To also be fair, it was Amick quoting his source who is an Indiana Pacer insider. Here's how I see it: - Amick is the mouthpiece for George and George's agent. Amick has been the one pushing the "George is hell bent on LA" narrative". - Amick's buddy Nate Taylor is the same person for the Pacer Front Office. Taylor is out there saying "the Pacers haven't received anything close from the Lakers and talks have stalled". You know why? Because obviously they want to try to pressure the Lakers into upping their offer late in the game. Everything I'm reading is encouraging though. The Lakers went out and played ball enough to get an extra first and throw that into the trade. They're going to come up short on "two 1sts and a starter" but two 1sts and a 6th man isn't a bad haul for a guy who is walking out the door anyway. They should honestly take it and run. Start their new life. If they continue to ask for more, I back out. I tell them honestly that we've done our part to play ball as a FO. We don't have to offer them f***ing anything. Be lucky we're giving anything at all and just give us Paul George for a small collection. PR won't be great, but just say George painted you into a corner and you took the best offer you could get. It's the truth (although you should have f***ing traded him sooner).
I actually don't think so. Whatever our package is, it's going to have to include 27 or 28. I think if we're trading for Paul George, it has to happen within 24 hours. I'm sure Indiana knows the offers aren't going to get better later in the summer so if we're the inevitable trade partner it's in everyone's best interest to get this done tomorrow. If you're Indiana you don't want to stubbornly hold out for more and then eventually have to settle for the Lakers package where you haven't had a say in those draft picks.
Pelinka isn't going to let the Pacers "sit" on his offer. There's a deadline, act now and get both picks and player X. Play games and you'll be lucky to get 1 pick !
Shoot. We either trade Clarkson and the 2 high firsts, and lose both our original scoring threats in one offseason, or trade Randle with the picks and never get another rebound. Our wait until the offseason, but then why trade Dlo now?
What's weird is dlo was spending a lot of time with magic, even during the draft workouts, it's sad that he gave up on him
Don't forget Lopez. For a season, he's a fine player to have. I'd argue Lopez, Nance, George, Ingram, and Ball gets us more wins than last year. This is all about long term positioning. We need a player like George to gain credibility again. Being able to get him, still keep Ball and Ingram, and get a max slot open is what we've been waiting all this time for. It's not ideal we dealt Russell. I was a fan, and this happening is exactly why I CRUSHED management from day 1 on the Mosgov deal. It was insanely stupid. But we have to move on. I'm starting to think this LBJ rumor has legs. If that's the case, you go for it. Even if he doesn't sign, we still are left with two #2 picks with high upside, a bona-fide stud in George, AND are less cap strapped. Roll the dice. We aren't winning squat with Randle and Clarkson. We overrate our own talent too much.
Surprised I didn't see this posted Interview starts at around the 30/31 minute mark after LNJ. He talks about how is shedding Mozgov's salary in the Russell trade slowed down or prevented trades with other teams because we opened space to sign George and another max player outright next offseason so teams backed off George as even more of an apparent rental.
Yeah we talked about that a while back right after the D'Angelo trade. Pincus was the first one to point out that it gave the Lakers not only the freedom to pay George big money in the event of a trade, but it gave the Lakers a massive amount of flexibility. It was a tremendous chess move that was hard to see in the moment, but gave the Lakers a leg up on these renters out there. Teams who were cautiously optimistic about trading for George and convincing him to stay were far less optimistic after seeing the Lakers free up that space.
Dear Kevin Pritchard, At 6:59p EST: You can have your choice of Clarkson OR Randle, 27 & 28. At 7:00p EST: Sincerely yours, Rob Pelinka
