2023-24 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

D'Angelo is his best friend though.

 

Jake's notebook for today. He went on Trevor Lane's pod today and discussed most of this, as well.



Let's discuss...

Current ask of the upper tier available guards

On the pod, he said out of all the sellers he thinks the Wiz will stick to their ask. They don't have to move their guys (it's not like they're winning because of them) and the front office is pretty steadfast about getting picks back for these guys since they failed to do so with Beal or Unicorn. Teams aren't wanting to pay that up for Tyus because he's seen as a low end starter but a high end backup.


Lowry not expected to stay a Hornet via trade or buyout

Buha expects us to be interested in him as well, I'm pulling for Philly here. f*** Heat point guards and their broken down corpses by the time they get here.


We've got competition on the PG hunt

None of them are in on Murray at the moment. Knicks didn't like the price. Bucks don't have the assets. Philly was looking elsewhere. BUT if we don't get Murray, this is where it could get competitive for the second tier PGs.


We've been the most aggressive team in our pursuits of Murray

I would like to have heard more on a rumored 3rd team by now. We've heard the reporters and podcasters speculate and we've done that ourselves -- Magic, Nets, Wiz, Spurs, Hornets. Nothing more substantial. Tick. Tock.


Suns looking at guard and forward upgrades -- Wright, Morris, Tate, O'Neale, Bridges, Richards

If we go the Nets wings route, they could get in the way.


Knicks and Rockets could give us some competition for Brogdon

Some other lesser PGs also available

Something else worth mentioning, this one not from Jake, both Buha and Irwin think we're looking to make multiple moves. That could be two trades. It could be a trade and a buyout addition. But the team has identified multiple needs and a one stop shop is unlikely. Irwin did mention he thinks we could get Trent as a secondary deal if we were so inclined (I did read out of Toronto that nearly everyone but Barnes, Barrett and Quickley can be had).

 

Our most shopped player coming in at #7...

 

So we spent 31M on two players nobody else wants?

 

It's actually 44 million because with Rui that's 3 players nobody else wants.

 

Pfff, couldn't even get a triple double...

 

SO tired of hearing that russell's a negative value. it's an absolute crock of s***, and someone in the press should state some facts (literal facts) about pg production and skills and who has them and who doesn't.

i liked reading recently that the non-russell assets put on the table for murray have been put on the table elsewhere. that puts pressure on the hawks AND demonstrates that we might just keep russell, which is looking like the smart move if everyone's going to pretend like he's an albatross like tanking teams pretended westbrook's expiring contract was an albatross.

anyway, i see houston and ny in on brogdon (this is my current favorite target, using some combination of gabe/rui/jhs/prince/protected 1st). who is houston trading? oladipo? tate? landale? is portland really going to take them over our guys? i guess the knicks have more and better assets, but are they willing to spend? they'd have 50 million wrapped up in the pg position at that point as well.

i also don't know if getting off salary should be a priority for the blazers. as long as they don't pay the luxury tax, they should be fine with salary. nobody ever signs there, and they can't make enough space for this summer anyway.

 

DLO problem is his inconsistency.He was great last year until he wasn’t.I wouldn’t mind keeping him if they add another quality PG to pick up the slack when he suddenly forgets how to play.

 

If I were another GM knowing that the Lakers are all about championships I too would undervalue the players they didn’t feel were championship players.Especially since they went to the WCF with said player and now want to get rid of him.

 

yeah, "oh no, russell disappeared in the conference finals...where we never go."

dlo is basically paid like a sixth man. almost every team in the league would like to have him in a role like that (bench scorer) at his price, imo.

guys who can capably handle the ball and initiate offense AND score at basically all three levels are actually not that common, and a big reason we stopped sucking last year is we got one when we had none. you can't tell me that his player option or the denver series (again, ignoring clutch play that helped us advance to that series) just negates all that. that's crazy.

 

Was this discussion about why Lakers players are undervalued or how many teams make it to the WCF or how many teams don’t care about winning?

 

I think it’s about how we’re keeping DLO

 

i'm confused. if the lakers don't want him, he must suck, but other players other teams don't want must not suck? this is what we're trying to explain. as some on this forum have pointed out: nobody's asking why atlanta is even considering selling murray, and the pundits seem to agree he's worth more than anything we've got or whatever.

i'm not sure i buy that "the lakers have championship aspirations" explains this stuff. as you seem to imply, many teams want to win (probably at least 20 of the 30 nba teams in a given year, maybe more). well, they're all looking to trade players, too. why don't theirs suck? why is dorian finney smith worth 2 first rounders and russell worth negative one first rounder?

 

Apparently the league doesn’t share your opinion since he’s reportedly been shopped to the league.

He disappears all the time.Thats been my point since the summer when i suggested we go after Murray and when i suggested we inquire about Brogdon and here we are months later talking about the same players.You can’t be a championship team when your 3rd best scorer has 27pts one night and 9 the next.

 

i have to do this all the time:





non-stars have volatility. the only real bad stretch of the year for dlo was when ham benched him. his play prior that really didn't warrant it.

 

What? You’re joking right?

 

that's a weird way to chop up that statement. i said that fact doesn't explain why their players are valued less for objectively similar (or better) play.