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

Yes Please!

 

https://bookies.com/nba/picks/russell-westbrook-trade-odds

Russ is going to be on this team and you're all going to like it!

 

This might be a decent plan B if the Kyrie trade doesn’t happen, and it might actually be close to what Rob was originally envisioning as his own Plan A because there’s no way he anticipated Kyrie trying to force his way to the Lakers at the end of the season.


Plan B would be a 3 team trade between Lakers/Jazz/Pacers:


Lakers trade Westbrook, THT, Nunn, 2027 1st rounder (lottery protected) future 2nd:
Lakers receive Buddy Hield, Mike Conley, Bogdonavic

Jazz trade Conley, Bogdanovic
Jazz receive Westbrook (expiring contract to get off Conley’s extra year), 2027 lottery protected pick

Pacers trade Hield
Pacers receive THT, Nunn, future 2nd rounder

I try to think about it from the other teams perspective who we are dealing with. The Jazz are going full rebuild so getting off Conley's contract quicker while collecting their much desired 1st round pick might satisfy them to participate.

The Pacers will not get very much for Hield. He's overpaid for his production and his contract runs until 2025. Players like Jerami Grant and Christian Wood got back a single first round pick and the teams trading for them expect to re-sign them long term. Hield's fair market value is the MLE as he's actually a similar player to Malik Monk. In addition to salary dumping Hield, The pacers will see this as a winning trade for themselves because they are getting a cheaper, short term prospect back (THT) and a second round pick.

Why I like this trade for the Lakers is because it solves a lot of problems. With the posters who aren't high on Conley, he isn't a star but he can be a solid starting point guard for us. I would also try to sign Schroder for the minimum. Say what you want about Schroder during his first stint with LA, but he wasn't a horrible fit like Westbrook and for the minimum he could potentially outperform his contract.

I suspect the plan all along for Rob was to try to trade THT for shooting (Hield lol). It's the only plausible reason that makes the Lonnie Waker signing make sense, Walker and THT are too similar of a player. Why would we want two of them?

Our depth chart would be:

Conley/Reaves/Schroder
Hield/Walker/Brown/Christie
Lebron/Johnson/JTA
AD/Bogdanovic/Gabriel
Bryant/Jones

Think about it this way, Coach Ham wants to play 4 in-1 out. We suddenly have the players to do that successfully with the best lineup of doing that being Conley/Hield/Lebron/Bogdanovic/AD.

That's a great perimeter shooting lineup. The Lakers give up only a single first rounder and a second, the same amount of picks that was reported they were willing to give up for Kyrie.

Now if Rob wants to be *really* ambitious, if he is willing to give up the 2029 first round pick to the Pacers... it would still work from a salary matching standpoint where the Lakers get Myles Turner and Bogdanovic goes to the Pacers instead. The sales job also somewhat makes sense to justify the trade, Turner is a expiring contract and I think his market value is a first round pick. He can make life easier for the Lakers by having his agent state he only wants to get traded to LA. The Lakers would have to plan to sign Turner to an extension, which is completely fine. He's a good center and as long as his salary demand is reasonable (approx $20 mil/season), this shouldn't be an issue.

I understand the hesitation of giving up our only 2 future draft picks, but if we can get this haul for dumping Westbrook+2 picks and we know what our core is until 2025.... it's worthwhile to me.

Imagine the offense but also the defender this team could play, we might actually have a good shot at winning another title within the last of the Lebron era as long as we stay healthy:

Conley/Reaves/Schroder
Hield/Walker/Brown/Christie
Lebron/Johnson/JTA
AD//Gabriel
Turner/Bryant/Jones

The thought of a Turner/AD front court gets me excited at the thought of teams trying to drive into the paint against us.

Welcome to the block party.

… Again, I think some variation of this was Rob’s original plan until Kyrie became available. Now that there’s a chance of Kyrie, I think his plan A is to somehow get both Kyrie and Hield.

I sort of prefer this plan instead of Kyrie/Hield. All you need for Conley to do is play solid defense, hit open 3s, and create some shots from time to time since Lebron will have the ball most of the time. Conley is completely capable of this, and we sign Schroder as insurance in case Conley misses time.

Turner also acts as AD insurance (and vice versa) in case either misses time due to injury, we have elite shot blocking to maintain our team defense.

The whole Hield thing doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but I’m just chalking that up to Rob really wants this guy and he does fit a need for this team.

 

Apparently this guy tweeted something similar about the Gobert trade being close to final and it was announced later that day. Rumor is that its Toppin/Grimes/Fournier/5 firsts for Mitchell.

 

I don't know man. Replacing garbage with garbage is still garbage.

 

Conley had a pretty decent year last year, what is everyone on about?

 

no idea; i'd love to get him. contract is only partially guaranteed after next year if it's a flop.

 

This sums up my opinion on almost everything.!.!.!.!.!.!.

 

He was pretty horrible in that first round series against Dallas. After thinking about it more, if we could get Conley/Bogdanovic/Fournier out of a Jazz/Knicks trade that would be okay. I'm still hoping for Kyrie but the Nets want to drag this out to see if KD stays. If we do something like that for Russ and probably THT now, maybe we'll actually end up having a more attractive package for Kyrie at the trade deadline if we can keep one of the FRPs.

 

if a single playoff series is how we judge people, why did gobert fetch a zillion first rounders?

conley was so much better than russ last year. he's a much easier fit. just a huge win. too good to be true, probably.

 

Unfortunately he pretty much backtracked the whole rumor. Maybe he’s still right but his source probably didn’t want him talking so soon.

 

Conley would have been great for us last year. Better shooting and decision making than Russ.

 

Lol. Just typed up the same thing.

 

Getting Clarkson back would be like getting Monk back or better (?) basketball wise.

 

Garbage for garbage? LOL Conley still puts up an efficient TS of 57% and is a positive on both offense and defense. Is it because he sucked in the playoffs last year? Let me fill you in on a secret. Westbrook has completely sucked in the play-offs every single year since KD left him. His career TS in the play-offs is 50.8% and getting worse every year.

Again, while a package centered around Conley is far from my first choice, we have to temper our expectations in what we might get back for Westbrook. We're talking about trading a $47 million dollar contract who is a negative on both sides of the ball here. Just be grateful we can get anything somewhat useful.

 

Why don't Lakers just do this?

Trade #1: THT and Nunn to Utah for Beasley

Trade #2: Westbrook to Utah for Conley and Bojanovic

PF-Davis/Bojanovic/Siler/Gabriel
SF-James/Walker/Christie
C-Bryant/Jones/Huff
PG-Conley/Shroeder
SG-Beasley/Reeves/Brown

 

because it could just be one big trade? and we may be able to keep nunn in that case?

 

Lakers: With this trade you have increased this team's projected wins by 7
Jazz: With this trade you have....Westbrook.

 

because Minnesota are idiots and perennial losers.