Who do the Lakers Dump?

[pad300]

According to reports, the reason the Lakers fell apart was Gasol's Fiancee leaving him; he blames Kobe's wife for this. Given these are the two best players on the team and the Lakers can't live with this much of a radioactive mess in the locker room (see the Skunker 2.0), which one do the Lakers dump?

Kobe - He's the face of the franchise. Old, bone on bone knees, huge ugly salary on contract, (does he have a no trade clause and would he use it?).

Pau - Another huge contract, not as old, still seems pretty prime athletically, but mental questions remain - is he Gasoft?

Can they get value for either of them? Trade proposals welcome...

[Venti Quattro]

Start with Shannon Brown. Fuck this guy

[TheManFromAcme]

Start with Shannon Brown. Fuck this guy

:tu agree

[TheMACHINE]

Gasol needs to grow some balls. Kobe had fucking "Colorado" hanging over him and he went nuts on those games where he flew in from Colorado. Gasoft goes thru a break up and fucking melts down. Give me a break.

[Venti Quattro]

It's really frustrating. It was like he returned in high school

[HarlemHeat37]

Bynum is the only trade asset they have, along with Walton's expiring contract..

The rest of the players on the team are untradeable IMO, or just suck..

[TheGreatest23]

Bynum is the only trade asset they have, along with Walton's expiring contract..

The rest of the players on the team are untradeable IMO, or just suck..

Howard and Arenas for Gasol/Bynum and Walton?

[Trainwreck2100]

Who knows what the new cba will allow

[leemajors]

Gasol needs to grow some balls. Kobe had fucking "Colorado" hanging over him and he went nuts on those games where he flew in from Colorado. Gasoft goes thru a break up and fucking melts down. Give me a break.

He might have acted totally different if his wife had left him and took the kids with her. It's hard to say.

[ambchang]

Gasol needs to grow some balls. Kobe had fucking "Colorado" hanging over him and he went nuts on those games where he flew in from Colorado. Gasoft goes thru a break up and fucking melts down. Give me a break.

Kobe went nuts by shooting the Lakers out of a heavily favoured finals?

[baseline bum]

Kobe went nuts by shooting the Lakers out of a heavily favoured finals?

:lol

[4>0rings]

Start with Shannon Brown. Fuck this guy
You don't blame role players for losing.

[Dex]

http://www.nba.com/2011/news/features/scott_howard_cooper/05/09/lakers-aftermath/index.html?ls=iref:nbahpt1


Uncertain future for Lakers, but they've been here before

Posted May 9 2011 1:19PM

DALLAS -- And so, to review:

The extremely popular ex-star and Hall of Famer suggested it's time to sledgehammer the roster. The coach is leaving. The All-Star power forward lost his confidence and the starting point guard turns 37 in August. The roster is not athletic enough. The center notes trust issues and the Sixth Man of the Year winner seconds the chemistry concern. A lockout is coming, and the season just ended in smoldering wreckage. All after a giant flash of craziness that engulfed the team.

Or as they call it around the Lakers:

Monday.

If being shoved out of the playoffs by the Mavericks in a semifinal sweep is unlike anything your favorite dysfunctional franchise has seen before, the comforting thought on the first day of the rest of their lives is that they have been through worse and lived to tell. Phil Jackson wrote in a book that Kobe Bryant was "uncoachable" and came back to coach him a second time. Bryant scorched the earth trying to leave L.A. when he demanded a trade, and soon after called himself a Lakers lifer. Shaquille O'Neal and Bryant destroyed one championship roster with an ego showdown, and management built another.

Leaving here Sunday night with an underachieving season capped by the 36-point loss in Game 4 and two fourth-quarter ejections that added to the appearance of a meltdown? That sucked a little bit too.

There was no other way for them to go out, of course, the Lakers having always lived big and bold. Something along the lines of your basic 4-2 exit wouldn't have fit, and so, they are not really heading into the offseason as much as being launched there on a rocket.

