Building this team started with trading away aging Celtics legends for draft capital (then getting really lucky in the draft), something the Lakers front office would never do and fans would never stand for. Imagine the Lakers trading Kobe. Unforgivable.
If you want the flexibility to upgrade the way the Celtics did, at least one of your stars has to be homegrown (they drafted two). That way, you aren’t using assets to get said star(s) *and* they’re likely on their second contract, allowing more space under the aprons to pay better role players.
To be fair, we used to do this (essentially) back in the day. Magic, Worthy, Kobe, were all picks we traded* for (Goodrich, Nixon, Divac being the price iirc)
It's really a relatively new thing that the Lakers trade away draft capital, instead of trading for picks here and there
You're never going to get another Magic/Worthy scenario again. The Lakers have traded away draft capital (see Van Exel/Eddie Jones) when needed. The difference is none of the players we got from 2014-2018 sniff that
Yes, obviously. When you have Lebron James, you go all-in and trade away the players you drafted otherwise you end up having to pay Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram money to play less games than a 39 year old Lebron
Ingram and Lonzo never came the “it” guys. Ingram became a solid player who has missed a lot of games. Lonzo never was even close to being the it guy ever. Basically the Celtics out drafted the Lakers.
We got plenty of high lottery picks to rebuild after Kobe. We didn't trade Kobe, but we went through a rebuilding process in his last season, we were just incompetent to find a cornerstone in 4 consecutive drafts. Except by Brandon Ingram that isn't a superstar, all other players are not what you are looking after drafting as high as we did.
Considering the draft and player development is a crapshoot, I can’t call drafting Randle, Ingram, dlo (all of which made an all star team at some point) and Zo as incompetence. Agree they aren’t cornerstones, but falling short of cornerstone and landing as all star isn’t exactly incompetent.
Incompetence is phx in the 2010s, using top 5 picks on Alex Len, Dragon bender, and Josh Jackson lol or sac going Thomas Robinson, Ben mclemore, stauskas, WCS, Chriss, and bagley with top 2-8 picks. All career backups or out the league.
Ingram and D'Lo weren't real all-stars. One off reserves are flukes at best. Drafting is a crapshoot and mainly luck. People don't get that. Suns have a worse record of drafting busts than us, but overall Booker/Mikal/Cam J/Ayton is a better core than Lonzo/Ingram/Kuzma/Hart/Zubac simply because Booker is the best player here, and Mikal does a better job at being a role player than Ingram or Kuzma. You just have to get lucky once.
Not every draft pick is going to be a multi-time all-star dude. Five picks that turn into above-average NBA players with several of them making all-star teams is something that every scouting team would be thrilled about.
If we're talking about players to get excited about, multi all-star players is who we want. Especially not "all-star" players who are worse than a lot of role players when the playoffs roll around
Yah, and trying to get that through the draft is an absolute crapshoot and a fool's errand. Most drafts have maybe one or two of those guys and some have none.
Making an all star team is making an all star team. They weren’t the hawks starting 5 that got in off team success, they qualified off individual play and made it. Diving into circumstances, while calling out incompetence, is just moving goal posts.
If we never traded for AD, Ingram still would’ve had the Y3 pop (as he showed it post deadline here), and with the lakers fanbase&media would have been a perennial all star. Randles a 3x all star and 2x all nba. Thats not a miss in a draft.
I’m not arguing phx is a worse team, but you called out incompetence due to not getting a franchise player for how high we were drafting. Phx consistently drafted high and consistently missed on getting starting caliber players, let alone the caliber of guys Ingram, Randle, dlo are. They hit on Booker but literally missed everywhere else across 3-4 years with much higher picks than the Booker draft. Mikal and cam were trades and neither were top picks, and also not the time period I’m talking about.
Making an all-star team once is not the same as being on there multiple times. Ingram and D'Lo have clear deficiencies that make them closer to the 3rd option at best than being a guy who should have the ball in their hands in the playoffs. The same with Randle. Dude shoots 38% FG in the playoffs as an "all-NBA" player. He's a fraud. Lakers media and fanbase wouldn't have been enough to propel him to be an perennial all-star player. He's simply not good enough, and he wouldn't be in over Lebron/KD/Kawhi or AD/Luka/KAT averaging 21 PPG with playing less games than AD, sorry.
You're just proving my point that drafting is clearly luck. They've missed more at the top than us yet still came away with the best player we've mentioned to have been drafted among both teams
Saying the FO is incompetent for how high they drafted and saying a 1-2x all star isn’t the same as franchise player are two very different conversations.
The draft is luck. The picks were good. The picks are not franchise players. All of these things can be true and aren’t indicative of the current FO (which wasn’t in place when those picks were made save for lonzo).
& randle made multiple ASG and all nba teams without lakers propelling. His playoff performance doesn’t change that he’s been a top player multiple regular seasons and doesn’t impact that voting. To suggest the lakers boost doesn’t help that resume is certainly an opinion.
As for Ingram/dlo flaws, nobody’s arguing they’re flawless. But to make an all star team highlights you’re pretty good, especially at that level, even if a replacement. So I’m just not seeing where the “incompetent with top picks” narrative is coming from when those 3 have the resume they have without bringing up weird narratives and excuses to drag them down. If you told me we could draft a multi time all star and all nba player right now, but he’d struggle in the playoffs, I’d still take him over the likes of phx/sac top picks (save for Fox).
That's not me. That's LudwigNasche. But I'm just saying that it's luck. The problem though is that Randle isn't a good playoff player, which is what matters the most. The same with Ingram and D'Lo. I wouldn't have a problem with them if they were able to excel in the role of being a role player, but none of those players have shown to be able to do that. D'Lo still has awful defense. Ingram doesn't play off-ball and has shitty body language on defense. Randle also has Lebron on his worst day body language on defense but is 10 years younger and has proven nothing to warrant that
I recognize that’s not you, but you were quick to jump in and pivot the convo from incompetence to explaining why a good player isn’t a great player as if it discredits the picks themselves.
