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

So not only did Westbrick’s arrival break up our Championship Depth, it cost us Caruso AND THT. Sorry, Rob has to go, like now. Nah, scratch that- he should have been fired day one of this off season and any well run Franchise would already have his replacement waiting in the wings. Two more years of this sophmoronic garbage going on as long as LeGM is here! Wooohooooooo! Good Night!!!

 

To be clear I’m still on the “I think/hope the Pat Bev trade is a precursor to trading Russ before training camp, and if not I’ll be pissed” bandwagon.

But if that’s not the case, then to me keeping Russ home while we work on a trade is much easier to digest then watching him play for us again. I’d argue that Beverly IS someone lined up that I’d be confident in being a better fit for our rotation than Russ.

I think the rhetoric we’ve been spewing about making it work has been obvious BS to everyone whose paying attention, and so it has had a negligible role in our leverage. Abandoning that obvious lie isn’t a big deal to me. I just generally don’t think we can get any more “bent over the barrel”, and the nature of the expiring contract gets more valuable into the season regardless of whether or not Russ plays for us.

Trade leverage aside, I do understand the argument that beggars can’t be choosers, and so perhaps you do need to just try to force as much production as you possibly can out of a $50 million salary. I just am personally at a point with Russ that I don’t want to see him suit up for us again, and I happen to think we’d be better at guard without him enitrely.

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If you’d indulge me, I’m curious how frustrated you’d be at the front office in each of these scenarios

1. Never pull off the THT trade, go into the season with the roster as it was and Russ as your starting PG, try to make it work while you wait for a better Russ trade package
2. Never pull off the THT trade, go into the season with the roster as it was, but tell Russ to go home while you wait for a better Russ trade package
3. Execute the Pat Bev trade, go into the season with Russ as your starter and try to make it work with Russ and Bev as your main guard rotation while you wait for a better Russ trade package
4. Execute the Pat Bev trade, tell Russ to go home and roll with a Bev/Nunn guard rotation while you wait for a better Russ trade package

To me honestly all those scenarios are very deflating and in terms of frustration at the FO on a scale of 1-10, I’d go in order: 9, 8.5, 10, 8

So I guess I’m just a little confused because it seems to me that you would have been more okay with some of those scenarios, but scenario #4 is what would suddenly escalate things to “fire everyone!”

If I’m mistaken and you’re already closer to “fire everyone” for all those scenarios I think I’d see where you’re coming from.

 

PG-James
SG-Beverly
SF-Hield
PF-Davis
C-Turner

 

Yes, that is true, Elgin.

However, we can't have it both ways: we can't complain about the Lakers tax and then criticize Rob for not paying two firsts just to get rid of the Russ deal.

It does t help when rival GM's know we want to get rid of him and Rob has been actively trying to get rid of him for months.

This doesn't absolve Rob, though. He's done a piss-poor at so many aspects of being a GM. Piss poor. In fact, I probably would have parted ways with him at the end of this season and just cleaned house, but that's just me.

 

Kurt, the new GM in 3...2...1...

 

After Lebron’s extension and trading THT, we are somewhere around 30m in cap space next year.

In other words 2x decent role player contracts. Or 3x rotation player contracts or 1 good sub star. We also have the mMLE, and some partial bird rights on Reaves and Nunn.

 

Kind of bizarre to hear someone in the national media whose unaffiliated with the Lakers argue that our picks are very valuable, and that we should be able to get back even more than Hield and Turner if we gave up both (KOC is suggesting a multi-team deal that would get us for example Hield, Turner, AND Bogdanovic).

I don’t know how realistic that is, but it’s refreshing compared to some of the idiotic takes from talking heads who act like Russ and our picks have no value.

 

Our 27 and 29 picks have huge value. They’re probably going to be top 10 because they’re after the careers of both Lebron and AD and it’s not like we have any youth that will take over.

