I think he's intentionally modest, a team guy first, and purposely says vanilla non descript things to not draw attention to himself. As he grows in confidence, that will lessen. I already see it fading away a bit. It's a sign of confidence and knowing his place in the pecking order of the L. It's a good thing.
If this is a serious discussion, I trade Ingram, Ball, Hart and picks for him. Rondo/KCP/Lebron/Kuz/AD destroys.
Can we please see at least a half a season before shipping 3 good to great "young" players and again draft picks out to be a very top heavy team depth and salary wise .... hypothetically?
Speaking of Giannis... First time I've heard of someone beating Kobe to workout and beating him by 3 hours
Two of the top 5 players in the NBA. I pull that trigger immediately if we can keep Kuzma. The Cavs may have been swept by the Warriors in the finals last year, but for the first 3 games the Cavs could have easily won any of them. That was with a putrid roster. Give him AD, Kuzma, Rondo, KCP and it's seriously on.
Only way I trade 3 kids for AD is if we already land Kawhi or KD via FA. Lonzo/Rondo KCP/Svi Kawhi/Lance Lebron/Beas AD/Mo/Zu
Durant- 38.2 LeBron- 37.4 Lonzo- 8.7 Ingram- 7.3 Wagner- 2.1 Kuzma- 2 Hart- 2 Mykhailiuk- 1.4 Bonga- 1.4 Minimums- 2.5 Deng cap hit- 5 Total- 108 million That'd leave us with basically a minimum contract to hand out. Give it to Javale maybe. Try to sign Rondo with the 4 million room exception. The next summer, things get tricky. Ingram is due for his extension so his cap hold is 21.8 million dollars. @vasashi17 can confirm, but I believe a trade with Ingram, Lonzo, Bonga, Hart, 1st for Davis would work since the cap is increasing to 118 in 2018 (we'd be taking back more salary than we're giving out). That would leave us with: Rondo/Bonga Mykhailiuk LeBron Durant/Kuzma Davis Would be tough to lose these guys.
I'm cool with riding with these young guys even if the process toward eventually winning is a little slower. A lot more rewarding in the end when done that way
@therealdeal you're right bro! Just have to correct a few numbers from your post but we can bring in a 35% max player like KD while also trading for AD and still spare a guy like Kuz from a potential AD trade in the process. Cap is set to 109m next summer. We got 8 contracts on the roster (some are not fully guaranteed, but we save a trivial amount, so I assume LA will exercise all contract options)...so we'll have an incomplete roster charge of about 3.6m (= 4 * 890k) and we'll have 5m in dead cap via the Deng stretch. Total team salary = 70.8m Total cap space = exactly 38.2m (could we telegraph our plans more clearly haha) If we sign KD with that cap room then we'll be at the cap with 9 on the roster and we can fill out the remainder with vet mins, draft picks and the room exception (projected at 4.8m). The minimum outgoing salary we need to acquire AD (and his bird rights) via trade next summer is 21.6m. So BI and Zo have to be part of the package unless we get a 3rd team involved. Together those 2 make 16m so we need another 5.6m to attach to that package...Moe makes roughly 2.1m and Hart makes roughly 1.9m. So we would still be short about 1.6m. Unfortunately, Svi & Bonga make 1.4m each, so we have to combine their salaries to make a deal work... And that would leave Kuz as the only youngn on the roster. So it would obviously be to our benefit in trading for AD this coming season, since we would have to send less outgoing salary and have a plethora of expiring deals that would spare most of our youth from having to be involved for a deal to work. But, would NOP do it this coming by season... And in season on top of that? Either way... Y'all notice that we chose to go with a roster that has limited center options...almost like we planned to address that void at some point in time...hmmmm. #2019lan
Exactly what i was thinking. How gangsta would it be during AD's Lakers welcome press conference for Magic or Rob to drop the term "basketball reasons" casually in his introduction? "Trading BI, Kuz, and Hart was really tough, but we felt for 'Basketball Reasons', that AD would be a great fit on the Lakers."
"Basketball Reasons" is a nice slappy joke but that move by that midget f*** cost any chance of Kobe winning 6 and 7 titles. Kobe had 3 years left before his Achilles blew up. In that time, maybe he could have relaxed a little with prime CP3 on that team. I would stick David Stern and Roger Goodell in a steam room and lock it as I go on vacation that weekend.
This Giannis story is awesome. AD would be awesome but if the unlikely event we have a opportunity to get Giannis one day..... that’s truly who I want. If I had to build a franchise today and was given the option to pick one player to build around, Giannis would be that guy.