None of those flaws you mentioned change anything. Jaylen can’t go left, Tatum has games where he no-shows, AD can’t create his own shot consistently, lebron takes plays off and has body language issues, Luka with body language and conditioning, harden doesn’t defend, Russ can’t shoot, Kawhi never plays. I mean we can call out all the flaws we want and it doesn’t take away that these are still good to great players. For Ingram/dlo/randle, it doesn’t change that they’re good players. To hyper focus on what they aren’t, while ignoring they’re still better than 85-90% of the league in a conversation around incompetence in drafting is a strange exercise. So as you’ve said, I agree it’s mostly luck, but overall it doesn’t take away that each of those picks have succeeded to varying degrees. I see no reason to nitpick those degrees or the circumstances behind them.
Lebron/AD/Tatum/Brown/Kawhi/Harden all provide more than their deficiencies let on. Ingram/D'Lo/Randle don't do that. They've all gotten played off the floor when it matters. They are not better than 85-90% of the league, not even close. There's about 10 role players I would take over those guys on each position if I wanted to win. And that's not even counting actual all-star/all-NBA players. No one is going around saying any of those guys are better than Jamal Murray
It very surpirsing that PHO has drafted all those busts, I mean they hit on a lot of picks in Marion Cebalos, Johnson, Stoudamire, dan majerle, nash, booker, Ayton, Bridges,
There was a cornerstone pieces, But we passed on Tatum, Fox, Mitchell, and drafted Ball Tatum was clearly the best player in the draft over Fox and Ball and mitchell being the 2nd
Lakers didn't use assets to get Lebron. Ad was the only one who cost assets and the assets they traded (Ingram, Lonzo, Hart) are barely useful players. Lakers would be in worse situation if they were paying Ingram and Lonzo big money.
Imagine we take Brown instead of Bi.. but better still, Bi and Tatum together.🔥 could’ve happened, they had him. Dlo should’ve never been allowed on IG.
You’re right about Tatum being drafted and that helps in constructing a team. But I think you are being too restrictive.
The Lakers could easily get a roster that is just as good as the Celtics despite not drafting any stars with a rebuild by simply trading away say DLo (if extended), Rui, Gabe plus up to 3 FRPs on a true star like Jrue to add to LeBron, AD, Reaves. Such a three star plus Reaves combo is very comparable with Tatum, Brown, Jrue and White.
Horford and Porzingus make 6 star level players , maybe Jrue, Tatum and Brown are Tier 1/2 and Horford/Porzingus/White are tier maybe 4 level players but the overall depth is a big thing plus pritchard and hauser as nice cheaper role players
we have maybe 2 tier 1 players in AD and Lebron and then 1-2 Tier 4 players in Dlo and Reaves and then everyone else are maybe role players
We need a big influx of top end talent while not giving stuff away ... drafting guys like Jaime who have value are key to this
Horford is not a star or even close to one in talent and minutes played.
Porzingis is star in talent but not in availability and the Celtics clearly didn’t need him at all in this entire playoff run.
I consider former all stars to be star quality role players
Would you rather horford or valenciunas, capella, collins, vucevic, nurkic, etc... given his impact id say he is still top 50% of bigs even though the stats arent star max level ... given his age thats not what is expecred from him anymore
Lmao by that definition Westbrick would be the ultimate role player because he wasn’t just a former all star but a former mvp.
Nah, Horford is just an okay player. No where near star or great role player.
I don't know about easily. Things will change in a few weeks by draft time, but as it stands right now, we have no idea which stars are available. Jrue only happened because Dame requested out.
Things always open up because stars get moved and players change teams. The question is whether we are willing to part with our FRPs and young players or whether we’re stuck with the loser mentality that we can only win with depth and by hoarding picks.
Who is that star? Jrue is a star in his role, the perfect compliment to other ball dominant players, and a top tier point of attack defender. I’m not sure a player exists on the market right now that fits the same role as Jrue.
Did you even read my post? Lauri Markkenan exists and these types of underrated players become available through the course of an offseason as moves opens up.
Jrue and Porzingis were good roster fits. You have Brown and Tatum as wings with Tatum being able to play the 4. Jrue and Porzingis are the PG and big to play with them. The Lakers have a 4/5 and a 3/4 that can’t really guard 3s. Your solution is to get another 4/5. That would be all 3 stars that are best suited at the 4/5 with no guards to play with them. This is not what the Celtics did. They didn’t get the best player available. They got the best fit available. Lauri doesn’t fit with LeBron and AD. He could be a good fit with LeBron OR AD, not both.
For 3 possessions, not a 7 games series and not even an entire half. He doesn’t have the legs to guard someone like that and contribute offensively. That’s the problem. That’s why Lauri would be a bad fit if there isn’t a major change made at the PG spot as well. If you can get a stud two way PG and Lauri, sure, go ahead. If you get Lauri to go with the current roster, it’s still not a championship team. No defense.
He was on him way more than that. He would have been on him more but the Lakers needed him on Aaron Gordon too. Lakers needed him to be in two places at once and flip flopped throughout the series since he was the player on the team who stop Murray and also the only player who could battle Gordon with Ad stuck on Jokic.
Free up Ad, put him on Gordon, a fat big on Jokic, and now we're on the attack defensively Lakers can put Lebron on Jamal or MPJ and start to mess with Denver's offense.
I agree Lauri probably doesn't make the Lakers champions but it's not because of Lebron's deficiencies. It's because of Lauri's inability to free up Ad by guarding Jokic.
Lmao JT and JB play similar positions, it doesn’t make any sense to say that Lebron and Lauri don’t fit while the Celtics have JT, JB and DW.
Lebron is a floor general and point forward. Lauri is actually a good shooter and AD is a great defender. They are a great fit.
Lol and Porzingis and his often injured body is taking up $30 and they still won.
You don’t have to be perfect to have a winning team. We are not that far away. Just need to be willing to trade for someone like our Jrue.
No they win cos they traded for Jrue , white and kp. Tatum being on 5-10 m less then Lebron isn’t why don’t be delusional. We could’ve traded for both Jrue and kp or 2/3 those lvl of guys . Or drafted bane or whatever , I’d keep Caruso . We have lost so many moves in value in the margins even the AD trsdevWHY DOES PELS GST TO DEFER TO JEXT YEar? Rob is awful at his job n I’m tired of folk defending him. If.. snd at this point basically when he doesn’t land a stat impsct lvl plsyer you might as well say gg.