That’s why it’s so strange to me that so many people are just willing to throw them around so easily - I swear a couple of you would even just attach both of them just to never see Russ suit up for us ever again and get nothing in return.
A Bogdanovic, Turner, Hield package is starting to get in line with what we need and providing some value back to us.

 

None of those guys are going to be in the League in 5 years either. 3 for 1 though..not a bad return for chip chasing.

 

I still think those 3 undervalue what’s going out. We have a huge expiring, which in the past was good enough to get a disgruntled or underperforming star - and now it’s not good for anything? We also have two picks long enough away that unprotected they could be too 5 like Weezy said.

And the best we can do is Turner and Hield? An expiring injury prone but talented Center and an overpaid shooter who can’t defend. Are we so sure that Bryant and Monk aren’t comparable value? And if not, what’s the gap? One pick maybe?

 

anything involving paying russ to sit before you've exhausted all playing options is worthy of immediate termination of everyone.

my take here may be unique in that i actually believe ham is/was planning on trying to play with russ. if he wasn't, that's a further indictment of everyone, imo. and it criminally underestimates the intelligence of opposing front offices. it clearly wasn't plan A, but if it was truly never even plan C, that's messed up and dumb.

so to just sit him without ever giving him (or ham or whoever) a chance is just not an option to me. in line with your argument, you don't LOSE leverage by him playing poorly. he already played like dog**** for a full year. further, as bad as russ was, nunn/bev still probably ranks as the league's worst pg rotation, so it's not like the opportunity cost is huge here.

the reason the beverley deal is such a headscratcher for me is that it wasn't paired with or immediately followed by a russ trade. and maybe all the coy tweeting is because that's already decided or whatever, but this reminds me of when the lakers cleared all that extra cap room when they signed lebron and then just wasted it all when we could have kept some of the guys we used to clear that space and been a better team in the long run. everyone thought we must have cleared all that space for a reason. but we really didn't. here everyone thinks you don't trade for russ's arch enemy and add a third rotation guard when you have so few viable wings unless you've got a reason.

thus, if that's really what we've done, i will have seen enough of this front office.

i hate all 4 of those options, but the order of preference is 1, 3, 2, 4 for me.

 

Latest from Pincus

 

Exactly!

The last part. That's exactly what I said a few pages back - this is a scenario where if you're paying chicken, you wait until the trade deadline when you've already paid WB half his salary.

Question is: do you bring into training camp or do you just send him home until you find a remedy to the situation? Does Indiana want to bring Buddy and Turner into camp, too?

I just don't see Herb signing a check for $40 million plus without receiving significant compensation especially when Kevin is in his ear whispering that they can milk us (speculating)...

Will that change by December or so if the situations or exactly the same? Might..

 

if it goes like last year, we're basically out of it by then, which could also change our thinking and position. if we really want to contend, i'm not sure playing chicken makes any sense.

curious about the SA angle. i wrote them off cuz popovich, but what if they gave us richardson, mcdermott, and ate the rest of russ's salary (tbh, i could see russ and pop getting along, despite what people would say about it)? what if it just took one 1st?

they're sitting at 93 million in salary right now. that's 18 million under the salary floor. if they eat russ's deal in exchange for those two, they're only going up 22 million, or 4 over the floor. so it's really not a big deal at all, and it's money they basically have to spend. if they toss in romeo langford for wenyen gabriel or whatever, they basically hit right at the floor, if my numbers are right.

such a move would give us another shooter, another wing defender, and a big trade exception. it would also leave us with some cap flexibility if things go south again.

if you want to lose but put fans in seats, i have just the player for you, san antonio.

 

It doesn't make any sense, agree.

Wish the Pacers would come to their senses, but they have a long lasting grudge and a cheap owner.

If I'm Rob, I'm on the phone with Utah or SAS.

 

If anyone seriously doesn't think a healthy Lebron and AD are contenders, than there isn't any point of going on and on about making some trade in the first place.

 

Westbrook will be our best player this year.