Paul George is the reason Paul George didn't come to the Lakers. The Thunder had a good thing going, and we lost him mentally the moment we didn't trade the #2 pick for him that offseason. All this Mintz and LeBron stuff had nothing to do with it. If anything, having James, a star who creates so much for others, is much better for George than stat-padding Westbrook.
1) Russell will want a max this year. If you do that, you're probably looking at a Minnesota-Wiggins situation to be honest. Bad idea to lock up your cap room on an inefficient perimeter player. 2) You sign Randle to a 2 year deal, you don't have cap space this summer. So now rather than LeBron + Leonard/Durant/etc. you're stuck with LeBron + Randle and maybe 1-2 role players.
You said it yourself. Context. What about a rented year or few of LeBron for losing talented young players? Dude is old. Lakers are losing.
how bout IN RUINS? and what good is cap space if/when FA dont come and we keep rolling over that "cap space" with more 1yr rentals?
1. Russell not getting max, he will get Lavine type contract and the team paying that may regret just as quickly as Chi might have with Lavine 2. Randle/Dlo + 1 other max say a PG would've/could've done as much as Lebron + current roster, both routes have equal chances of failures and success, James w/o another max guy + this team is middle of the pk just like dlo/randle + kids and their eventual talent growth.
Isn't that what you're advocating? Keeping Russell, Randle, and the young guys sounds like a pretty serious rebuild to me. And if you have LeBron and the potential chance to win a ring, you take it, even if it means rebuilding after a few years. Rings are hard to come by.
1) Some team in the East will likely give Russell close to a max. If we kept him and weren't willing to pay him that this offseason, he'd be gone like the wind. 2) PG was never coming, not unless we traded the #2 pick for him. It's not about PG + Randle vs. LeBron and this current roster, either. The point is the FO has set us up to be in the running for a max FA and Anthony Davis. That is way better than a million Russells and Randles. If we strike out in FA and aren't able to trade for someone like Davis, then yes, the plan has failed and we should probably start tanking/rebuilding. But, having this type of a shot is so rare, you have to go for it.
look at your suggestion for what happens if they fail to sign a max guy, you really want another 3-4 yrs of this tank crap?
Yes. Rebuilding through the draft. We have a great scouting department. We had a ton of top picks. Why not do it that way?
Honestly I'd rather bet on LeBron and cap room than our last couple of years of draft picks. If you really feel strongly about the youth movement, then we shouldn't have signed LeBron at all. You can't mix *win now* and youth movements together. Our great scouting department found us: Randle, Clarkson, Nance, Russell, Ingram, Zubac, Ball, Kuzma, and Wagner. As a team, we probably don't make the playoffs. And, we'd have to give Randle, Russell, Nance, and Ingram all nice pay days, limiting our flexibility to improve. Our only other option would be to trade the young guys anyways. Even if you stuck Paul George or Gaul Peorge there, that's not a contender. I like the other option of having LeBron land here in FA, and try to use the assets we have to win a championship now. We will probably not see a player this good on our team in a long time. Best we maximize the opportunity while it's here.
sure you do. if randle were making 12 million next year, you could trade him into space and probably get a first rounder back. the cap space ethos is just fundamentally flawed. all of its adherents have to assume that it can only be obtained well in advance when that is not at all true.
If we're going to trade Randle for space anyways, why not just have the space in the first place? You can build through FA or the draft. We're the Lakers and are lucky to have both options. We tanked for 3 years, but in the draft, we unfortunately did not draft any superstars. Hence the need to sign them in FA and use our draft selections in trades. Once you have 2-3 stars, you can fill out the rest with veteran role players.
Almost every championship team in recent history has either drafted or signed their franchise superstar. That's just the way it works. We didn't draft any superstars, so we have to sign them. As the Lakers, we have the luxury of FAs wanting to come play here. 2018: Warriors - Drafted Curry, Signed Durant 2017: Warriors - Drafted Curry, Signed Durant 2016: Cavaliers - Drafted Irving, Signed James 2015: Warriors - Drafted Curry 2014: Spurs - Drafted Duncan, Drafted Parker, Drafted Ginobli, Drafted Leonard 2013: Heat - Drafted Wade, Signed James, Signed Bosh 2012: Heat - Drafted Wade, Signed James, Signed Bosh 2011: Mavs - Drafted Nowitzki 2010: Lakers - Drafted Bryant 2009: Lakers - Drafted Bryant I can keep going, but you get the point. All these teams then filled their rosters up with veteran role players after committing most of their money to the stars.
so how is your post any different than what Trodger was suggesting? Sign 1 star to mix in with the kids? as oppose to trading or trying to trade off all the kids for cap in HOPES of landing another star?
See, I stated my points in the form of questions because we honestly don't know the answers to those questions. You state yours as some sort of fact when I never heard anyone in the media say PG checked out on us when we didn't trade the #2 pick. I actually heard some media reports say that PG told us through back channels not to trade for him and give up assets because he was coming. Point of fact, there is probably more media reports that support my narrative than yours. There have also been whispers and outright public statments (KD in particular and Kyrie asking to be traded away from him) that playing with Lebron may not be all its cracked up to be.
We don't have any superstars. We likely need 2 to get it done given the state of the league. We were very fortunate to get one. George + all our draft picks gets us nowhere, other than tying up our cap and preventing us from improving. If we want to contend, we need star power. Let me ask you this. Instead of signing James and letting Russell and Randle go, what should we have done? What would our roster look like now? What about our cap room? How would we win a championship.
PG himself said that and conveyed that sentiment many times, I'm pretty sure. Also even if I'm wrong, where does PG + all our kids get us? We definitely aren't sniffing contention and don't have any cap flexibility either.
