Reply With Quote
really need to make a 180' on their complete roster
Kobe and T-Mac will be on the same team.
really need to make a 180' on their complete roster
Sign Bo McCalebb to play PG.
Find a young, athletic wing that can earn minutes from MWP and legitimate back-up minutes for Kobe. When Wilson Chandler and Rudy Fernandez return next season, Corey Brewer might find it hard to get much significant playing time. He might become available, although I would find it surprising if Denver trades him to the Lakers for cheap.
Couldn't agree more. The Fakers personnel situation is the result of some very poor management decisions - and it IS biting them in the ass. They have both Gasol and Bryant's bloated contracts and young players in the pipeline. That makes them have a roster that's comprised of older and expensive players. That's not a place you want to be.
Deron...
Lakers are ed for a few years for giving a big contract to Kobe and they don't have any money to work with
For all the people ejaculating over the Lakers being done forever, take it easy. Because of their spending power, location, the fact they're the Lakers, etc., they're never more than 3-4 years away from contending again. Maybe this current group is done but they'll be able to rebuild quickly, especially with no contracts going beyond the 2014 season.
I also don't see any value in them trading Gasol. His value is the lowest it's ever been and any deal involving Gasol will be trading him for a package where he's by far the best player in the deal. At this point they might as well ride it out with Kobe and Gasol till their contracts expire and they'll have tons of cap room to rebuild around Bynum.
My idea:
1) Get rid of Troy Murphy and Matt Barnes. Pick up the team option on Jordan Hill and resign Ebanks. Give Ebanks consistent minutes.
2) Fire Mike Brown. It's obvious he can't coach offense and horribly mismanaged how to utilize the advantage Gasol + Bynum have in the post.
3) Split the MLE between Odom and DeShawn Stevenson. Odom won't field any better offers after what happened this season and clearly wants to come back to LA. THAT Abe Lincoln gives Kobe a competent backup.
4) If possible, see if the Odom trade exception can be used to get a scoring combo guard or an upgrade at PG in a sign and trade (OJ Mayo, Kirk Hinrich, Lou Williams, Jamal Crawford, Raymond Felton, Jameer Nelson, etc.). Assuming I'm not forgetting when it expires and it can actually be used in free agency this year, the Odom trade exception and Odom resigning are the two keys to their current group contending again.
Sessions/Blake
Bryant/Stevenson
Artest/Ebanks
Gasol/Odom/Hill
Bynum/Hill/McBob
+ anything they can get from the trade exception (ideally a scoring 6th man who can take pressure off Kobe or a defensive PG).
On offense they should utilize Artest's ability off the dribble a lot more. He's a horrible catch and shoot player but is deceptively good creating.
I think that's a warped misconception. Anytime you have three superstar caliber or at least superstar "paid" players on a roster, financial maneuverability will be difficult. It's not about how much a team pays their top guys. It's more about how clever and smart they are about how they acquire and pay their lower end contract players and how they draft.
If Kobe made $15 million this season instead of $25 million, the Lakers are still over $76 million in payroll, still nearly $20 million over the cap. If Kobe made $5 million this season, the Lakers are still $7 million over the cap with no money to work with. Paying Kobe a big contract isn't what s them. It's not finding really great role players who compliment the three stars of Kobe, Gasol, and Bynum so that they can still pay big money to those three while still fielding a good and cohesive team.
Look at the Spurs with Duncan and Manu and Parker. Now collectively all three of their contracts combined are reasonable considering the caliber of players they are, but they still take up about $46 million of the $59 or so million of the cap. And Stephen Jackson pretty much takes almost the rest of the cap space. So where is the financial maneuverability with the Spurs? There isn't really any either. But what they have done well is find low end cost players via the draft or free agency that fill the holes to make it work. Leonard and Neal and Danny Green and dare I say Bonner. To me, that's easily the difference, not the fact that Kobe is paid $25-30 million a year.
