That's how I read it. Honestly it all just strengthened my thought that he put his number out there and we weren't willing to meet it. I get the angle that he could have tried to negotiate but I completely understand his position as I've done this myself. When you are in a good spot, you don't feel the need to haggle. This is my price. If you can meet it, I'm on my way. If you can't, thanks for the offer but I'm good. And while he may not be well known among folks who only follow the NBA, the guy has plenty of fame and is from one of the most well known families in basketball. He doesn't need publicity.
The fact that Linda Rambis can pump the brakes on a coaching hire is the real nugget in all of this. I won't type another rant (yet) but that's just a huge problem and as others have mentioned, its just another sign of a poor leadership structure. It's a big reason why all of us doubters have been questioning the process being used here. Basketball minds should be running this.
i'm not even sure he put a number out, but he definitely had one in mind. and we didn't meet it. and that's fine on both sides. i just feel like we should have had a better sense from the outset of what that would be. that's my gripe here. again, just don't make a formal offer if you don't think you're going to meet his price. just say both sides decided now wasn't the time. nobody looks bad in that case, imo. him turning us down makes us look bad in two ways: undesirable and cheap. and all the lip service afterwards won't change that. this is the source of current frustration. i don't care if we hire redick (i never did). but we didn't have to look this bad doing it.
He earned rep with his b2b college titles but I don't think he had it before and I think he still needs publicity. He said it himself that before these titles he was known as "the son of Bob" or "the brother of Bobby" who were more known than him. So it's a recent rep, he's not a legend or historical figure. Meaning he's riding this recent bump in his exposure, which is absolutely fine from a personal career perspective, he's smart to do it. I imagine his name may start to appear for more high profile jobs which never happened before. I'm not sure he would move to Texas, but basketball wise it would be smart to eye into San Antonio post-Pop, it shouldn't take much years. It's a similar context of Connecticut, an off the grid program
Unfortunately, I doubt that will ever be confirmed. But its not the first time we've heard of other factions within the org influencing big decisions.
The timing of everything almost seems like the front office just used the Hurley news to somewhat extend the search until they could hire JJ.
this is the one angle that doesn't make sense to me. i really think the "it was always jj" stuff is pure cya from the reporters. and because there are several of them who missed on it, they're presenting a united front of insistence. just no way you make an actual offer if jj was your guy the whole time.
I get where you are coming from, but every fan would've bet Hurley staying if we knew the offer was 6 years 70 mil after their meeting. Maybe they viewed Hurley and JJ somewhat equally so at worst even if he accepted the offer you aren't exactly mad.
"Eat alive" was an hyperbole. Forgot I was in the internet. AD has a career -51 +/- against Nurkic. -30 with the Lakers. LeBron has a +25 since AD came. I think this simple data shows how AD is uncomfortable with Nurkic. On Jokic, he's a bad defender. Again, AD is an ELITE player. So he's getting his most of the times, that's not the point. The topic was about his toughness, and in these matchups I see him uncomfortable and moving off of his game, he doesn't like to battle it out in the paint. I think everyone remembers the multiple games where he shot like once in the second half. For me that's lack of toughness. It's just a "skill" he doesn't have, it's fine. On the eye test, I always see him uncomfortable and off of his game in those matchups or in critical moments. But he improved recently, imo. Again, it's fine, but to say it doesn't exist I think it's incorrect. But we may agree to disagree.
I unfortunately spend too much time on Twitter so I saw the “controversy” It stemmed from this tweet Laker fans were coming at him for his first reaction to the Jerry West news being a dig at the Lakers, other teams fans were coming at him for what they saw as “gatekeeping” what organizations were allowed to grieve for Jerry. Which are both really dumb points to attack Irwin for, nothing he said about the Jerry West news is wrong. I think a lot of people on Twitter just REALLY dislike Irwin though so they were just looking for an excuse to pile on him. They also started digging up old tweets about him being against the reverence the organization showed towards Kobe towards the end of his career and into retirement (those tweets I did find lame) Making death threats online is obviously never acceptable, but also… it comes with the territory? Social media is a toxic place, I’VE received death threats during relatively tame sports arguments. It’s pretty easy for angry losers behind their keyboards to make empty threats. And so sometimes when people make a big deal about the “threats” they receive during an online controversy, it comes across as a shield. “See the people who disagree with me are all unhinged losers, therefore my points hold more weight”. I’ve actually grown to like Irwin in his “podcaster” role over the “reporter” role. I just sometimes have to roll my eyes and tune out when he cites something from an unsubstantiated report (or one of his “sources”) as fact when it helps his agenda. Which is my segue to get this back on topic lol, I did find Irwin’s podcast with Ethan Strauss yesterday pretty fascinating. The theory they presented pushed back on the idea that Woj was just doing Hurley a favor for leverage. Instead they suggest that Woj was basically trying to play “matchmaker” and bring the Lakers/Hurley together to increase his own power and get one over on the rest of the media. He truly wanted to manifest it. A lot of it seemed speculative and reading into Woj’s demeanor/appearance at various points, but it kinda makes sense. Especially I hadn’t noticed it but they cite how after Hurley decided to stay at UConn, Woj almost seemed upset and even saying things like Hurley might end up regretting it.
Not that there was much momentum behind it anyways, but this probably puts to rest the idea that the Pistons might cut ties with Monty Williams and he’d become an option for us. Don’t see the Pistons hiring an assistant for Monty’s staff if the were imminently about to fire him
again, i fullly believe woj was playing his own game, too. i'm pushing back on shams and company trying to act like we had no process and were going to hire redick no matter what. clearly not true. just impossible for it to be true, imo. i've tried to give irwin's podcasts a try here and there, but i just don't find it compelling. add in that his sources frequently support his obvious agenda, and i don't see the point in listening to him. it would be different if he picked a lane, but he tries to straddle the line, and there's no place for that. that said, his comment on west seems totally innocuous. i haven't seen the kobe tweets, but that is absolutely on-brand, man. guy needs to relax and tie a bit less of his self worth to the lakers. you can be a fan and care without being absolutely nuts. reminds me of that guy who's gone viral commenting on the playoffs, where he just screams at players during replays claiming they're poorly coached or whatever, and everyone's like "this guy knows what's up" and half the time, he's just wrong (i.e., the guy isn't out of position, or the screamer has misunderstood the scheme, etc.). i'm off topic now. guessing we'll hire redick within a week. i know cranjis was s***ting on the slate of assistant coaches suggested a couple weeks ago, but i didn't think it was that bad--just kind of a franken-staff.
the fact that they both have so much power in the FO pretty much sums up the s*** state that this franchise is in
