Judging The New Front Office After Their First Wave Of Moves!

so russell had more value than an unprotected 1st?

 

Yeah, to Brooklyn... which isn't saying much.

A 2019 1st round pick from us would probably project in the 10th (no George, natural progression of young core) to 20th (with George and another FA) pick range.

 

Sorry in advance for the lengthy post, but haven't been around, so I got alot to say haha.

What this thread proves to me is that the large contingency of Lakers fans have grown impatient and we want to start seeing some good basketball.

That directly is a result of the "sins of the father." Dr. Buss is the Los Angeles Lakers, but he is also a father and he simply sided with the wrong son. I can't fault him with his mentality, but the hope he instilled into his blood son, turned into an abysmal mistake. And so now its up to his adopted son to right the ship.

We have had record setting mediocrity for the last several years and now all that frustration is prematurely being spewed toward the individuals trying to amend those mistakes. Of course the superstar plan is intact, cause when you look up and down our roster, we are void of said superstars (allstar, obvious HOF or otherwise).

Boston: IT, Horford, (soon to add another)
Cleveland: Bron, Love, Irving
Toronto: Lowry, Derozan
Wiz: Wall, Beal
SA: Kawhi, LMA
GW: Steph, Durant, Klay, Green
Clips: CP3, Blake, DJ
Memphis: Gasol, Conley

I'm sure you guys get the idea, but most of the upper echelon teams have at least 2 current all-star caliber players that may one day even become HOFers. The Lakers all-star: Luol Deng and that seems to be ages ago. Most of you are so fed up with the free agent plan, when nearly half the league (or at least the better half) employ it. Heck the stacked Warriors just utilized it to their benefit this year. So the plan does work.

Of course that brings us to the other side of the plan where you need home made talent for said free agents to join. The Warrior did that also by having solid drafts for players that shaped out to have the mental fortitude to match their skill set. For all the skills that Steph possesses, is he hunting down thots on the gram tho. That dude keeps his nose to the ground and treads with the proper maturity. SA also got another one with Kawhi. Heck even with all the bravado that Bron has and even the coach-killing he's done, have people ever insinuated that he's been a terrible leader and teammate?

I guess Russell still had to download those qualities, cause they were amiss and forget what Byron has said about him, Luke just threw major shade saying at the time of the DRuss trade that he couldn't talk about the trade since it was not official, but all he can say at the moment is that "We love the way Zo plays the game of basketball" So if Luke doesn't see it and his past coach didn't see it and Magic and Rob didn't see it...well maybe dude just didn't have "it" and probably never would. If you're trying to build a culture like SA and GW, then those young guys have to have "it" and if they don't on to the next.

Ingram is still here. Zu is still here. Lance is still here. We didn't trade #2 or any future picks for a superstar (like the previous FO did) and brought in Zo along with 3 other youngn's. So if the plan is to add 2 superstars to that bevy of in-house youngsters, then that's a far different plan than what the previous FO had done.

At first it was lets win in the now with CP3 and Howard to join Kobe. Remember in the initial deal, LO was a salary dump. He and his agent got wind of it, so when the deal was off, LO got hurt and our contingency plan was obviously another salary dump with the Mavs for a top 20 protected pick that was never conveyed and a TPE that eventually landed Nash. Of course future picks were attached to that TPE for a noticeably aged Nash, but we were all in on winning it now.

So if that is the direction this management is going with I don't see it, cause we didn't trade future picks and just drafted 4 kids while keeping all of ours except the one that did not want to take the leadership role. Have fun in Brooklyn. And if you guys really think we did a disservice to Russ by driving his trade value down, that writing was already on the wall when Byron was here, which was a Mitch and Jimmy hire. Another one of their hires was D'Antoni who all but crippled Gasol's trade value. And this was Pau Gasol, a guy that just sacrificed to allow SA to be a free agent player this summer...a guy that was the hermano of a Laker lifer...a guy that was an all-star, a NBA champion and an Olympic champion. A guy that had no issues as a bad teammate or a malcontent and he certainly wasn't anything like DRuss. You want to talk about driving someone's trade value down....lets start and end there.

Another thing to note is that Dr. Buss died in 2013 which obviously shifted the FO in favor of Mitch and Jim. Dwight then decides to leave that summer and we get nothing in return. We see the same happen with Gasol the next summer and in a crazy coincidence, Paul George was also up for an extension with the Pacers during 2013 and didn't even bat an eye towards the Lakers at that time. We all know about the summers that followed where free agents either gave us a pity meeting or just outright declined to sit down with us. Could it be that they didn't understand the Lakers plan at the time, cause heck even I as a fan had no idea what direction the Lakers were committed to. Could things be different with different people at the table? All I know is Jimmy/Mitch get ousted and Magic gets hired and now all of a sudden Paul George is hellbent on coming home while Bron might leave his to come here. Maybe the plan, needed new planners.