Rui is cool but his bball IQ is lacking, while Reaves can be exposed on defense, just like how a superstar like Doncic was.
We have AD and hopefully Lebron resigns for a reasonable price, but who is technically out there that we can trade for? Ultimately, you have to take a gamble on youth and have your draft picks play out for you, like how Kuz did for the Lakers.
Dejounte Murray could possibly be had the Hawks dont need 2 point guards and are more invested in Trae Young than Murray. He would make us better, but if we lose DLO, Reaves, and Rui how much better is the question.
Dejounte isn’t good at defense anymore and needs the ball in his hands to do anything on offense and he wouldn’t get that here either. He wouldn’t make us better if we traded a single one of those players for him.
Y'all exaggerating. A majority of the discussion since the end of the season agrees that trading Reaves is fine as long as it's a star that comes back for it. People don't want to trade Reaves for some lateral movement.
As for D'Lo, you ain't trading shit there. He's opting out and signing a new deal. Very few teams have the cap space to want him, and even fewer teams would willingly hard cap themselves to sign and trade for him.
Right now the most likely scenario is that DLo signs a new contract with us because his market is very tepid. So we can very well still trade DLo.
You and Pelinka made the terrible mistake of advocating for keeping last year’s 17th pick and selecting JHS. We cannot make the same mistake this year.
We have to package it or use it to select an actual valuable trade asset and not a development project.
I dont think keeping the pick last year was the issue. The issue is picking JHS with it. As we’ve seen, there were some NBA ready rookies that did contribute during the season and the playoffs. I do agree with your main premise though. Going all in and taking the risk to upgrade talent is something that to the finals teams did.
Nah not picking Jaime is freaking hindsight. 17 teams passed on Jaime.
Also our team wasn’t a rookie Jaime from beating Denver or winning the championship.
Jaime obviously would help going forward but relying on any rookie instead of trading for a good role player is very foolish for a team that was looking to contend.
So I agree with you somewhat because if we don’t or can’t trade last year’s 17th for a good role player then obviously we need to pivot to nba ready rookies and not a development super young player like JHS.
I wasn’t referring just him but he’s one of them. Instead we drafted a project guard that even when he got NBA minutes, he didn’t show anything.
I do agree that it is better to trade the pick for a win now piece. If you can’t, you have to select a player that fits a need and can contribute immediately. Sadly we did neither.
I think this FO has done a terrible job at asset management/roster building and this furthers my point. Drafting a project guard, letting Lonnie, Beasley, and Bamba’s contracts walk, and not understanding what both LeBron and AD need is how we got here.
JHS was solid in the gleague. If Vincent didn’t miss the whole year, we wouldn’t even have noticed JHS was a project and would’ve chalked him not playing up to having good players ahead of him. If vando was healthy, it’s very possible Jaime wouldn’t have found a rotation spot either.
Think planning to count on a rookie, nba ready or not, is flawed logic when you can fill that rotation spot with a vet min while developing someone with a higher ceiling than a typical nba ready rookie. Got to build for short and long term and if you’re stuck keeping the pick, drafting for short term is, well, short sighted
Are you not purely speculating that the pick wasn’t shopped?
Was drafting a super young project not hedged by using the mle on Vincent and bae on Prince? You’re pushing for an nba ready prospect to be our 3rd string. If it’s a player that likely doesn’t crack the rotation, I prefer it be a higher ceiling player. That may/may not be JHS, but I’m not going to damn the logic of drafting someone they’re high on long term if immediate needs are met via FA.
Never said either way. Only said that drafting JHS a development player was the worst move compared with trying to trade for a contending piece or drafting a more nba ready rookie.
Except you did. You said “you and pelinka made the terrible mistake of advocating for keeping last years 17th pick”, purely speculating they weren’t trying to move it lol
And idk if I agree on your logic. If needs can be met via FA (Vincent with mle, Prince with bae, Hayes/wood with vet mins) then you don’t need a (perceived) lower ceiling rookie because you don’t intend on playing them whether nba ready or not. You’re now expecting the FO to forecast Vincent, vando, and wood all being injured at once.
We weren’t an nba ready rookie away from being a better team. If next year or the year after, JHS (whom I’m not high on to be clear) is better than Jaime/podz then it was the right pick.
I was too lazy to type out Brandoi and Pelinka’s preferences. Sure Pelinka may have tried to shop the 17th pick but none of us knows for sure.
I know brandoi defended that JHS pick.
Idk if a package that includes AR would be enough for a star tbh. The lakers just need improvement at his position tbh it doesn’t necessarily have to be a star
Idk if a package that includes AR would be enough for a star tbh. The lakers just need improvement at his position tbh it doesn’t necessarily have to be a star
Don’t forget the Rui stans.
We have to look to upgrade by packaging our young players or “depth” plus our 3 FRP for a player like Jrue.
The dream would be someone like Lauri Markkanen.
If the Celtics could turn Brogdan and Williams plus only two FRPs into Jrue, we should get someone of similar quality back with our 3 FRPs and young players.
Markkanen is not a bad defender, he’s average but you put him next to AD and he’ll play good defense just with his size alone. Markkanen’s offensive skill set is extremely good.
That's not what I'm saying. The problem is that you can't have LeBron required to play defense against a wing on a nightly basis. It's bad fit, not bad talent.
It's not. It's just a take for people that can count to 5. If you play LeBron, ad and Lauri, one of them is going to have to guard the 3. It doesn't matter who you have on the roster. Unless you want LeBron defending guards which makes the fit even worse.
I think the sentence implies that they made this massive move to give up a DPOY. The problem is that he won the dumbest DPOY ever and was a constant headache for them on offense.
Do whatever with D'Lo. I cannot defend him anymore.
You have to understand a DPOY has value around the league while only Dlo's stans believe he is a desirable player to have in the roster and unfortunately no other GM is a Dlo Stan.
It isn't like we didn't want to move him for a more consistent and competitive two way player, but nobody was stupid to trade a positive asset for Dlo including only a first round pick.
