WMC 24-25: Seasonal Highs And Lows!

I was looking at our box score and wondering how we possibly lost



Our defense was horrible apparently. We lost the rebounding and TO battle just slightly, but just wow. Don't expect to lose shooting those percentages.

 

Congrats Pelican GM Griffin for fleecing a clueless noob like Rob. Completely mortgaged our future for 1 season of AD.

 

His team is in first, and he has a treasure chest of draft picks yet to come. I'd say he did his job quite well.

Maybe too early to say who "won the trade", but if we were ahead, they are closing the gap fast with no end of the competitiveness in site with their young talent.

 

Pelinka is just garbage. This is hell on earth for Laker fans, we will be missing the playoffs every year until Broombroom retires and thereafter

 

Team has no size without AD. Gabriel is not a C and that only leaves Bryant who is not a defensive big unfortunately.

But this was going to be a loss without Reaves: he's clearly the Lakers third best player and Russ for all his warts is still NBA caliber rotation player. That's 3 out of your top 4 guys out - league is too talented for you too win with that on most every night

 

looking more and more like this season is just going to be about lebron breaking kareem's record

no sense of urgency at all from the FO. sadly, they'll probably use AD's injury as an excuse

 

Screw them- they don’t care about winning or the fans. They only care about making money. Someone, please try and convince me I’m wrong.

 

first time getting/signing two new stars and gave way to their requests to the detriment of himself and the team. I don't think it will happen again, and I'm willing to give him time.

 

Kcp, Kuz and Caruso wouldn't have made anything any better without AD being healthy. We already saw that. I'm not sure that they were any more important to that chip team than Rondo, Green and Dwight.

 

lol. we have a ring. the pelicans have...generally been piss poor and are currently on a 49-win pace for by far their best season since the trade.

we should have had zero business even being at the table with NO to get AD, much less actually executing the trade. they could have easily pulled a SA/kawhi and sent him somewhere else for less out of spite. we paid less than the clips paid for PG! we've done some things wrong, but the AD trade is the opposite of that, even if he never plays another game. no AD, no ring. no ring, we're the knicks already.

we'd have lost last night even with the guys everyone is screaming for us to get, true. but if we had kcp and kuz and whatever harrell's salary spot turned into instead of russ, we'd have won at least 4-5 more games this year, imo.

the quality of your support players matters, period.

 

Here we are again. I admire your patience. It's unbelievable how general people have so much tunnel vision. 2 weeks ago AD was the best player in the league, now we got fleeced in that trade. There's people who bring nothing to this board.

It's unfortunate that AD hasn't been healthy. He played a lot in NOLA. It was an amazing trade at the time and one you do 10 out of 10. Period

It also amazes me the narrative around our youngins. None of them developed to be a player who lead or co-lead a franchise to the Finals, NONE. Ingram, DLo, Randle, Ball, Kuz, Clarkson...they all developed well and are interesting players in each one of their areas but are all playing in teams lost in purgatory. ALL OF THEM. That should tell you something

Sure, we did some mistakes down the line that didn't maximize that trade. As always and everyone should know by now, that Russ trade was the turning point of our franchise. Hell, we have AD healthy in that Phoenix series and we could be looking at a 2 straight Finals appearance if not championships. It happens but to doubt that trade should give you a life ban in commenting Lakers basketball.

NOLA is having a good run this year. Let's see how long it lasts. They can even take advantage of the mess that the West is right now and get a deep playoff run, which I seriously doubt, but what so? To me they don't have the tools to be in contention every year from now. And they actually could. Because they traded a generational talent on AD. When you do that, it's supposed to set your franchise to be pretty relevant a few years after, which is still yet to become true.

Hell, they can even get a 3-peat and that trade still makes sense. I don't get the "win the trade" whole thing actually. It's a trade. It's supposed to be win-win. Sure, a lot of times after some years there's clear winners and losers, but it's supposed to serve both teams goals, which are usually different at the time of the transaction. We were out of the playoffs for years before that trade and we went straight to a clear and deserved championship. That's a win for me. If the Pelicans also benefit years after from that trade, well they should so it can also be a win for them. That's it, pretty simple

P.S: sry, always forget the WMC thread. My personality can't embrace irrational vent. Only rational vent lol. My bad

 

I’ve never heard of the team that ended up winning a championship losing a trade in any sport.

 

right. if zion carries NO to a dynasty, that has nothing to do with the AD trade. we "won" it because we got the superstar in his prime. it's not like NO tricked us and knew he'd miss half his time here. that's ridiculous. we underpaid for his value at the time. he was basically luka/giannis/jokic right now.

and yeah, "winning" trades is a pretty silly concept. you make deals that are mutually beneficial. sometimes that anticipated benefit, for some odd reason, doesn't work out in your favor in the long run, but the idea isn't to "beat" your trade partner, it's to advance your chosen agenda. NO rebuilt, we won a ring. those were each teams' objectives. accomplished. by the time AD is done, we'll have paid off the mortgage, so to speak, and will be able to start fresh in the manner we see fit then.

edit--btw, this is why i only look to bad teams as trade partners right now. they're not trying to compete; we are. that's where deals are to be made in which the talent is lopsided. it's not because that team's gm is dumb and ours is smart; it's because they want different things right now.

we managed the AD thing quite nicely. for a comparison, see how badly we botched the PG situation at every turn. if you want to complain about rob, that may have been his biggest blunder, and one he's still digging out from. he learned from that, though, as he didn't try to play hardball with NO once he got the trade demand. with indy, they just wanted our #2 pick, i think (lonzo). i thought we should have done it then, and i still think so. they weren't wrong to ask. and we managed to piss off both PG AND indy, each of which came back to bite us BIG TIME (PG teamed up with kawhi instead of kawhi coming here, indy held us over a barrel in the turner/hield talks).

 

So where do you suggest we complain and whine if you are not allowing it in the WMC? This is the sole purpose of the thread.

 

there are plenty of factual things to whine about. claiming the AD trade was bad is just a bad take.

can i come here to complain that, say, austin reaves was a bad UDFA pickup?

no. complain that kendrick nunn missed a year with a bone bruise, during which he forgot how to play basketball. complain that we traded zubac for muscala or let caruso walk or have to worry about the luxury tax when our competitors don't. all reasonable things to vent about.

 

Nah, nowhere did I say the AD trade was bad, stop creating a straw man, I said Pelinka was fleeced.He negotiated against himself. we gave up BI Zo Hart and 2 lottery picks so far for a guy forcing his way to the Lakers. And if they get Wenbanyama too? We gave that all to a guy who can’t play half a season.

 

the AD trade I can live with, but since then I think Rob hasn't made a single trade or market move that made us better.

 

probably the best two budget signings of the past two years in monk and walker. great draft/udfa pickups in reaves and christie. we just suck so it doesn't seem like anything good has happened.

nope. again, NO could have simply not traded with us like SA didn't when kawhi listed us as the preferred destination. he tried to do it your way with the PG situation, and we got burned hard.

you forgot the ring again, too.

 

The Lakers have done the hardest thing in the NBA but don't want to waste picks for some middle schoolers: blah.

 

i think they don't want to waste assets it could take to nab one of the guys on that list.

we don't want picks to actually use them, imo.