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Nice post. You didn't even mention the little fact that the Lakers will outspend the Spurs by some 50 million dollars this season, inclusive luxury tax.
Apples and oranges here. The way the Lakers have been built over the last 40 years has been by sending inferior assets to cash stapped teams that were desparate and/or stupid.
Look at how LA acquired Wilt Chamberlain, Jabbar, Magic, James Worthy, Byron Scott, Shaq, Kobe, Gasol - the bulk of their top historical players. The pattern goes two ways - essentially the trading partner received a washed up player or mediocre talent and LA gets a future #1 draft pick. Lo and behold, the trading partner has an awful season and LA gets the first pick in the draft a year or two later for what turns out to be vastly inferior assets.
The other scenario is a player refuses to play or resign with his current team and forces a trade to LA. That's what happened with Jabbar, Shaq, Kobe, Chamberlain, etc. The team on the other end would get pennies on the dollar in those transactions too.
The teams that got the short end of the stick on these trades? The Bucks, the Jazz, the Cavaliers, the Magic, Grizzlies, Philly (76s I think). Generally small market teams with significant financial limitation.
Getting Howard for Bynum would be somewhat of a more equitable deal, but still Orlando is getting pennies on the dollar if this happens and Dwight re-ups for five years. Bynum has got major mental issues messing with his performance.
To say the current Lakers front office is without question better than the current Spurs front office is a little short sighted IMO. SA has never been the preferred destination of premium free agents, and a lot of LA's key aquisitions have been due to contractual differences or contractual expirations. The starry eyed player wants to go to LA for the opportunities outside of basketball. The Spurs don't have that card to play.
If you put Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak in San Antonio ten or fifteen years ago, switching places with Pop and RC, I would doubt the Spurs would have been as successful as they have been.
The only decent player the Lakers have drafted themselves the last 15 years is Bynum. Isn't the draft a significant portion of what a front offices does? That counts for something. Kupchak and Buss play a role in that, don't they?
The good news about the Laker trades or potentual trades would be that both Nash and Howard have material back issues that could cut things short for both of them.
In addition, Baby Drew can put a monkee wrench in all of this. With his current level of maturity, that could happen too. What would really be great is Orlando balks now and Bynum walks next summer to Cleveland or Orlando and takes away the only decent young player the Lakers have.
Last edited by Harry Callahan; 07-19-2012 at 08:23 AM.
Nice post. You didn't even mention the little fact that the Lakers will outspend the Spurs by some 50 million dollars this season, inclusive luxury tax.
Howard signing an extension is only half the battle, any word on Bynum? If Bynum will not sign an extension (why would he?) then this trade is not happening....
If the small-market owners really want parity, they'll lock the players out one more time and put in a hard cap and non-guaranteed contracts. We'd lose at least a full season then.
That, or the economy finally recovers, the league and its owners start rolling in cash, and the small-market owners stop complaining.
Right, with the local TV deals in place for each NBA team, the Lakers have several times more money to play with than the typical franchise due to the Time Warner (?) deal.
The NFL is the only league that understands how to structure its business model for the good of the league as a whole.
The "Haves" and "Have nots" scenario of the NBA and MLB is frustrating to most knowledgeable fans.
I see some relocations for sure - maybe contraction in the NBA's near term future. A least one or two teams will move or go away.
The Spurs were ed anyway, so it's not like this move all the sudden rips the le out of the Spurs' hands. Even if the Spurs managed to get out of the West, their reward would be to play the Superfriends in Miami.
There is no answer to this trade. I get what you're saying, but a garbage 7-footer doesn't all the sudden give the Spurs a better shot, at least not anymore than a garbage 6'10" redhead.
This deal will happen with either Bynum going to Houston or Cleaveland. Tough news for the western conference as this is a team that will beat everyone. Thank goodness we had a lockout ensure compe ive balance.
Not so sure about that....Orlando is the key team in the trade and somebody is going to have to take on alot of ty contracts and give them some picks..Only team that can do that is Houston and I am not sure if they like Bynum as much as Howard to take him on without a gurantee of an extension.
Compe ive balance was always a secondary goal for ownership. Once the players caved on the economic issues, the owners stopped pretending that they really cared about compe ive balance.
Plenty of complications remain, but the end game is certain. Howard's long term home will be in LA or NY.
agree with the 2 destinations for Howard...Still love to see Bynum slow this process down for a while by not agreeing to an extention with anyone.
Lakers haven't needed the drafted since 1996.
Stay classy NBA.
To the Laker's credit, the only time they were in the lottery in the Kobe Bryant era, they drafted Bynum, who will bring them yet another franchise center.
Dwight isn't Jabbar, Wilt, or Shaq, but he will tip the balance in LA's favor.
So true. A friend of mine was saying "the Lakers don't look so good this upcoming season", and I argued "they'll find a way, they always do."
The next day they got Nash, and now this. wtf.
What do you mean Mel_13 ? Can you further explain? Thanks
They didn't do so bad for themselves in 2005.
But the Spurs stand pat
OKC still beats them..
He won't be winning another ringIf Kobe is so great why does he need this much help, It's BS
No worries..
Man, if this happens, Dwight's rebounding numbers are going to go through the roof.
Especially against the Spurs
Stern will make the things happen, he needs the Lakers back in the finals. Lakers vs Heat is a dream come true for him. OKC can't really compete with the Heat.
Nice misleading le. This isn't even news. Howard's commitment to signing an extension has never been an issue with LA or Houston pulling the trigger.
The backdoor sweep by OKC sucked but I'm not ready to dismiss the fact that our current team won 20 games in a row and looked AWESOME in the process. The passing and scoring was outstanding. Game 5 was the killer. We couldn't make stops and OKC found a way to get them.
With more experience from our younger guys and an improved defense, we'll be able to challenge for the West again. They need to stay healthy and Pop needs to manage the minutes of the older guys again. We'll have the depth to do it.
LA will be tough but that head-case Howard will need to get chemistry with Kobe and Nash. It will be Kobe vs Shaq II if it doesn't come together. Howard and Kobe are both Divas and there is no Phil Jackson to promote harmony.
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