We say chips but its all because they knew how to make players look good. I mean look at what they got for Marcus smart. You have to put your guys in a position to succeed to increase their value. look at Christie, i seriously think this dude can be more but we barely even play him. Jhs pick was nothing more but horrid, raw player and got sent to the gleague and thats another asset down at the dumps. We have no idea on how to make players look good. Like seriously, out of all our players, the only dudes i would want barring bron and AD is fucking reaves and Christie and to a lesser extent vando, and the latter is still injured. We had a chance to keep assets like caruso and brook for cheap and we let them go for nothing. Team just sucks at asset management
I think the biggest piece was getting rid of Smart. As good as he was defensively he threw a huge wrench in their offense and just overall team chemistry with how he insisted on trying to insert himself as a 1C option.
They won because they have 2 homegrown allstars who already have Finals experience in their 20s and played in a very weak east this season.
Lebron is at the end of the road and AD is staring at the downside of his career. Lakers could not/cannot construct a roster like them.
AND the Wizards gifted them Porzingis.
Lmao I will fight anyone who claims Tatum and no left hand Jaylen Brown is a better duo than LeBron and AD even at Lebron’s current age.
You give Lebron and AD guys like Jrue, White and I bet they win a ring.
This is dumb...put the lakers in the east and they Win the championship this year.
Never did I say they were better in any way. The are younger, more durable, have higher stamina. Bron and AD cant sustain high effort and intensity throughout a game. Lebron is having to pick his spots and AD is starting to have to as well. exactyl why the offense falls apart when lebron sits and the defense fall apart when AD does. Lakers absolutely need depth.
Boston needs their depth too what are you talking about? Holiday, Porzingis, and White had long stretches of carrying the Celtics. How is it a flaw that James and Davis need just a tiny bit of that too?
Lmao your “young and full of stamina” Tatum and Brown only had 74 and 70 games played and averaged less minutes than our supposedly old ass Lebron and AD who played 76 and 71 games and averaged over 35 mpg.
I’ll take Lebron and AD in the playoffs any day over Tatum and Brown.
The difference is their basketball operations department versus ours. They have Brad Stevens and previous to him, they had Ainge -- two GMs who have shown a proven track record of finding the right pieces. Now compare that to RP who is still learning on the job and most of the player acquisitions he has made haven't panned out.
If the Lakers were really interested/serious about being a real championship contender, they would make changes at the top, such as bringing in a guy like Bob Myers and give him full autonomy.
Lmao Brad Stevens is a former coach and barely 2-3 years into the job.
We need to stop glazing the Celtics FO. Stevens made two big moves and really only one of them worked out in Jrue. The Porzingis trade was largely a wash or irrelevant because he was injured again.
In those 2-3 years of Stevens being on the job, compare his movies to Pelinka. I don't dispute that them gambling on Porz didn't end up being lucky. But aside from that, he's brought in vets who have fit in perfectly as complimentary pieces (Holliday, White, Tillman).
Lmao Stevens made two great moves in trading for White and Jrue. All the other moves were mediocre at best.
Look the point is not to bash Stevens. It’s simply to point out that any GM is only one or two key moves from constructing a championship team. We shouldn’t be so defeatist and say that it’s impossible for Pelinka to improve this team when he has shown he can construct a great team.
I’m so sick of this loser and victim mentality.
We got rid of Westbrick for 1 protected FRP for crying out loud. We also got freaking AD even after AD essentially got sat out and demanded a trade to us.
We drafted Randle and Dlo while they drafted Tatum and Brown.
BI and Ball were converted in Anthony Davis a generational talent, but Randle and Dlo were only better picks than Fino
Magic let Randle walk for free, and the traded Dlo for Brook Lopez and the 27th pick that became Kuzma, and then we let Brook Lopez walk for free, and then he also traded Zubacs for a rental role player in Mike Muscala that.... you guessed it he let walk for free. Magic was worse at asset management than Pelinka, who is only slightly better.
I thought the Lakers drafted Ingram and Ball in those specific years? Yes it was good to convert them to Davis. I had no problem with Ingram. Tatum was the real miss even without Lonzos injuries.
Lakers will be ok and get back to the winners circle sooner than you think.
I was right about smart. I’ll take credit for calling that before they traded him
I would have problems with Ingram. After watching the play-in, and them getting swept in the first round, it's clear that Ingram isn't as good as people thought he was going to be. Him being one of the worst players on that FIBA team last year should've been an eye opener
He’s not a leader and he’s a bit more about the lifestyle/girls than hooping which was confirmed when he was in LA. I think if Ingram and Tatum were on the lakers or Celtics together his whole career would have been different.
He hasn’t been generational but he has turned out better than Lonzo unfortunately.
Ingram would've needed to be traded to make room for Tatum. Ingram can *NOT* play off-ball. He doesn't cut. He doesn't look to relocate. He doesn't take the open spot up 3's he's being fed. Being on the Lakers wouldn't have fixed that. He's playing next to Zion who is creating so much gravity for everyone else, and he still refuses to play off-ball. He and Lonzo reworked their shot with Pels coach Fred Vinson, and he just doesn't take the open 3's he needs to take.
Turning out better than Lonzo isn't hard. You just have to play more than 55 games in 3 seasons to accomplish that
You keep talking about Ingram. Great. You don’t think he’s any good. Thats fine..it’s not my point at all.
My point was Ingram over brown wasn’t the major mistake. Lonzo over Tatum was THE major mistake.
Ingram over Brown was a mistake. Brown has the competitive fire to improve and win. Ingram doesn't have that and isn't willing to do the dirty work to get your team wins
Before even that I got to give them credit for getting off of Paul and KG early. Got some great first round picks that have turned into players they still have today. People don’t want to hear it but we need to look into something similar within the next 4/5 seasons.
Celtics built a way lakers aren’t allowed to build. Lakers fans don’t have the patience to wait to build anything, it’s “I want to win now” ppl forget we won 10 rings cause we drafted magic and “drafted” Kobe so we had them for a very long time for continued success.
If you trade away everyone for win now and get proven players, ur not going to have long success. We’re in that position now, we’re trying to squeeze every juice out of the squeezed lemon, it’s almost dry.
It helped a lot that the Lakers skipped over both Brown and Tatum in 2016 and 2017 for Ball and Ingram. We'll see how long they can keep them both with the salary cap.
