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

Yeah and we can revisit this conversation around Nov 18th and see who knew what.

 

day after my birthday!

 

Cool, lets put AD, Lebron, Ball boy #1, Ball boy #2 and Lucky fan in section 300 out there since the supporting cast doesn't matter.

 

not to beat a dead horse, but almost all of the replaceables from that year went on to play well elsewhere, where our entire supporting cast from last year is unemployed. this stuff does matter.

 

the 2020 title team was pretty deep. guys like caruso, dwight, kuzma, and rondo coming off the bench compares to this roster where you have pat bev, walker, reaves, the corpse of nunn, and who else? bryant?

no comparison really

GS
suns
clippers
nuggets
grizzlies
mavs
t-wolves

are all better teams. you could make an argument to put the pelicans over the lakers as well

 

We have plenty of decent role players, just like everyone else. We have two of the best players in the game..unlike most everyone else.

 

We had two of the best players in the league in 2020, AD has been more like the 15-20th best player in the league the last two seasons. When you have two Top 5 guys yeah, you can make it work with a supporting cast like the one we have now. But when its one Top 5 guy and one Top 15-20 guy, you have to have better role players than what we have now. When it was Kobe and Pau (a Top 5 guy and a Top 15ish guy), we also needed premium role players like Odom, MWP and Bynum to get it done. We saw in 08 that trotting out guys like Radmanovic, Turiaf, Walton, etc. wasn't good enough.

The league is also better than it was in 2020. That whole season the consensus was that us the Bucks and the Clippers were the top tier. The Clippers imploded spectacularly and in hindsight had a pretty weak supporting cast with Lou Williams, Harrell, Shamet, etc. Now they have a much better supporting cast and coach. The Bucks imploded spectacularly in the bubble, now they've won a championship and might have repeated if not for Middleton getting hurt. The C Bags are really good, the Warriors are really good, both conferences are tougher and deeper with good teams.

 

Oh God, Ainge wants both FRPs, a pair of Jeanies panties, a piece of Dr Buss' tombstone, Kurt Rambis' balls, us to forfeit the bubble win and put the Celts back on top and Phil Jackson's scalp to start negotiations.

 

I do agree with Slick on a lot of this. I think people are forgetting how great Lebron and AD were in the bubble. They were both playing like top 3 players in the league.

Yes our supporting cast was good, but mostly because they bought into their roles and fit together well. It’s not like we had such insane levels of talent off the bench that it would be impossible to replicate.

Again the key was Lebron and AD’s dominance. Let me put it this way. Those two were playing so well that if you hypothetically swapped Caruso, KCP, Green, McGee with Beverley, Reaves, JTA, and Jones, I’m confident they still win the title.

Of course we can’t count on Lebron and AD being that good again. And where I assume I disagree with Slick is that in this case I think Westbrook drags the whole thing down.

But I do think our current roleplayers and the potential of the Bron/AD duo are being underrated. If you do end up trading Russ and bolstering our current roster with some of the Jazz roleplayers, honestly that may be a better supporting cast than our title season. Or at least a mid-season acquisition or two away from it.

 

if lebron and AD can play like they did in the bubble, this team will make the playoffs easily

but banking on both of them to stay healthy at this point is a gamble i wouldn't take. AD barely even made it out of the bubble without suffering a serious injury and hasn't played at even close to an elite level since then, and lebron has missed significant time with injuries the last two seasons and is going to be 38 pretty soon

 

I don't expect AD to be hurt all this season. I'm expecting him to play at a MVP caliber level. Lebron is still one of the best players in the League. As long as those two are good to go, we'll be just fine. I think Russ is a lot better than a lot of folks think too. Our current role players aren't exactly a bunch of scrubs either. The big Dawgs set the table and that's what allows everyone else to eat. It's the same today as it was in 2020, and will be the same 20 years from now. EVERYONE in the League is an injury to their two best players away from mediocrity. I stand firm..we are just as much of a contender as any else you can name in the West IMO.

 

Folks if you are banking on Lebron being old, and AD never getting back to 2020 level when he's only 28 years old. It's over period. We might as well cut bait and trade em both now and start over. There is no trade that will overcome this if that's how you think.

 

Utah would have to trade Bogdanovic and Beasley which total's 36 million, and then another 11 million or so to make the trade match for Westbrook. It also would mean trading both the picks. I doubt Ainge does that trade without taking unprotected picks. So, no chance the Lakers can do this without giving up the picks for marginal players and also keeping flexibility next summer money wise.

 

BS. Take the two best players on any of those teams, and have them miss large chunks of the campaign, only play in 21 games for the season, and guess what? Not a single one of them accomplishes jack. You guys are making this more complicated than it is..it's not the role players.

That 2020 team role players were not hyped as being anything special, until after they actually played together that season. It wasn't a lot of preseason hype around them at all. Danny Green was expected to be the 3rd best player on that team.

 

F Danny Ainge..he is going to have to cut someone anyway. Gay and Vanderbilt are decent bargains

 

Actually when it comes to Westbrook, and educated evaluator doesn't need them to play together to know he doesn't fit. It certainly isn't in the Lakers best interest to have them on the court together.

Sure. there were some positive insight to to the thought of RW being on the court "running things" when LeBron was taking a day off or on the bench- but together....no. It is like putting a square peg in a round hole. LeBron (and the Lakers) are best when he is directing the offense (perhaps only Magic has the court vision that James has- a short list regardless) and SURROUNDED by SHOOTERS and can at least resemble adequate wing defense in the process.

Westbrook does neither of those things well and it is wishful thinking by Ham and everyone else who thinks he is going to start becoming good at either of these things as he enters his 15th season. This says absolutely nothing about those who actually believe he would even change his selfish ways and even embrace trying to, despite Ham's optimism and talking points....

Not. Going. To. Happen.

 

But if he doesn't change the attitude part, nothing higher than vet minimum "likely" ever again in his future. (in spite of what his new agent may have told him to get the gig ) Teams have PGs they want running their teams now. And if he's not willing to come off the bench, ever ..... well ask Carmelo how that hard lesson finally had to be learned. And at least he has a great attitude and can still shoot the hell out of the ball on offense most of the time.