only things i'm upset by so far are plumlee to phx for the vet min and murray to NO for our f***ing pick (a*******, both of them!). everything else...meh. not much we can do. people keep scoffing at the apron stuff, but it's real. and i don't agree with the pearl clutchers that it's killed the market. the market will correct itself, and there will be more parity and eventually more player movement that makes sense, imo.
He's gonna do something...there's no way they're not going to do something. Just refuse to believe that we're this incompetent and that we're letting ALL these players fly off the board without any consolation plan... Just hoping whatever we trade to Portland...we're getting Grant and a CENTER in return....and then we are able to use MLE for someone like Derozan OR split the MLE across two players so that we can fill out the roster after we send out multiple guys in the Grant/RWII trade (if it happens)
my brother: the mle dreams are just that. lebron's got to take a 24 million dollar paycut to use the mle. he's definitely not doing that to split it amongst whomever would split that. he *might* take a paycut half that size to do a S&T for someone, but we need to temper expectations. again, names are flying off the board, but mostly not names that would obviously supplant guys in our rotation at prices available to us. i don't think we head into the season as is, but it wouldn't shock me. i wouldn't be thrilled, but i'd understand. i will say that if we've been talking to portland as much as we have, i trust that we're trying to make something work there. but just like when pritchard tried to bend us over for westbrook, sometimes it's wise to just wait.
My patience is wearing out some, by the time any moves are made to clear roster spots there might not be any decent FA’s available, we might as well just end up keeping Wood, Hayes and Reddish if the market only has worse. Something Irwin AND Harrison both said on today’s show bugged me too, both said the Lakers tax is real, but it’s more Rob tax now because nobody likes him. Irwin then added that from speaking to other teams, Rob’s style is to call, give his offer, and if the team doesn’t like it, they end the call and move on, no negotiation. You can’t still act like a shark of an agent when you’re a GM, you have to build relationships, doesn’t seem Rob is doing much of that.
But just before FA started, didn’t Irwin tweet that we had been talking to Portland for days? So are we negotiating with teams or is Rob making an offer and hanging up? He’s talking out both sides of his mouth. His bias and agenda is so clear that it’s impossible to take seriously anything he says about Rob. I’m not so much “pro-Rob” as I am “Irwin is a clown.”
this. i only come off as a rob defender because i can't handle just allowing irwin's nonsense to stand as fact. it can't possibly be fact. and our team has had a target on its back since the pau gasol deal. it's not about rob. it's about being the league's flagship franchise. i'm sure some of that envy gets transferred to whomever is on that phone. and again, if we replace rob, it will be that guy. btw: i said this before but it bears repeating: to be "liked" by other teams, you can't always be in buy mode. the lakers don't tank, so we can't help people out in the way other teams help each other out. if we pulled some of the moves that other teams do (eat crap salary for future picks, etc.), the fanbase would go freaking bonkers. like worse than "rob not signing delon wright" bonkers.
The only way to separate the “Laker Tax” from the “Rob Tax” is to replace him. Like Abeer said, the new guy will have to deal with the “Laker Tax” as well. Say if we brought in Bob Myers, would he be able to freely wheel and deal like he did for the Dubbs? I don’t think so. He will be under the same monetary constraints as Rob and have to pay the “Laker Tax.” Now, would his relationships around the League allow for more success? Maybe, maybe not.
yeah, i mean, we could hire somebody's assistant gm to run things, and that person may not have some of the bad blood rob had, but he'd still be working for us. this is why i've consistently advocated for hiring a guy like that to work under rob, though. rob still directs things, but maybe this guy makes the phone calls.
This. There’s no reason Rob should be doing this at least from what appears to us to be with a very, very small staff, and basically being the president of basketball operations and GM in one, hire another guy, you’re the freaking Lakers. Seems everyone in power likes things just as they are though, right where they are, Kurt the shadow GM, Linda the JJ hater, Tim Harris the I couldn’t pick his face out of a lineup if you gave me 100 guesses.
kurt/linda is such a problem to me. it's not clear what their actual jobs are, and yet there they are, involved in stuff. meanwhile, rob has no real deputy, which i feel most other front offices have. and i get that the rob/magic thing was a disaster, but that was because a) the power structure wasn't clear to either (imo), and b) magic just wasn't good at the job at all. give rob someone with qualifications who is not a direct threat to his authority, and i think it goes better.
It's because there's no defined role and they fluctuate as needed which is incredibly dangerous and f***ing stupid when you're the Los Angeles Lakers and not the New Mexico Thunderbirds. They should be who Jeanie talks hoops with at dinner parties over wine and what they say in those settings should have no bearing on any actual team decisions. If I'm a coach or player and see either of them sitting in on a meeting, I'm asking why are you here?
Nepotism is bad for any business, especially billion dollar international brands. I've seen the horror show of nepotism first hand, trust me, it's miserable.
