D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Adopting A Professional Attitude

If it's wrong thread....then in the Aldridge thread. That's not a cool answer. I can be swayed with logic and have no ego about it. I do feel strongly about my observations and since we are in sync so often I value yours. I would not have been talking about it here again, had this "Russell" possibility below not been agreed upon by therealdeal that it could actually be in play. Which to me is mind "bottling", given that we had Okafor to solve the problem of L.A. So in that regard it is on topic.

"I think this is very much on the table, more than us fans want to admit. If the Lakers can rebuild immediately by creating a team that they think is capable of competing tomorrow... They will do it. A team that has Aldridge and Cousins on it is likely going to be competitive out West. That's maybe the best Center and maybe the best Power Forward in the league on the same team? Yeah that's not bad at all.

I just don't know if I'm the Lakers if I'm comfortable making that move. There's countless issues with it: 1. You lose fan perception which they FINALLY recovered 2. You lose any future building you'd just put together 3. If that team doesn't win it all at least once you gave up great young talents for nothing 4. Cousins is a terrific talent, but is he someone who can carry a winning team? I don't know and I'm not sure that players around the league view him that way.

More than anything, I think you're right that the Lakers are just making sure FAs know we're willing to play ball. If there's a demand that they have that we do this or that, we're willing to entertain the idea. As much as we love Jordan Clarkson or Julius Randle, if we save them at the cost of putting together a Championship caliber squad we're fools. That's something loser franchises do. The key is identifying whether or not Aldridge/Cousins is more capable of winning Championships than Clarkson/Russell/Randle.

I'm not sure. We'll see what happens. It's unlikely we'd make a move for Cousins anyway. Even when it was a hot topic, the idea of the Kings giving us their best player just doesn't seem likely."

 

Sponge. Mouthguard. Whatever, look out for the elbows while he's finding out how tough you are defending him in practice. It's what he does.

 

don't know if this has been posted yet. also, at :13 it's him and julius on the far left.

 

real talk

 

Clarkson needs to take a backseat to Russell. Play off the ball

 

ice cube is the Kobe Bryant of lame family comedies.

 

Why? Thompson and Curry switch it up at least some of the time and JC is a better initiating guard than Klay. It'll just happen anyway with all the screens and movement at times.

 

Just had a thought. Ouch! If DAR is stoked to pick Kobe's brain, and of course he is, I sincerely hope he and Steve HOF Nash have some deep, deep conversations and 1 on 1 as well. A W E S O M E ! !

 

I think that raises the following point - Aldridge wants to win now - his window is 2-4 years. Cousins wants to be in LA (but his agent is D12 agent). The upside with Cousins is he is locked into his deal for 3 years. Perfect marriage for lakers to make a run and blow it up again (and perhaps sell the franchise if it doesn't work out because of the CBA I think are up for discussion in next 2-3 years)...Lakers are forward thinkers as a franchise. SO...my only question is 'who plays PG'? Is it Clarkrson/Rondo with Aldridge/Boogie (worried about how that might work out could be the biggest team of malcontents ever when you factor in a cranky recovering mamba).

I'll throw my sense in here...IF lakers get Aldridge - they will trade Russell for boogie and will include randle in the deal. The question is who do we get to fill out the roster and does that leave room for some other piece to add in 2016 (once this group proves they are an 'up and coming' team that can compete)?