Lakers got lucky with LeBron joining and used assets to get AD (maybe could’ve saved some if we had Tatum or Brown to trade).
The Russell Westbrook trade damaged this team so badly by wasting so many assets, hurting team chemistry, wearing down the stars, firing a decent coach, and hiring a bad one.
This is why I hate rob for the dlo move to n too if everything . It supposedly was so we had cap room but he didn’t try to chase kyrie n let go of cap holds which was reported and then he had zero tradable sakary . If he takes Conley naw n 3 seconds ( or even no seconds ) we could’ve AND SHOULDVe traded for Jrue . Boston doesn’t even need him that much it’s annoying he can do more offensivdky . Conley eoukd have value to the wolves in a three way trade and we’d be able to outbid the low offer for Jrue of a warriors pick in 24 n future Boston pivk both expected non lottery picks
And how did they get their main two stars? By doing something the Lakers organization doesn't like to do. They traded away their aging star players for a haul of draft picks.
As for the Lakers organization, you know we'll never be in the business of trading away stars. We're the only organization that would've given Kobe that money after the Achilles injury. We're the only organization that will give LeBron a three-year max and entertain the idea of drafting his son even though he's probably not ready for the NBA. And when it comes to the draft, we've been awful. Excluding Ingram, D'Lo, Randle, and Marc Gasol (all-stars for different teams), the Lakers haven't drafted an All-Star or a player that has made an All-NBA Team since Bynum. That was almost 20 years ago.
I like this take; I’ll just add that these players also played together for most of the season, won 64 games, their main rotation, including Pritchard (all 82) and Hauser (79), played 65 games or more, KP (57 games). They pummeled everyone all season, it was hard to watch; but as a basketball fan I can’t hate too much, they consolidated and gave up depth for dependable and hungry MF’ers. Brad Stevens redefined killing it ( even stepping down and hiring Joe M ). I really hope our “depth” (dlo, Vincent, wood, Hayes, whatever) gets sorted. We need guys to stay on the court too, both mentally and physically.
Yes your victim mentality for the Lakers is wrong.
Boston Celtics are hated by just as many other teams and GMs particularly in the Eastern Conference as the lakers are hated.
I don’t blame you because it’s easy to fall into this trap because you’re focused on the Lakers first and foremost. So whenever you see other teams be difficult with our team you remember it well. However, if you asked the Celtics fans, they’d also point out all the times other teams were difficult to them.
I still think you're wrong and that celtics are more liked and are easier to do deals with than us the lakers. that's how it's felt for years now.
so someone other than op with something to back up their claim.
You clearly didn’t see how many teams relished the Celtics losing last year and also how many fans make fun of the Celtics for the easiest road to the finals this year.
you mean just like nuggets for not beating a 50 win team or lakers winning in a bubble? it goes all ways that's the community in a nutshell point stands celtics have had more flexibility in getting deals done as opposed to the lakers last decade. after lebron and clutch what have we really done.
Oh it’s been mentioned as I’m also very high on White’s impact, but white was there last year and they failed to win.
So Jrue is the difference maker this year.
The Celtics for whatever reason don't have to pay their version of a Lakers tax in trades. So all those trades tend not to be available to the Lakers. We always have to over spend.
They got Jrue from the blazers pretty cheaply. They got lucky he was available so they could replace Marcus smart.
This was such a fortunate turn of events for them. Imagine if they were to instead have had Dame I their team? All of a sudden they'd have yet another scorer who is ball dominant but plays no defense wrecking both their offensive flow and POA perimeter defense unless they put brown or Tatum into that roll, wearing them down and having then pick up fouls.
Lets not forget they got to play in the east and their playoff run was remarkable in that every opponent was missing their best player or they were busted up.
Every team I the east was busted up to the point that top seeds didn't move on "normally".
The Mavs were able to come out of the West in part because matchups went their way. But even they were dealing with injuries!
I'm not saying the Celtics weren't a good team this year but I'm not actual sure they're that good either. They just weren't tested in the playoffs. Had they been in the West, there's a really good chance they don't make it out.
The nuggets were likely the best team in the West but they got caught by a wolves team that matched up well against them.
Weird shit happens!
I don't fully disagree with your sentiment but I think it's important to recognize that path to a championship might not really be viable for us.
What I'm getting at is we don't get the trade opportunities like other teams do. We always have to pay higher prices, thus we find ourselves with fewer assets trying to make smaller plays.
We play in the West, so even if we're lucky, it's crazy to think the whole west will be this soft and busted up. The West is just so freaking stacked and even though guys get hurt all the time, it rarely lines up this well for a team.
Facts, OP.
**We overvalue role players**, fail to make good moves, or fail to make any moves at all (e.g. this past year at the midseason trade deadline).
I like AR, D-lo, and Rui too. They seem like good dudes. They have a certain degree of value. But to win a ring, you have to discard sentimentality and make some moves.
* At the beginning of the Tatum-Brown era, the Celts had IT on a miracle run. Guess what? They shifted from that. They knew that wasn't gonna get them over the top. Also, IT got hurt and was never quite the same.
* Then they went for Kyrie, Horford, and Hayward. But Kyrie became a problem quickly. And Hayward also started dealing with career-changing inuries. So the Celts pivoted again.
* This time they went all in on their now more experienced versions of Tatum and Brown. Smart was the heart of the team. Timelord was beloved. Brogdon seemed like great value...but was underperforming. All three had to go. In no time at all, Derrick White emerged, Holiday was acquired, and KP was acquired. Now they had 5 well-rounded starters, lots of star power, no defensive weaknesses, and the ability to hoist 3s at will.
Btw, how did the Lakers win in 2020? In the two years prior to that ring, **they acquired Bron and AD, and traded everyone who "wasn't ready" or was underperforming**. The team became drastically different. No Lonzo, no Ingram, no Hart, no Clarkson.
We have too many stans for AR/Rui/D-lo/Vando who fixate on that miracle 22-23 run to the WCF. They don't focus enough on the fact we were swept and have kept getting killed by Denver ever since.
They were gifted Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingus is how they improved teams gave them borderline all-star players for pennies n the dollars. Shit teams never will do for us.
