Talen Horton-Tucker Discussion: Growing Pains

exactly. The second we get a Covington, he’ll fall off a cliff. I’d rather give Stan Johnson a look and save our only asset.

yep. If we move tht to some junk team, they’ll actually put him in situations where he can succeed.

 

Stan is averaging like 22 a game. Bring him up...

 

depends—are Bradley and Baze actually taking up space?

 

Somewhere therealdeal’s spider sense is tingling

 

Yep. And if Miles Simon reports they should bring him up and take a good look before this season gets too far away from us .... and he does play well with the Varsity ... Jeanie gets a girlish pink mulligan with any of these guys on South Bay to replace vet min spots on the roster who aren't going to cut it in the playoffs, with yes luxury tax implications .... at going "ALL IN" for this shrinking 2 years window (this and next) with LeBron.

 

The Lakers will have plenty of cash to spend when Lebron retires. It will always still be LA and the Lakers. The brand won't suffer at all IMO. Trez would have been long gone, KCP would have declined, and Kuz would still be an average NBA player by then anyway.

 

Perhaps.. but to keep it all the way real for a second. Lebron James is still a great player, and his play is critical to any playoff success. Not Talen Tucker, developing Tucker is a great idea and ultimate goal, but he is 21 years old, he has time to figure it out. The idea that James is supposed to somehow sacrifice his game today, in order to speed up Taken's progress doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If our championship hopes this season, were pinned on Talen in the first place, that was a silly idea to begin with.

 

Lakers will be in great financial shape in 18 months. AD will be 29 and the Lakers will have Lebron and Westbrook off the books. If they could squeak out a title in the mean time, it would be great but if not, they at least have a star in his prime and a crap load of money to build around him.

 

i agree. contrary to popular opinion here, i think you can build around AD. the only concern is whether we decide to re-up lebron at like, 50 million per or something. just like with kobe, i wish lebron would pull a dirk/duncan and take a lower salary so that we could bring in other guys. but everyone saw that not work out well for dirk, so it's ruined the practice. which is a shame, because it *could* work, and la is a great place to test that theory.

for example (and tons can change between now and then), if lebron re-ups at a reasonable price, you could field something like:

myles turner
AD
lebron
dillon brooks or caris levert
THT

and that's just from the current list of available FAs that year.

 

There wasn't an Anthony Davis around back then either.

 

It's an interesting conundrum: small market or even mid market teams are always in fear of losing their stars and rightfully so to a bigger market. OKC is a poster child for this but OTOH LAL sans Lebron and NYK for decades would say otherwise.

I think what Brooklyn and the Clips show is that players don't value rivalries/history as much as a combination of a good place to live plus competent organization. The Lakers had the best of both worlds for a long time with Jerry Buss plus West/Kupchak. Then they didn't so despite being in LA and the Lakers they lost the second half of that equation. Having AD helps with recruitment for sure vs whatever the Buss brother were trying to do but overall you have to be looked as competent

 

Someone thought the youth movement was the way to go. They were wrong. On Deng and Muzgov...those were just poor decisions period.

 

Its the same approach they took with Kuzma. SMH

 

I wonder if they try to extend Lebron before his contract expires if he is healthy. I know he wants to play in the league with Bronny, but extending him before his contract expires would severely limit our flexibility.

But, the likelihood that he sets all time scoring records happens during that extension. Do they let him leave if that is possible? That may put him in the all time books as a Laker, and I'm not sure you can put a price on that. Soem of the best to ever do it have run through our organization. Be a shame, since we are stuck with him , to let him walk and set the record in another jersey. I'm not sure I see that happening, and I'm not sure I see him staying if we just let his contract expire.

 

All true and can't see him taking a cut in pay and I realize how much it pained you to write that. As @Kenzo would say, ATGROL when he's too old and will cripple us from being able to afford other premier, younger players (he'll still be effective though) ... don't give him any leverage ideas he doesn't already know he has.