2024-25 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

I disagree, but I do see a lot of people talking themselves into this roster now that they have to. This will play out the same as it has the last 2 years, maybe even worse if LeBron and AD miss more time to injury this year. DLo is a great regular season player, but he’ll fold just like he always does come playoff time, if we even make it in. Vando still has major offensive issues, Rui has poor defensive instincts, they’re the perfect player combined, but very flawed as they are. We’re also not accounting for any JJ learning curve and just expecting he’ll be better than Ham, with no proof of that yet. This

This team just isn’t good enough, I can’t believe we still don’t have an actual backup C. We’ll probably win the same amount of games as last year, be a 1st or 2nd round exit at best as is, which is just not acceptable for me going into the season knowing that when all this FO and now JJ does is spout “championship”. Don’t say it if that’s not actually the goal, just say we’re looking to get better every game, go as far as we can. Hell LeBron himself said he doesn’t think the team is far off, which means we aren’t there yet and he knows it, we aren’t a championship caliber team, so yeah I’m not happy running this back, just my take. But, hey, guess you can’t make trades if nobody wants your players too, just shame we couldn’t have gotten Murray when he went for so little.

 

I’ll believe it when I see it, this would do so much harm to players like Embiid I doubt they can implement it, no they created this beast and it will be super hard to stop it

 

I don’t see Knecht starting or even playing more than 10-15 mins per game, so it probably isn’t much of a concern, but yeah he is at least as bad as DLo on defense if it worse at this moment. But DLo and Reaves, yes, that’s a huge issue. DLo, Reaves, Rui, and an old LeBron? Awful. I both feel and fear for AD, he had to be our entire defense last year, him not winning or even being higher up in DPOY voting is very much like Kobe not winning in ‘06 because of team record. We are a really bad defensive team as is though, our only hope is Gabe and Vando are healthy and step up there, other than that we don’t really have any defensive players.

 

I saw some podcast (I think it was a pod) describing it as Dlo is too good for a tanking team because he’ll win you a few games by himself, and he doesn’t have enough value for teams that want a playoff performer. It’s a weird situation to be in for sure.

(EDIT: I just saw Pioneer said something similar lol)

Regarding fans talking themselves into liking this team I never disliked them, but I’m a generally optimistic until I see otherwise play out on the court. I think we’re about 4th in the west, even considering the upgrades other teams made, as long as the coach is competent (we’ll see) and injuries don’t derail us. We are flawed for sure, but I don’t think those flaws will kill our regular season record.

 

Yeah, Pete said that on LFR today, I forgot about that aspect of it until I heard him say it, I was like oh crap that’s right. We’re in the same limbo because of him, good enough to make the playoffs, not good enough to win much in them, reminds me of Eddie Jones.

As for us being top 4 in the west, that’s fine we can disagree, I think we’re 6th at best if everyone is healthy, and 7-10 if we have injuries again. This roster just doesn’t have enough 2 way players, our highest paid players outside of our 2 stars are all 1-way players, either all offense or all defense, and our minimum guys can’t really do much of either. If we just had 2 more 2-way guys I’d feel so much better, but as we are we are too flawed. But even if we are top 4, we aren’t winning a title, and that’s the goal with LeBron and AD, and like I keep saying if it isn’t just move on from them, but I get it, they want to keep selling tickets and merch while waiting it out for the coming rebuild. That’s fine, just don’t sell us on all the championship talk when that isn’t the actual goal, it sets unrealistic expectations, especially for JJ.

 

Yeah, I think with a healthy Vando to start the season and barring major injuries to our two superstars I believe we are about a 5 seed in the west. If our past history holds with these guys as starters and our pretty decent bench we should be winning about 65% of our regular season games as shown by the past two seasons. That would avoid the playin. Now playoffs are a different story of course. Dlo improved a little bit in the playoffs last year but of course we still had to play against Denver with KCP who is no longer in the mix to bother him defensively. If Dlo is still here after the deadline I'll be looking for him to have better outings in the playoffs. Is this a contender? Hmmm. Not without some other moves. But it's still a good team IMO and a better seeding should help us go farther.

 

Every fan base that’s ever had DLo has expected him to have a better outing next playoffs. Outside of a handful of good games, it never happens, eventually we have to face that it’s not going to. And again, when did a good team become the bar when you have LeBron still this good and AD in his prime? Why are we fine with accepting that when they keep saying the goal is championship, when JJ said he was here to win championships at his presser? THEY set the expectations, not us, they keep saying a title is the goal, well clearly it isn’t if they run this back and don’t even add one decent big. I guess I just don’t like being sold a line of BS, and maybe that’s on me for taking them at their word when their actions have told me very differently since the Russ trade ended this run. It’s just never that fun going into a season knowing you aren’t good enough to win it all, unless you’re in a rebuild and at least have some young players to watch develop I suppose, to me it’s not fun being in the middle of the pack, at least when you outright suck you have a shot at a top 5 pick.

 

We aren’t quite there but I like the players. This core got to the WCF and lost to the eventual champions previously. A couple more moves could help us to be better. Got to do a little more. Get a big. We’ve gone from a team I could barely stand with Pat Bev and Westbrook to a team I can really root for, so we’ve made progress.

 

I think you’re right about having very few 2 way players, but I don’t think that’ll bite us until the playoffs.

Vando really is key to making our starting lineup run at optimal efficiency, so if he’s back and healthy, I think we’ll be pretty good. I also think Ham was a terrible coach, so even with some mistakes, I’m betting JJ can fix a lot of our offensive problems just by running lineups that work according to data. That said our leeway is razor thin at best. We absolutely NEED a big or at least active rebounding center. Been saying it since the middle of last season. We’re not making any noise in the playoffs without one.

 

That’s what I’m saying though, this matters for the playoffs, we’re the Lakers, the playoffs is what we play for, that is the standard. If we aren’t building our team for playoff success, then what are we even doing? We should be an entertaining enough regular season team, but like you say our leeway or margins are razor thin, I’m genuinely worried.