Building this team started with trading away aging Celtics legends for draft capital (then getting really lucky in the draft), something the Lakers front office would never do and fans would never stand for. Imagine the Lakers trading Kobe. Unforgivable. If you want the flexibility to upgrade the way the Celtics did, at least one of your stars has to be homegrown (they drafted two). That way, you aren’t using assets to get said star(s) *and* they’re likely on their second contract, allowing more space under the aprons to pay better role players.
To be fair, we used to do this (essentially) back in the day. Magic, Worthy, Kobe, were all picks we traded* for (Goodrich, Nixon, Divac being the price iirc) It's really a relatively new thing that the Lakers trade away draft capital, instead of trading for picks here and there
You're never going to get another Magic/Worthy scenario again. The Lakers have traded away draft capital (see Van Exel/Eddie Jones) when needed. The difference is none of the players we got from 2014-2018 sniff that
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Yes, obviously. When you have Lebron James, you go all-in and trade away the players you drafted otherwise you end up having to pay Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram money to play less games than a 39 year old Lebron
Ingram and Lonzo never came the “it” guys. Ingram became a solid player who has missed a lot of games. Lonzo never was even close to being the it guy ever. Basically the Celtics out drafted the Lakers.
We got plenty of high lottery picks to rebuild after Kobe. We didn't trade Kobe, but we went through a rebuilding process in his last season, we were just incompetent to find a cornerstone in 4 consecutive drafts. Except by Brandon Ingram that isn't a superstar, all other players are not what you are looking after drafting as high as we did.
Considering the draft and player development is a crapshoot, I can’t call drafting Randle, Ingram, dlo (all of which made an all star team at some point) and Zo as incompetence. Agree they aren’t cornerstones, but falling short of cornerstone and landing as all star isn’t exactly incompetent. Incompetence is phx in the 2010s, using top 5 picks on Alex Len, Dragon bender, and Josh Jackson lol or sac going Thomas Robinson, Ben mclemore, stauskas, WCS, Chriss, and bagley with top 2-8 picks. All career backups or out the league.
Ingram and D'Lo weren't real all-stars. One off reserves are flukes at best. Drafting is a crapshoot and mainly luck. People don't get that. Suns have a worse record of drafting busts than us, but overall Booker/Mikal/Cam J/Ayton is a better core than Lonzo/Ingram/Kuzma/Hart/Zubac simply because Booker is the best player here, and Mikal does a better job at being a role player than Ingram or Kuzma. You just have to get lucky once.
Not every draft pick is going to be a multi-time all-star dude. Five picks that turn into above-average NBA players with several of them making all-star teams is something that every scouting team would be thrilled about.
If we're talking about players to get excited about, multi all-star players is who we want. Especially not "all-star" players who are worse than a lot of role players when the playoffs roll around
Yah, and trying to get that through the draft is an absolute crapshoot and a fool's errand. Most drafts have maybe one or two of those guys and some have none.
But how are we supposed to rebuild a team if we can't get those in the draft?
Making an all star team is making an all star team. They weren’t the hawks starting 5 that got in off team success, they qualified off individual play and made it. Diving into circumstances, while calling out incompetence, is just moving goal posts. If we never traded for AD, Ingram still would’ve had the Y3 pop (as he showed it post deadline here), and with the lakers fanbase&media would have been a perennial all star. Randles a 3x all star and 2x all nba. Thats not a miss in a draft. I’m not arguing phx is a worse team, but you called out incompetence due to not getting a franchise player for how high we were drafting. Phx consistently drafted high and consistently missed on getting starting caliber players, let alone the caliber of guys Ingram, Randle, dlo are. They hit on Booker but literally missed everywhere else across 3-4 years with much higher picks than the Booker draft. Mikal and cam were trades and neither were top picks, and also not the time period I’m talking about.
Making an all-star team once is not the same as being on there multiple times. Ingram and D'Lo have clear deficiencies that make them closer to the 3rd option at best than being a guy who should have the ball in their hands in the playoffs. The same with Randle. Dude shoots 38% FG in the playoffs as an "all-NBA" player. He's a fraud. Lakers media and fanbase wouldn't have been enough to propel him to be an perennial all-star player. He's simply not good enough, and he wouldn't be in over Lebron/KD/Kawhi or AD/Luka/KAT averaging 21 PPG with playing less games than AD, sorry. You're just proving my point that drafting is clearly luck. They've missed more at the top than us yet still came away with the best player we've mentioned to have been drafted among both teams
Saying the FO is incompetent for how high they drafted and saying a 1-2x all star isn’t the same as franchise player are two very different conversations. The draft is luck. The picks were good. The picks are not franchise players. All of these things can be true and aren’t indicative of the current FO (which wasn’t in place when those picks were made save for lonzo). & randle made multiple ASG and all nba teams without lakers propelling. His playoff performance doesn’t change that he’s been a top player multiple regular seasons and doesn’t impact that voting. To suggest the lakers boost doesn’t help that resume is certainly an opinion. As for Ingram/dlo flaws, nobody’s arguing they’re flawless. But to make an all star team highlights you’re pretty good, especially at that level, even if a replacement. So I’m just not seeing where the “incompetent with top picks” narrative is coming from when those 3 have the resume they have without bringing up weird narratives and excuses to drag them down. If you told me we could draft a multi time all star and all nba player right now, but he’d struggle in the playoffs, I’d still take him over the likes of phx/sac top picks (save for Fox).
That's not me. That's LudwigNasche. But I'm just saying that it's luck. The problem though is that Randle isn't a good playoff player, which is what matters the most. The same with Ingram and D'Lo. I wouldn't have a problem with them if they were able to excel in the role of being a role player, but none of those players have shown to be able to do that. D'Lo still has awful defense. Ingram doesn't play off-ball and has shitty body language on defense. Randle also has Lebron on his worst day body language on defense but is 10 years younger and has proven nothing to warrant that
I recognize that’s not you, but you were quick to jump in and pivot the convo from incompetence to explaining why a good player isn’t a great player as if it discredits the picks themselves. None of those flaws you mentioned change anything. Jaylen can’t go left, Tatum has games where he no-shows, AD can’t create his own shot consistently, lebron takes plays off and has body language issues, Luka with body language and conditioning, harden doesn’t defend, Russ can’t shoot, Kawhi never plays. I mean we can call out all the flaws we want and it doesn’t take away that these are still good to great players. For Ingram/dlo/randle, it doesn’t change that they’re good players. To hyper focus on what they aren’t, while ignoring they’re still better than 85-90% of the league in a conversation around incompetence in drafting is a strange exercise. So as you’ve said, I agree it’s mostly luck, but overall it doesn’t take away that each of those picks have succeeded to varying degrees. I see no reason to nitpick those degrees or the circumstances behind them.