After the all in Nash/Howard plan didn't work. Then we went into a funky rebuild but lets still honor Kobe plan. During that process, we brought in a hard nosed coach in Byron who is better at motivating veteran men as opposed to adolescent kids. He was obviously brought in to see Kobe off and not really build a foundation for the youth we drafted. That being said the talent has to match the mentality and obviously DRuss didn't have it, while Randle might or might not. One thing is certain...if the current FO of Magic and Pelinka don't see "it" in him, we certainly won't retain him and pay a hefty contract to do so. I admire the work that Randle is putting in after that devastating injury that cost him his rookie campaign, but if the dude doesn't have "it", he should be dealt just like his running mate was.

The Swaggy-DLoading culture is not winning basketball and that ish needed to end yesterday. If Luke preferred that culture he would have been gone just like many of his peers from the previous regime but Magic and Pelinka know he's a solid coach that has the type of culture we need to get to, so he's in and any malcontents are shown the door.

In a nutshell, our current plan is nothing like we've seen from our previous tenure. It is in fact what we see with all the winning organizations now. We harvest our right-minded youth and try to develop superstars in-house....all while plucking superstars from other teams and adding them to ours via free agency and trade. That is how all the winning teams do it, so why shouldn't that be the plan?

Its frankly insulting to say that Magic and Rob are conducting the same plan that our previous FO had done, when that simply isn't the case. We had no plan under the Mitch/Jimmy regime. We had no sense of direction or idea of how to evolve in a NBA landscape that clearly had passed them by. Other players and agents took note of it and that is why they chose to stay the hell away from the Lakers.

So when free agents come and sit down with the Lakers now, the plan will involve a FO that can clearly present it to them.

I understand everybody's impatience, but the current regime needs to clear the fields of the weeds that its previous occupants had haphazardly planted. Unlike the last several years of ineptitude, we finally have a plan.

 

Mitch/jimbo plan to save the franchise was to get a brand name fa to sign here, hows that different than rob/magic? If we dont get those 2 max lvl guus next yr, we just as bad as the day we started this "process"

 

Not to mention wed need 5 all stars to actually do anything against GS.

 

As a teacher, I will give them an incomplete grade. I'll save my grade till summer 2018, they better bag Paul George and hope Russell doesn't turn into an All star in BKN.

 

The obvious difference between the previous regime's plan and this regime's plan are the planners. You don't only have different planners showing up to the table, but you got participants actually wanting to take a seat at the table. We are not a playoff team and are coming off years of futility, yet Paul George is hellbent on coming back home to us. What's changed since 2013, when he last had the ability to come back home? Woj (as dependable an insider as they come) believes Bron could leave his own home in Cleveland to come to LA. What's changed?

Not the plan...the planners!

And here's a GW timeline for those enamored with how they've done it. Steph drafted in 2009, West comes on as a consultant in 2011 and helps draft Klay. They win their first title in 2015. Ingram is drafted in 2016. Magic/Pelinka come in and draft Zo in 2017. If Ingram becomes that Steph Curry type foundational piece and Zo becomes that Splash bro type to Ingram, I'm hoping we seriously have a title run by 2021

Till then, let's try to enjoy Zo's introductory presser. Lavar, hope you don't disappoint!

 

So then you agree it's the same plan.

 

all well and good. where's paul george again? when he arrives, we can talk about how different it is. until then, it's the same damn plan, and the planners are different people with the same results.

 

its the same plan, they're still banking on outside max lvl FA to come save us, only optimism I have is that magic/rob dont have personality of a couch potato and a high school teacher in his 80's ready to retire any day now.

 

He said "I am going to the Lakers in summer 2018". We're a ways off from that yet. The "let's turn 5 years of ineptitude around in one draft" plan isn't going to work. Sorry but we need a little more patience.

Clearing cap space to sign a partner for PG or some other star by erasing an epic cap space-destroying error made by the previous planners is not doing the same thing as the previous planners. Spin it how you want but they are not doing all the same things. For one thing, no one knew what the hell Kupchak and Buss' plan actually was, least of all them when FAs started burning them. Magic and Rob have publicly let their plan of bringing in 2 star FAs be known, it's all over the place. Having a plan and announcing it alone separates them from the last 2 guys. Forget about the corrective move just made. And anyways, anyone in sales can tell you, you can say and do the same things a successful sales person is doing and still not get the same results. People have to want to buy from you.

 

@vasashi17 truly epic post! I am 100% in agreement.

Magic and Rob are instilling a new foundation and that starts with a big 180 on the culture of the team. Many of us noticed yesterday with the picks, they're drafting guys that are going to work and be open to coaching!

Pelinka in his presser talked about the change in vibe, the positive aura with the team. People are buying in again and it starts at the top!

Buy in Laker fans!!! We have hit the trough and everything is pointing upward! Let's enjoy this "Magical" ride!