The Lakers won 2 championships as a result of their short term decision making. When Pat Riley made that huge trade to get Antoine Walker, Jason Williams, etc. while giving Shaq a huge extension in 2005 he knowingly mortgaged the Heat's future for a team that had a 1 year window at best and needed tons of luck to win a championship that year. I don't think any Heat fans hold it against Riley for trading the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons in exchange for a le. Almost any team would be willing to mortgage its future to win 1 le let alone 2. The fact we're talking about the Lakers is the only reason there's scrutiny.
Overpaying Kobe and Gasol with longer contracts than they might have liked was the only way they were keeping Kobe and Gasol. There woulda been another team out there willing to give those contracts out. This is classic Spurfan not realizing that the Spurs are the rare exception to teams needing to overpay players to win a championship.
Agreed, and Manu + Parker are exceptions. The Spurs being able to have a "Big 3" from 2005-2007 with Parker + Manu getting paid as little as they did is a rare scenario.
The Spurs basically ushered in the idea of splitting the MLE between two role players rather than blowing it on one since role players are interchangeable with a competent big 3. Their 2007 team had Bowen, Horry, Elson, Oberto, and Finley all getting paid less than 4M as players who got consistent minutes. Meanwhile the LA after their 2010 le blew almost all of its MLE on Steve Blake. THAT's the difference.
Lakers wont be down long ... I say real contenners in 5 years or less ... they wil be pretenders for the next couple. The half suckered me last year with their post ASB win streak but I was right about them ALL year this time ...
Awesome post. Can you email that to Mitch? Only thing I dont like is we need a shooter. At backup 2 or starting 3 ...I thinK Brown was right to Move artest tothe bench and make him a creator he and Bynum should lead the bench crew. Or bench sucks when Pau and artest lead it because Pau is too pasive an dyou are right Ron is a better creator than people give him credit for. The pass to Blake was a good one and the right basketball play ...
Desawn or someone like him can be the extra defensive stopper needed for guys like Harden but he would contribute to our poor spacing if he was playing big minutes ...
Unless the Lakers can get a really amazing offer for Gasol, I would keep the team together and hope I could get something decent out of
(1) the mini-MLE
(2) McRoberts' expiring contract.
They should trade Bynum. His trade value will be higher than what he can do for the Lakers. He's prety dumb and he never will be 1st option while Kobe still playing. Plus his knees are a bomb.
You're probably right, but nevertheless, the 2000-2012 New York Knicks say hi.
Totally agree with all this. The Spurs didn't do much in the way of overpaying players to get their les, but they still did things like sign veterans at the end of their careers in the hopes of getting a year or two out of them that made it hard to repeat.
If you have a chance to win a le in the current year, you do whatever it takes. And the Lakers have more than delivered over the past decade-plus.
They're ed for years to come cause Buss Jr. is a re
Kobe, sensing his window for #3 is sealed shut, commits suicide via autoerotic asphyxiation while jacking off to Jordan highlight reels.
This. We also need a new management change. Dump Jim Buss into the LA dumpsters for Jerry or Jeanie.
Meh, if dumbass Jimmy stays out of Kupchak's way, they should be OK.
should show the door to mike brown first of all imho, is a terrible coach
It doesn't matter, they can't compete any more.
Anyway, I bet on trading Gasol for pieces.
They need a PF that can move his feet and hit the long-range shot badly. That Gasol and Bynum pairing can't work without a quick guy who plays 35mpg with them.
They also need a good defender of small guards. A guy who can deal with screens faster than old ass Kobe or their collection of laughable point-guards - Blake, Sessions , Fisher before them.
Anyway, it's futile. Second team in LA for the upcoming decade.
How does this contribute to the topic of the thread? My post is geared towards how the Lakers can improve. Did I scrutinize them? Yeah. Did I blindly bash them or hate on their decisions? Nope.
I didn't say anything about Kobe or Gasol being overpaid. I think overpaying those two are fine because the ROI should cover them. My point was that they are prone to overpaying their role players.
And this overpaying players/under paying players isn't just a Spurs thing, we've handed out some terrible contracts too. We certainly aren't immune to making bad decisions. If the Lakers want to improve right now, they need to find a way to move Pau or Drew, be more astute at handing out contracts to role players, keeping their picks, and improving from within.
Assuming Phil Jackson isn't walking through that door, what coach do you think they're going to get that would be a legit difference maker?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
