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

Yes based on his moves (and misses) over the last two seasons, Pelinka is absolutely clueless

 

How do you know we didn’t go after him? I mean, he could have said no to us

 

We signed Lonnie Walker to the mMLE, so I feel like we never truly went after TJ. He is an above minimum player even after the injuries due to his upside.

I should have said I’m disappointed we didn’t sign him.

 

again, we've got a year or two to evaluate.

i'd be QUITE nervous about using our only means to improve via FA on a guy who a) hasn't played in two years and b) has never been a good defender.

 

The Walker signing is a head scratcher, I thought we had a shot at Warren too. On the bright side, hopefully this is all a part of the master plan, that just hasn't been revealed yet.

 

i think warren became a legend based off 6 weeks of play and then broke down hard. i think it's weird how concerned we are about him and otto porter, tbh.

again, feel free to blast me if one of them becomes a star in the next couple of years or something, but i think this is a lot of hand-wringing over small potatoes.

god i sound like slick.

edit: feel like if someone else signed walker, they'd be smart and we'd be like "why don't we roll the dice on young, high-upside players, fit be damned?!". hell, we're mad about roby!

 

I think theres so much noise about Otto Porter and Warren is because of how desperately we needed wings last season and those two are the best available this offseason for what we could have offered.

 

oh sure. but warren most certainly isn't a "defensive wing".

i wonder if kuzma had never played for us if we'd be pining over him right now. breathlessly citing his scoring and rebounding and size and whatever. last year, kuz outperformed all of warren's season save the last one from two years ago that is undergirding all this.

and again, we just relentlessly bemoan AD's availability and want a guy who hasn't played in two years and a guy who barely played for two years prior to a limited role last year.

i just think too much stock is being placed in the mini mle. we took a shot on a young player with higher upside instead of a vet whose best years may or may not be behind them. last year, we used all our spots on vets whose best years turned out to be definitely behind them.

 

TJ Warren had a good defensive year in 2020. He was defending the lead wing on the opposing team while dropping 20 on very good efficiency and shot 40% from 3. He is also 6’8.

Meanwhile Walker has never been a good shooter, has been one of the worse defenders at the SG position and is smaller than TJ Warren both height and weight wise regardless of standing reach.

So for me, I’d have risked it for the upside. When healthy they’re just two different level of players.

 

Nets seem busy filling out their roster. I assume they already know what's ahead.

 

To get him for the minimum - I wonder if they promised him a starting position.

 

No master plan, that is wishful thinking

 

in his one best year. which occurred when he was 4 years older than walker and had played 2 more seasons.

in his age 23 season, he was a minus on defense shooting 26% from three.

his standing reach is actually higher (house's is the one whose standing reach is basically the same), but again, bulk of his career he's a non-defender, and now people are claiming he is due to one season whilst ignoring foot surgery that kept him out two years and him being 29 years old.

again, go look at them at the same stage of development and ask what the book on tj warren was.

to me, the upside is higher for walker, we just haven't seen it yet. we hadn't seen warren's upside at 23, either. but i think we have now. we've seen the peak. already.

 

I'm in wait and see mode until I see how the rest of our offseason/roster shakes out.

 

Teams figured out last season Lakers, they went Coach Carter route of stepping on the gas and run the older Laker team out of the gym, we saw how they couldn't handle the pace of younger aggressive teams. I'm okay with the younger players they brought in, that haven't reach their peak. I think the veteran bench will work with younger super stars on the team, but when the stars hit a certain age, they need youth around them imo, the stars should be the mentors.

 

I don’t really understand why you’re arguing against Warren? Our front office clearly made a bad signing to appease Klutch with Lonnie Walker. It’s apparent and obvious and a bad move.

Lonnie has never been a good defender, a good playmaker or a good scorer. In his last season at 24 he scored 12 points on 40% from the field (not from 3, from the field) and 31% from three. And he may be one of the worst defenders at his position that will get rotation minutes. San Antonio, a tanking team, let him go for free. Don’t try and sell us on upside, the guy hasn’t shown anything to be excited up till now.

Now let’s look at Warren. Since he came into the league he has been a good scorer, his lowest FG% is 48.6% from the field and he has been above 50% a ton throughout his career. On top of that he was flirting with being a 20pt scorer for 3 straight seasons all under elite efficiency at or above 60% TS. You bring up his season of 26% from three - that was on 1.5 attempts. If you look at his last two healthy seasons it was 40% plus on 3.5-4 attempts.

You’re trying to make a case that TJ was a flash in a pan, which is just not true. He was always a good scorer that was turning into an elite efficiency levels scorer with more usage. He was also rounding into a solid defender. Let’s not pretend that isn’t useful.

You also brought up Kuzma, Kuzma is the better rebounder and defender (in TJ’s last season they were comparably defensively) but TJ is levels above him as a scorer. Kuzma had never shot above 45% FG or 36% from 3 with a TS of 54%, that’s basically the lows of TJ Warren’s scoring.

And now that he signed for the minimum, this argument of him vs Lonnie and Kuzma is almost laughable. If he comes back to health you have a sub all star (wiggins kind of level) for the minimum. It wouldn’t shock me if Lonnie isn’t in our rotation.

 

Regardless if a Westbrook trade happens or not, I badly wanted the Lakers to go hard after TJ Warren.

He fits the needs of the team whether it’s Russ or Kyrie playing point guard.

It bothers me too he signed for the vet minimum with the Nets. The outlook for the Nets this season is way worse than the Lakers. The entire league knows after a KD/Kyrie trade, Brooklyn is entering a rebuild. The Lakers are actually still trying to win a championship next season and an argument can be made we are less of a dumpster fire than Brooklyn right now….

…. and after all that, Warren still chose the Nets?! How hard did Rob try to go after him.

To the other posters who are hating on Warren, the reason why you want him on this team (especially for the vet minimum) is because he is capable of WAY outperforming his contract and that’s what we need. We need the best bang for the buck for all signings.