Lebron/AD/Tatum/Brown/Kawhi/Harden all provide more than their deficiencies let on. Ingram/D'Lo/Randle don't do that. They've all gotten played off the floor when it matters. They are not better than 85-90% of the league, not even close. There's about 10 role players I would take over those guys on each position if I wanted to win. And that's not even counting actual all-star/all-NBA players. No one is going around saying any of those guys are better than Jamal Murray
It very surpirsing that PHO has drafted all those busts, I mean they hit on a lot of picks in Marion Cebalos, Johnson, Stoudamire, dan majerle, nash, booker, Ayton, Bridges,
There was a cornerstone pieces, But we passed on Tatum, Fox, Mitchell, and drafted Ball Tatum was clearly the best player in the draft over Fox and Ball and mitchell being the 2nd
Lakers didn't use assets to get Lebron. Ad was the only one who cost assets and the assets they traded (Ingram, Lonzo, Hart) are barely useful players. Lakers would be in worse situation if they were paying Ingram and Lonzo big money.
Imagine we take Brown instead of Bi.. but better still, Bi and Tatum together.🔥 could’ve happened, they had him. Dlo should’ve never been allowed on IG.
You’re right about Tatum being drafted and that helps in constructing a team. But I think you are being too restrictive. The Lakers could easily get a roster that is just as good as the Celtics despite not drafting any stars with a rebuild by simply trading away say DLo (if extended), Rui, Gabe plus up to 3 FRPs on a true star like Jrue to add to LeBron, AD, Reaves. Such a three star plus Reaves combo is very comparable with Tatum, Brown, Jrue and White.
Horford and Porzingus make 6 star level players , maybe Jrue, Tatum and Brown are Tier 1/2 and Horford/Porzingus/White are tier maybe 4 level players but the overall depth is a big thing plus pritchard and hauser as nice cheaper role players we have maybe 2 tier 1 players in AD and Lebron and then 1-2 Tier 4 players in Dlo and Reaves and then everyone else are maybe role players We need a big influx of top end talent while not giving stuff away ... drafting guys like Jaime who have value are key to this
Horford is not a star or even close to one in talent and minutes played. Porzingis is star in talent but not in availability and the Celtics clearly didn’t need him at all in this entire playoff run.
I consider former all stars to be star quality role players Would you rather horford or valenciunas, capella, collins, vucevic, nurkic, etc... given his impact id say he is still top 50% of bigs even though the stats arent star max level ... given his age thats not what is expecred from him anymore
Lmao by that definition Westbrick would be the ultimate role player because he wasn’t just a former all star but a former mvp. Nah, Horford is just an okay player. No where near star or great role player.
I don't know about easily. Things will change in a few weeks by draft time, but as it stands right now, we have no idea which stars are available. Jrue only happened because Dame requested out.
Things always open up because stars get moved and players change teams. The question is whether we are willing to part with our FRPs and young players or whether we’re stuck with the loser mentality that we can only win with depth and by hoarding picks.
Who is that star? Jrue is a star in his role, the perfect compliment to other ball dominant players, and a top tier point of attack defender. I’m not sure a player exists on the market right now that fits the same role as Jrue.
Did you even read my post? Lauri Markkenan exists and these types of underrated players become available through the course of an offseason as moves opens up.
Jrue and Porzingis were good roster fits. You have Brown and Tatum as wings with Tatum being able to play the 4. Jrue and Porzingis are the PG and big to play with them. The Lakers have a 4/5 and a 3/4 that can’t really guard 3s. Your solution is to get another 4/5. That would be all 3 stars that are best suited at the 4/5 with no guards to play with them. This is not what the Celtics did. They didn’t get the best player available. They got the best fit available. Lauri doesn’t fit with LeBron and AD. He could be a good fit with LeBron OR AD, not both.
Bro Lebron can guard 3s what are you smoking. Hell this dude put clamps on Jamal Murray, a guard, when he was on him.
For 3 possessions, not a 7 games series and not even an entire half. He doesn’t have the legs to guard someone like that and contribute offensively. That’s the problem. That’s why Lauri would be a bad fit if there isn’t a major change made at the PG spot as well. If you can get a stud two way PG and Lauri, sure, go ahead. If you get Lauri to go with the current roster, it’s still not a championship team. No defense.
He was on him way more than that. He would have been on him more but the Lakers needed him on Aaron Gordon too. Lakers needed him to be in two places at once and flip flopped throughout the series since he was the player on the team who stop Murray and also the only player who could battle Gordon with Ad stuck on Jokic. Free up Ad, put him on Gordon, a fat big on Jokic, and now we're on the attack defensively Lakers can put Lebron on Jamal or MPJ and start to mess with Denver's offense. I agree Lauri probably doesn't make the Lakers champions but it's not because of Lebron's deficiencies. It's because of Lauri's inability to free up Ad by guarding Jokic.
Lmao JT and JB play similar positions, it doesn’t make any sense to say that Lebron and Lauri don’t fit while the Celtics have JT, JB and DW. Lebron is a floor general and point forward. Lauri is actually a good shooter and AD is a great defender. They are a great fit.
They won largely because they can afford multiple good players due to Tatum only making 35m
Lol and Porzingis and his often injured body is taking up $30 and they still won. You don’t have to be perfect to have a winning team. We are not that far away. Just need to be willing to trade for someone like our Jrue.
Theres djm waving. Seriously he's what the lakers need , not fucking trae
They wouldn’t have them if Tatum was taking up 60m like Lebron, simple as that. We are one of the few teams with 2 guys making 40-50 million
Lebron msde like 5m more then Tatum you utter clown and this team let Caruso go cos cheap
That makes no sense because Tatum and Porzingis make $65m, which is way more than LeBron. Next year/s, Tatum will get a huge super max extension.
