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

A more likely scenario would be Lebron going to Dallas to play with him there and getting a promise to sign on Bronny when he is available. There is no way in hell Cuban would let Luca go somewhere else, least of all to the Lakers. Have to be a big trade or a vet min/MLE to get LBJ.

 

Yes but it's just 2 years. And let's not forget we are trading for Westbrook. Anything in return is an automatic plus in the W column. Hayward has some game, we squeeze that juice for a year, he can play only 20/25mpg and next year he's a tremendous asset.
Of course the contract is not good in terms of value/return, but in this context he would be one of the best assets we can get for Russ. I think it's better than the Knicks package. Do you see anything better in the market?

But then again, I honestly don't see a reason to pair Russ with LaMelo

Yes, but I don't think he would make a career decision based on that. But who knows right?

 

my view on hayward's salary is that for 47 million, russ can continue actively harming on-court performance, or for 30 million, hayward can be a slight positive bench player for 40 games a year. sadly, the latter is better. if it comes with rozier, we get a productive guard who can really fill it up. he's quietly been a pretty good player the last couple of years (no one notices because all the talk is about lemelo, who has been a bit better to be fair). the move up from russ to rozier in terms of both fit and production would be huge, imo, and worth the two-year hayward tax.

this is why i'm not taking a charlotte deal without rozier, though. it's essentially similar to the knicks deal some of us were hoping for at the deadline, but with rozier being a better fit than randle (fournier is hayward in that scenario).

 

Yeah, I think the half season high impact is a plus. You can start him and he does provide spacing and a complimentary scoring option. And as others have said, you're stuck with him for a year and then you can flip him as an expiring the following year.

Both of them help fill the middle of our roster, something we're desperate for and have no way of doing if we don't bring back assets for Russ. I do not want an entire team of minimum players. Everyone needs to get that if you're trading an imperfect player, you're going to get a player(s) with warts back.

 

yeah, the people complaining that the clippers were still competitive without their stars miss that they have:



while we had this:



in terms of non-minimum salaries.

of course they were better without their top guys.

 

Regarding the Westbrook to Charlotte for Hayward/Rozier rumours...

If I’m the Lakers I would be lucky to take this trade. There aren’t a lot of options on moving Westbrook and most of them will cost us an asset (draft picks) just to dump him with no real assets returning to us (think the Wall/Westbrook swap).

With Hayward, he’s not worth what he’s getting paid but he can still help the team if we don’t except him to be the 3rd star. If all we expect Hayward to be for us is a Joe Ingles/Boban Bogdonavic role for us... where he can start, facilitate a little, hit open shots and don’t be horrible as a defender, that helps our team a lot.

If we can somehow get Rozier as well... who is a very good starting caliber point guard and isn’t absurdly overpaid, we basically filled 2 starting lineup spots with players that are good fits.

 

The problem with the Lakers is we also had Lebron/Westbrook/AD for parts of the season. We had the combination of Lebron/Westbrook together for about 50 games, and the trio of Lebron/Westbrook/AD for 21 games. The Lakers had Westbrook play in 78 games.

The Clippers had their second star player Paul George for only 30 games and no games from Kawhi... so for them to play 0.500 ball for the season with their role players while the Lakers will finish the season 17 games below 0.500 while having our stars for at least more than half the season is not great at all for the Lakers.

 

Yep, they better get results with those guys on the floor. I think our min guys were under more scrutiny than their middle class players. Clipps don't get the same level of scrutiny and part of that is people everywhere (media and internet) think that Lue is on Mt Rushmore of the best coaches ever... maybe over Phil, Red, and Pop.

But it does have to be said that our Nunn and Deng lineups did not lose 1 single game. That has to count for something.

 

if we could get Hayward healthy at least for playoffs next year, he's the kind of player we've been crying for all of this last year

a long wing who shoots 40% from 3 and is not a minus on defense.

personally I'm not a fan of Rozier, but he's definitely a better fit than Russ. I'd say he's a PG in the Schroder mold, but better shooter.

 

you're acting as though westbrook was an actual star, though. westbrook was worse than pretty much all their mid-salary players in terms of impact. each team had two stars. the lakers had their two for more total games, but when they were out, the lakers depended on vet min retreads while the clippers had a bunch of dudes in their prime who make upwards of the full MLE.

in other words, they were like the lakers last year, who finished about the same as the clips will.

agree. he's also not as big a d******. but the shooting is huge. teams have to respect him from outside, both off the dribble and on the catch. would dramatically impact our offense, imo.

 

According to Eric Pincus from a recent podcast, "Lebron and Klutch wanted Westbrook gone at the trade deadline. They believed in the concept of addition by subtraction". He speculates that caused Westbrooks brutal play after it as he checked out.

Lebron should feel like a huge fool for pushing for the move in the first place. If he's back next year (I'm sure he will as ownership want him to pass Kareem as a Laker) he should have minimum input on personnel moves or a coaching hire. He's lost those privileges.

 

Pincus also said in a pod the other week that Klutch was really pushing Wall at the deadline. You can't burn it down and walk away bloodless and blameless. A my bad guys, guess I was wrong doesn't put humpty dumpty back together.

Like I said, I don't want to hear a word from GM Bron or assistant GM AD this summer. If he can get us TT for the min, he can do that. Or if he can get Love to agree to a buyout at the deadline (don't see it), he should milk his relationship there. That's it. Stay out of it and drink some Lobos.

 

More on who are player GMs were looking at during the offseason -- Beal, Dame, Lowry, DD, and Russ

DD truly is a Laker fan. He wanted no part of playing for the Clipps.


But those "LA for a discount" talks seem a little unlikely, too

 

Lakers could have a different route to bring back Monk?

option 1: Trade Westbrook, THT and Nunn + maybe some cash to Charlotte for Rozier and Hayward. This trade lowers salaries for this season by approximately 9 million. Not sure if this is enough to get under the tax apron, but it might.

option 2: Trade Westbrook + cash to Charlotte for Rozier, Oubre and Thor. Saves us the same amount of money, but instead of Hayward, we keep THT and Nunn, which is arguably better.

If this is enough to keep Monk:

option 1:

PF-James/Anthony/Gabriel
SF-Hayward/Johnson/FA
C-AD/Howard
PG-Rozier/FA/FA
SG-Monk/Reeves/FA

PF-James/Anthony/Gabriel
SF-Oubre/THT/Johnson
C-AD/Howard/Thor
PG-Rozier/Nunn/FA
SG-Monk/Reeves

I kind of like the second option better. We maintain trade pieces with decent dollar amounts in Oubre, THT, Nunn, Monk, etc. to utilize in trade. For example, if Oubre/THT causing spacing issues. It would be nice to have Haywards shooting, but his contract is heavy, and he is injury prone, so the ability to keep a healthy Nunn helps compensate for that shooting. Also, as mentioned Oubre/THT, etc. could potentially be flipped for shooters later.

 

No way I'd keep.russ we're talking about taking on more.$$

 

Westbrook for Rozier and Hayward

Do it Mitch

 

nicely done.