Timofey Mozgov Discussion: Shut Down For Season (66)

I don't pay attention to media reactions and the players know better as well. We had tons of pressure to fill the 5 spot and they acted fast. I'm sure the FO looked at other options long and hard, and felt Mozgov was the most realistic one. If you have other suggestions feel free to point them out.

Now on to filling smaller needs. That is what I call an upper hand, and not playing catch up.

 

No, what may happen now to repay the good karma to you is that Mozgov whom we did sign will have the cyst removal (not bad knees for the still uninformed here) process with one knee finally heal properly with the surrounding tissue and the strained shoulder as well. Good health for our guy. And we will have good big ball starting center for a year or two who's no risk whatsoever in the locker room. The contrary actually. Not to mention one more guy with a chip on his shoulder to prove he can still play, like just 13 months ago and that whole half season with the Cavs. A guy both Luke and Shaw are familiar with that they wanted in their system. So you did GOOD.

 

healthy mozgov, in theory, was the third best UFA center on the market (behind whiteside and howard). noah's injury concerns are scary, and biyombo is undersized and really unproven, imo (mozgov had just as impressive--if not more impressive--showing in last year's playoffs). drummond and ezeli were RFA (and ezeli's probably not as good). horford's not a center (at least in his mind).

the lakers did overpay, but that's going to happen. either that or sit it out and hope for salary dump trades. problem with that is with the cap going up, teams probably won't be super motivated to dump even semi-useful players. so you act fast.

 

It's a solid move that fills a need and Moz will be on a fairly decent deal for the Lakers. Moreover, he will be a good influence on the kiddos since he isn't a headcase.

I was seriously afraid of adding Whiteside to the roster with so many impressionable young guys. I didn't want Whiteside at all and I think the Lakers were not interested either for that reason.

 

Warming up to this guy. I guess when you just focus on last year, yeah the signing looks bad. Look at the whole picture, not so bad. Still a little high on the price but hey it's done. The real question is how healthy will he be for us? If he can regain some of his former form, I think a lot of us will feel better, otherwise we're looking at Hibbert 2.0. Even then I think he'll still be better than Hibbert. But at the very least as someone mentioned, at least the young guys will still be able to develope their game and some chemistry without worrying about someone who needs to be the center of attention.

 

Come on Weezy if we get the tissue and inflammation issues (not bad knees) taken care of and he approaches or equals his play of just 13 months ago, watch the whole Part 1 and Part 2 videos in his thread. That's what we have now. Have you honestly done that yet, and still maintain he's bottom of the barrel?

LOL at all of the knee jerk "hands of stone" and "plodder" references being dropped on this guy and being 180 degrees off. He's mobile for a 7'1" bruiser and is a beast on P&R. DAR and everyone else will find this guy just like they did in Cleveland, and he is a decent defender and rim protector. Biggest weakness is against the P&R defending. Up to Luke to figure that out best as we can. He ticks off pretty much everything else. As trodgers has pointed out he was ranked in those stats of his the season prior right next to Boogie overall, like 23 or 24. Not saying he's as good as Boogie. Whatever those rankings were. The same ones that last year ESPN and others are mocking that he and Roy were at the very bottom.

 

Having to overpay vs. not needing to overpay are two different thing. Lakers did not have to sign him for 3 years for 16.5 million per. They could have gotten him for 2 years, with a 3 year option at 36 million. Who else was going to pay the 2nd worst center last year 16.5 million per year? Who? The Mavericks? ok, so Mosgov says no to that deal, who cares, go get Biyombo and over pay a young stud who actually plays defense and is healthy. At least that would make sense a little. Call him at 12:01 and show him the respect and how much you like his game.

 

We had to spend money and we needed a center in the worst possible way, so the Mozgov signing isn't terrible by any measure. However, it does little to enhance the image of the Lakers with other free agents, and Mozgov may not be a starting caliber center. The size of the contract is also a bit much for his production, but hopefully he excels with more minutes next season in Luke's system.

 

Not sure it it has been posted in this thread yet. But if he can get his mental game on track again I wouldn't mind seeing games like this from him. Keep in mind this game was from last year in the finals.

 

And Biyombo was available at 12:01? He's made it pretty clear that he wants to go back to the Raptors and would be patient with them. Unfortunately time is not on our side.

 

Biyombo is undersized for a center. We already have one of those guys and he is a much cheaper option.

OX, I'm not picking on you but please list the FA centers and determine who the Lakers should have pursued. The Lakers have a serious need at C and they acted quickly before Moz's demand was bid up and now can focus on other areas of need.

FYI, other teams, such as the C-bags had Moz ranked 2nd behind Horford on their list of FA centers.

In no particular order ....

Horford - solid vet but wasn't really interested in the Lakers. Will likely get paid much more than Moz.
Whiteside - headcase and did not want him around the kids. Plus, I believe he had every intention of returning to the Heat.
Howard - Ugh, perish the thought.
Mozgov
Noah - Would you have been happy paying $18MM for a guy that gets injured a lot?
Biyombo - undersized and from reports wants to return to Toronto.

If you want to be mad because we didn't go after some big names that is fully your right to do so. But, to complain without offering clearly superior alternatives just seems to be a fruitless endeavor.

 

I'll ask again because now we are down to eye tests. I feel mine is probably as good as most of the rest of you. Watch the WHOLE Part 1 and Part 2 videos and then tell me you still feel like we are scraping the bottom of the barrel and simply doing the resigning ourselves thing. What do your eyes see? If we have that guy who is NOT a plodder or faller downer or stone handser or weirdest of the weird shot shooter like Roy Hibbert was this year. Or NOT .... you still see Roy part deux?

 

I Hated the Hibbert trade, I hated even more as the season progressed. I dont like this Mozgov deal and IMO he's not gona live up to that contract but then again freakin Noah is getting nearly 18mill and he played 26 freakin game last year and consistently misses 20+/gm a season.

 

I just find it funny you completely dismiss he can be a starting center on a good team when he was killing it from the time they picked him up for the almost champion Cavs 13 months ago. Agree to disagree but wow that's not even based on the reality of what actually took place.