ABC/ESPN analyst Magic Johnson said Saturday on television that owner Jerry Buss is "probably going to have to blow this team up," a statement that did not go over well in the locker room with the Lakers a day away from stepping into an elimination game. (Derek Fisher, asked after the Game 4 drubbing about the future of the roster, snapped to go ask Magic.) It was ill-timed, but possibly also credible since Johnson remains very close to Buss.

Wanting to do something doesn't make it so. General manager Mitch Kupchak, seeing the chance of this kind of end coming from months away, shopped for a significant deal before the February trade deadline and found nothing real. The same could happen now with the Lakers looking but having only big (or big and bad) contracts to offer.

Of course, they also have the luxury of surplus bigs, usually a good conversation-starter with other clubs. Among that group, Andrew Bynum almost certainly is not going anywhere unless Dwight Howard is coming in return. Odom and Pau Gasol are much better candidates, especially with Odom coming off a Sixth Man of the Year Award-winning season and with only one more year of guaranteed money on his deal.

Besides, it's fair to ask whether the Lakers should do major reconstruction. Gasol, the target of scorn for going soft in the playoffs, was just the second-best player on consecutive championship teams. He is an ideal Bryant complement and has produced at an elite level. Buss and Kupchak don't do knee jerk reactions and could decide 2011 was momentary condition, not a permanent problem.

The only clear move is to replace Jackson, and that's as unpredictable a direction as the player decisions. History shows there is no such thing as a homecourt advantage for an ex-Laker or a Lakers assistant, an important note since Brian Shaw is both and mentioned most often as a successor. The bigger vote on his behalf is that the veteran players want Shaw, believing his familiarity would ease the adjustment to a new coach in a season of win-now mode and possibly chopped up by a lockout.

"There isn't anybody else but Brian at this point," Fisher said recently. "I don't know what kind of selection process they're going to try and go through .... We feel comfortable that Brian could get the job done. He's played with us, he's played for Phil, he's worked under Phil for a long time. We feel like if he chose to accept the job and be the head coach, we definitely could keep the same system that we have and do a lot of the same things."

The last-four-years-thing. Not the last-week thing.

Jackson was asked before the Sunday finale, even though he will have no say on deals going forward, whether he thought dramatic changed were needed if the Lakers were to lose in the semis.

"That's an 'if' I don't even want to go to," he said.

After the elimination had been sealed -- after, a development as critical as the Mavericks outplaying the Lakers, Jackson noted how "I felt there was a couple players that felt daunted by the energy in the game," -- he was asked again about a potential roster renovation.

"That's not my decision to make," he said. "That's Dr. Buss', and ultimately, with Mitch Kupchak, they'll put it together. But it's a great franchise and we all know that they always come back and get themselves back in the race. The Lakers are going to survive and do well."

Scott Howard-Cooper has covered the NBA since 1988. You can e-mail him here and follow him on twitter.

Decent read.

[DMC]

Artest. He's just a suspension waiting to happen.

Brown. He should be in NY where dunks are more important than games

Odom. Because they can get a shitload for him after that 6th man award

Pau. Because SA needs him

Bynum. tits+knee=failure


On second thought, fuck the Lakers. There are better teams playing still.

[Venti Quattro]

You don't blame role players for losing.

So why are you blaming Bonner? Maybe he's a star player for the Spurs.

[DMC]

So why are you blaming Bonner? Maybe he's a star player for the Spurs.

You haven't paid attention. Pop gets blamed for playing Bonner. Bonner does all he can. That's a fact.

[EIC]

Everyone except Kobe is expendable.

At least one among Odom, Bynum, and Pau probably need to be kept; the other two need to leave.

Artest probably doesn't have enough value to ship out. Probably need to keep him.

Fisher needs to retire.

The bench (Blake, Barnes, and Brown) should be used as trade bait, though I think Brown is the best of the three.

They need to make a push for Dwight Howard and Chris Paul. Dealing Pau or Bynum to the Magic along with some bench for Howard would be a good start. Then they could deal the other of Pau or Bynum and Odom to the Hornets for Paul and Ariza.

[lefty]

You haven't paid attention. Pop gets blamed for playing Bonner. Bonner does all he can. That's a fact.
True

Fuck Pop