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

League has a wide range of thoughts on Beal's value according to Lowe

 

I’ve got no problem with what Kuz said because it’s the truth. Every year in the Lebron era he was asked to reinvent himself and bring a different role to the table. It’s a shame that AD didn’t embrace starting at the 5 sooner because a Lebron/Kuz/AD frontcourt would’ve been formidable.

 

if i was kuzma i sure as hell wouldn't want to come back

he's a bad fit alongside lebron and there's no way he'd ever be putting up the numbers he's put up in WAS if he was still here

 

In order to win Kuzma would need to have a similar role to the one he had on the Lakers. He can put up numbers on a bad team like a lot of nba players.

 

I don’t really want Kuz back tbh. He’s better than what we have sure, but he won’t be worth his next contract.

 

yeah, he's telling the truth. i actually don't think he's a great fit for what we need even though i think he's a better player than many here thought.

 

I am thinking Beal would be worse for us than RW and more expensive. Please no!!!

 

So the whole “Mystery Star,” who turned out to be Beal was just nonsense as well?

He’s definitely overpaid for a guy who plays zero D and a bad fit for this team. If you guys thought Kuz was an awful defender…

 

I’m with you on this. We’ve seen these contract year improvements over and over again with players, only to watch them significantly regress soon after the new deal is signed.

 

That’s kind of my point. These writers take a kernel of truth and turn it into a whole narrative for clicks.

Does anyone consider Beal to be at the level of Durant and Lillard? Most posters here wouldn’t flip Russ for Beal. Not sure that would be the case for the other two. And Faigen described Buha to be “as plugged in as it gets.” Is he really though? Or is he a mouthpiece for people with agendas? Honest question, but I don’t recall him ever breaking significant news.

To summarize, I still don’t buy this recent story, though I do buy the FO considering Beal and hope they don’t go down that route.

 

yep. though theoretically beal is a great fit (imo--he's the kind of scorer that could open up everything on offense), i have serious concerns that we'll see the best version of beal again. and again, it's just so much money tied up in three players. let's move away from that.

hit a double with bev/nunn and sit back and wait to see if someone is desperate to get out from under salary we want in the russ case.

yeah, to me, being plugged in is just that someone is intentionally feeding you information. the only way you get info that FOs don't want you to have is by pure incident/accident. it's part of what makes the local mr. rambis believable. i can buy that some guy works for a company that does business with a team or agency and hears something and/or reads better tea leaves than we have. but if buha tells us something he's not supposed to, he's OUT of the circle.

so yeah, insiders are real, but they're about telling stories for people who don't feel like they can tell them themselves.

 

Welp, that's probably it for this season. No way they make a Russ trade with us presumably way under .500 with AD missing a month. If AD is back by the end of January and we stay healthy completely healthy the rest of the season, MAYBE we could still make the play in.

 

I guess I’m not that surprised that Wizard fans would rather just dump Beal, because he is injured a lot. He’s in the injury prone category of Hayward, Paul George/Kawhi, AD, etc. where realistically… it might be a good season for them if they are able to play 65 games.

I get it from the Wizards front office standpoint though, this past summer they chose to re-sign Beal so they can try to flip him for assets in the future. That way they can get something for him rather than let him walk away as a free agent for nothing.

It’s why from the Lakers standpoint I would prefer they trade Westbrook and do not mind taking on longer term contracts. We likely won’t re-sign Westbrook (unless he’s willing to stay for like $5 mil/season), which means he walks away and we do have about $30 mil of cap space to retool the roster. But with Westbrook’s expiring contract, we can take back close to $50 million worth of contracts which means you can get more players back and re-tool mid season.

The thread showing all the Wizard fan comments saying “dump Beal for anything you can get!” and that they would be happy to tank for Scoot/Wemby, plus welcoming back Westbrook back with open arms makes me wonder if they would actually be open to doing a Beal dump + Kuzma for Westbrook/Beverley + our two picks.

From a front office optics perspective, it helps both teams. Wizards salary dump Beal and get 2 picks that might be in the lottery and it accelerates their tank. Kuzma is likely walking away in free agency as well, so he could be included to seal the deal for any reservations the lakers may have on giving up 2 picks and taking a big contract back.

 

AD’s recent injury is exactly why I wanted to trade for Randle when we had a chance in the summer. He’s AD and Lebron injury insurance. He’s balling for NY so that ship’s sailed now.

 

season's over with AD out that long

now it's just about lebron breaking the scoring record

 

I’m more interested in trading for Reddish now. I didn’t see him as a dependable enough player that would be worth trading for if we were looking for immediate help.

But now that the season is likely toast, might as well take a flyer on him and see if he can develop into a long term piece for us. If he sucks, no harm.