeBron.
We have no chance against either the Warriors or PHX next season as long as Russ is preventing us from creating a balanced team. Might as well get something back for LeBron before he bolts.

 

I wish Lebron was gone too so we could get some assets in return to build for a title run in the future but...

Lakers would lose a ton of $$$, PR and look really terrible around the league if they let him go before he gets to passing Kareem for the scoring record. They're basically trying to earn good faith now in coddling their stars. Unfortunately it is a players league and we need to make it an attractive destination. Our fortunes turned after we got Magic at the helm and he once again made it a place where stars want to play for.

I think the Lakers Front Office/Lebron are more interested and invested in that scoring record than Laker fans are.

 

I get it. It wouldn’t be a great look. It won’t happen, but it should, for basketball reasons.
Next season will be just as difficult as this one.
I appreciate the level that LeBron has been able to play at this season, but his body just can’t take it anymore. Maybe our team finally lucks out next season with the health of our older guys, maybe not.
We are now just stuck. We can’t build the next Championship Squad because we have to play the PR game with LeBron for the next year and a half.

 

I had my fill of the building through the draft and no stars thing. It was a whole bunch of empty promises and moral victories. Give me this team over the young ones any day. At least I can convince myself we got a shot if we’re healthy.

So I’d be counted out of the trade everyone thing. I’m more on the resign Russ for 20m and use him and Monk/Stanley/THT to get another star to play with AD in the future boat.