D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Adopting A Professional Attitude

eh, there's no guarantee russell would still be here. if he had been moved for a useful veteran player, we'd probably have been just as good or better this year, albeit not a big player on the FA market. which may not end up mattering. if we get to a 2019 plan, we're basically at the point where the mozdeng contracts really didn't cost us much.

i've just seen cap space either unused or used poorly much more often than it's used to transform a team into a contender.

trades for talent are generally the way, unless you get lucky in the draft and the the #1 overall pick in a tim duncan draft.

 

Impressive how you continue to hate on what so far in terms of players actually obtained and on the floor this year with the flexibility and cap space ready and waiting .... has been a perfectly executed plan with the least painful of our players having been used so far to get to this point.

 

i just don't think it was a well-executed plan.

honestly--and it's fine if you don't believe this--i think plan A was to get george last summer, using the DLO trade as leverage. but it backfired, so it became clearly about 2018. then as the year has worn on, it's become about long-term flexibility. in other words, we could be down to plan c or d really quickly here.

and i'm not sure why people keep pointing to this as a "we want DLO back" or worse, "we want mozgov back" argument. it's really simple: don't trade for cap space unless you have an immediate plan to use it. too much is left to chance when you trade for cap flexibility a full year in advance.

 

it's saying that cap space isn't a plan. or at least not a good one. ask, like, every team that's ever tried it except two.

the grand irony in this debate is that the patient building approach was not to trade for cap space this year. it was to wait out the bad contracts while evaluating the young talent. the russell trade really only bought us one year. after that, moz and deng are expirings that are very easily moved. this is why i've maintained that the lack of a splash this summer is the nail in the coffin on this debate.

it's pretty rich for the FO (or proponents of their plan) to preach patience when they've now jettisoned three talented young players for 2018 cap space. if that market dries up--which is really easy when it's only like, three players deep--you're onto the 2019 plan. almost out of necessity.

thus, i was on board with the DLO trade if it was meant to be followed by a second trade for george the next month. that would have been the impatient rebuild approach. instead we got this middle of the road thing--except not really. it's only middle of the road now, after the FO lost confidence it was going to sign two max guys this summer.

as for the main point, which i believe can be read as: how can superman save you if you haven't saved him a seat? i think we've seen other teams manage this feat in the past few years. in fact, it's almost distressing how easy it has been for players to force their way where they want to play. i'll keep citing the chris paul trade until i'm blue in the face--NOBODY would have predicted that the clips accept that deal, even a few days before it happened. i still remember when GS came out of nowhere to join the dwight howard sweepstakes while the other teams that had planned their cap space for years were left on the sidelines.

again, we'll see what happens, but i'll never be on board for cap space plans.

 

.... as in yeah you'll have some crow as promised with even one "star" signed with the cap space and (all around excellently executed plan at that point) .... but you'll still maintain it was a bad plan. Got it I guess. Bizarre to me now with what actually took place this year and what we put on the floor with the cap space and flexibility attained .... and will be even more so to me at that point.

Please at least hold off on capping BI and Kuzma's combined impact together career ceilings being lower than Kawhi Leonard's individual impact until they have at least one more year with the team in the bag. Still leaving them 3 and 4 years of further improvement age wise to where he is now. Over the top with what they've shown already.

 

Yeah, everyone is focused in on pursuing Max FA's and resigning Randle, but who the heck is playing Center? Lopez isn't coming back for the exception IMHO, and it would be hard to replace his production. While I don't like the idea of paying 20 mil for him, who ARE we replacing him with? With what money?

It's not like we have developed prospects waiting in the wings ready to play 25-30 min in Zu or Bryant. Positionless basketball works well in spurts, but not all game and all season long.

 

LOL how many times have l mentioned we need a good Big man still who can at the least keep the +/- numbers relatively close against the growing # of decent to good true 7 footers in the league so we don't get punked by other centers. Including keeping Randle. I doubt the FO is sleeping on this as well.

 

Come on now. That's 180 degrees from what he is doing in the face of what we actually put on the floor this year (drafted and signed and traded for) (and looked like this year when healthy and experienced with one another) while still being able to have the cap space and the flexibility ready and waiting .... stating that it has been and will always be a bad plan. Regardless if we sign a star FA or not.

 

The thing that stands out to me though when I went to look at his 3 season numbers to see how they stacked up against Josh Hart's in his rookie year is that DLO's 2pt and 3pt shooting %s have been virtually the same all three years and less than you'd hope for. As well as reports from others who did watch of the sloppy turnovers continuing and the inconsistency.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/russeda01.html

 

All I said was the shooting %s struck me as next to no improvement. I liked DLO's game when he was here aside from the lazy turnovers and inconsistency. I don't hate the kid and I admitted I didn't watch much at all of him play except against us.

 

Not necessary but thanks. Looking forward to reading what thoughts and numbers for illustration you have for the first time since a year ago on this year's Lakers team.