On the eve of the NBA trade deadline, I thought about chiming back in. RIP Van Winkle has awakened. Fever has struck Los Angeles as Laker fans wonder - who will it be? Lawson or Dragic, more Jordan Hill or Miles Plumlee? Could we possibly end up with Lawson and Lopez? But how? They say the Lakers don't have the assets. Jerry Buss was a gambler and its winnin time! Will we end up with Reggie Jackson, Kendrick Perkins and filler for Jeremy Lin, Hill and picks? Oh, the fans are all biting their nails - watching the tweets, searching for a sign. One thing is for sure - the season is more than half over and Laker fans are starting to look upwards (not at the heavens cursing in the voice of Nancy Kerrigan 'why.') but up at the standings saying - 2015-2016 is coming and its going to be a hell of a lot better than where we are this year. Hell it can not get much worse and is working out according to plan, right?
There's such a tight balance here. For years we've looked at other teams' luck and marveled at how they could bungle things so many times while our team succeeded. We drafted well, we traded well, we made the right personnel decisions. We were an incredibly fortunate franchise. Now we're seeing things from the other side and damn it's rough. We've had as bad of luck as anyone in the last 3-4 years here. Of course that brings us back to the balance issue. IF we can land a Dragic or a Lawson or a Reggie Jackson now or in the off-season, we start a great trickle-down effect. We get our PG of the future, a Top 5 pick of the future, Randle comes back healthy, and maybe we bring back some of our solid players in bench roles... Suddenly we're a team that looks like a great destination for ANYBODY, let alone Durant or Westbrook or anyone else. A young Laker team with tons of money to spend, tons of money to be made in endorsements, and tons of money to be had in business opportunities... That team looks great. They might not be great for a while, but the foundation is there. If we miss out on that PG of the future suddenly we're looking at a bunch of young guys with no real leadership. You know who has a bunch of young guys with no real leadership? Detroit. Sacramento. Milwaukee. Orlando. Utah. That's not a place for the Lakers to be. But I'm optimistic too! It's been a while since we've heard that "X" player wants to come LA and is actually available to be had if we want to get him. Dragic coming out and saying he wants to be here and knowing we've got a great situation for him AND the cash to make it work... It feels good. It feels like things aren't as dark as they could be. The first thing we need to do is nail down that one great asset. The rest will fall into place. With this Dragic news I'm a little more optimistic that the first domino exists out there.
ElginTG: Agree with you 100%. We have so many picks coming and I just feel that if you keep drafting, you will find 1 maybe 2 players who are going to help. You might just find that missing ingredient in the late first round like we used to do back in the day. (Derek Fisher, AC Green). PHX is a dumpster fire. No one is going to hit the Panic Button here in Lakers land. That said, we did not have much room to negotiate. Glad we didn't bet the farm on a high priced free agent acquisition.
Absolutely. I think patience was definitely the right move here. We will still have a shot at several quality free agents this summer. Add that with a good draft and Randle coming back next year and this team will be much improved. It will still be a struggle to get back to the playoffs in the west, but it won't be the dumpster fire we have had the last two seasons either.
<---- watching Magic's return vs. Golden state in NBA TV (1996). He played the 3 most of the game and looked stronger than Lebron after 5 years off.