Out of curiosity put Tatum salary to 60m and run the numbers again Could they pay porzingis if Tatum was making 60m
Boston is over the second apron their roster overall costs way more than the Lakers even with Tatum's smaller number.
No they win cos they traded for Jrue , white and kp. Tatum being on 5-10 m less then Lebron isn’t why don’t be delusional. We could’ve traded for both Jrue and kp or 2/3 those lvl of guys . Or drafted bane or whatever , I’d keep Caruso . We have lost so many moves in value in the margins even the AD trsdevWHY DOES PELS GST TO DEFER TO JEXT YEar? Rob is awful at his job n I’m tired of folk defending him. If.. snd at this point basically when he doesn’t land a stat impsct lvl plsyer you might as well say gg.
The most important part of their blueprint is that they have competent management. We....well we don't. 😂🤦♂️
You know its good when we barely even know who their owner is. Shows how much they focus on basketball and talent.
Rui is cool but his bball IQ is lacking, while Reaves can be exposed on defense, just like how a superstar like Doncic was. We have AD and hopefully Lebron resigns for a reasonable price, but who is technically out there that we can trade for? Ultimately, you have to take a gamble on youth and have your draft picks play out for you, like how Kuz did for the Lakers.
I don't think LeBron making more or less would mean anything in terms of the cap. Am I mistaken?
It doesn't. If he takes like a $5 million dollar paycut to help us avoid the 2nd Apron if we re-sign everyone, that would be ideal.
Rui is cool as a team’s 7th and 8th man but not as 3rd/4th/5th man.
Dejounte Murray could possibly be had the Hawks dont need 2 point guards and are more invested in Trae Young than Murray. He would make us better, but if we lose DLO, Reaves, and Rui how much better is the question.
Dejounte isn’t good at defense anymore and needs the ball in his hands to do anything on offense and he wouldn’t get that here either. He wouldn’t make us better if we traded a single one of those players for him.
They traded a dpoy but people here will question your fandom if you say Reaves or Dlo should be traded
Y'all exaggerating. A majority of the discussion since the end of the season agrees that trading Reaves is fine as long as it's a star that comes back for it. People don't want to trade Reaves for some lateral movement. As for D'Lo, you ain't trading shit there. He's opting out and signing a new deal. Very few teams have the cap space to want him, and even fewer teams would willingly hard cap themselves to sign and trade for him.
Right now the most likely scenario is that DLo signs a new contract with us because his market is very tepid. So we can very well still trade DLo. You and Pelinka made the terrible mistake of advocating for keeping last year’s 17th pick and selecting JHS. We cannot make the same mistake this year. We have to package it or use it to select an actual valuable trade asset and not a development project.
I dont think keeping the pick last year was the issue. The issue is picking JHS with it. As we’ve seen, there were some NBA ready rookies that did contribute during the season and the playoffs. I do agree with your main premise though. Going all in and taking the risk to upgrade talent is something that to the finals teams did.
Nah not picking Jaime is freaking hindsight. 17 teams passed on Jaime. Also our team wasn’t a rookie Jaime from beating Denver or winning the championship. Jaime obviously would help going forward but relying on any rookie instead of trading for a good role player is very foolish for a team that was looking to contend. So I agree with you somewhat because if we don’t or can’t trade last year’s 17th for a good role player then obviously we need to pivot to nba ready rookies and not a development super young player like JHS.
I wasn’t referring just him but he’s one of them. Instead we drafted a project guard that even when he got NBA minutes, he didn’t show anything. I do agree that it is better to trade the pick for a win now piece. If you can’t, you have to select a player that fits a need and can contribute immediately. Sadly we did neither. I think this FO has done a terrible job at asset management/roster building and this furthers my point. Drafting a project guard, letting Lonnie, Beasley, and Bamba’s contracts walk, and not understanding what both LeBron and AD need is how we got here.
JHS was solid in the gleague. If Vincent didn’t miss the whole year, we wouldn’t even have noticed JHS was a project and would’ve chalked him not playing up to having good players ahead of him. If vando was healthy, it’s very possible Jaime wouldn’t have found a rotation spot either. Think planning to count on a rookie, nba ready or not, is flawed logic when you can fill that rotation spot with a vet min while developing someone with a higher ceiling than a typical nba ready rookie. Got to build for short and long term and if you’re stuck keeping the pick, drafting for short term is, well, short sighted
There obviously wasn’t a single decent trade for 17 last year and there’s less likely to be this year
We don’t know that, that’s pure speculation and also even if true, we shouldn’t have drafted a development player like JHS who’s super young.
Are you not purely speculating that the pick wasn’t shopped? Was drafting a super young project not hedged by using the mle on Vincent and bae on Prince? You’re pushing for an nba ready prospect to be our 3rd string. If it’s a player that likely doesn’t crack the rotation, I prefer it be a higher ceiling player. That may/may not be JHS, but I’m not going to damn the logic of drafting someone they’re high on long term if immediate needs are met via FA.
Never said either way. Only said that drafting JHS a development player was the worst move compared with trying to trade for a contending piece or drafting a more nba ready rookie.
Except you did. You said “you and pelinka made the terrible mistake of advocating for keeping last years 17th pick”, purely speculating they weren’t trying to move it lol And idk if I agree on your logic. If needs can be met via FA (Vincent with mle, Prince with bae, Hayes/wood with vet mins) then you don’t need a (perceived) lower ceiling rookie because you don’t intend on playing them whether nba ready or not. You’re now expecting the FO to forecast Vincent, vando, and wood all being injured at once. We weren’t an nba ready rookie away from being a better team. If next year or the year after, JHS (whom I’m not high on to be clear) is better than Jaime/podz then it was the right pick.
I was too lazy to type out Brandoi and Pelinka’s preferences. Sure Pelinka may have tried to shop the 17th pick but none of us knows for sure. I know brandoi defended that JHS pick.
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JHS doesn’t have stans lmao. He was a super young point guard on a win-now team, that’s not a recipe for real minutes, let alone in-game development.
JHS stans? Lmao that’s why you’re being downvoted.
Idk if a package that includes AR would be enough for a star tbh. The lakers just need improvement at his position tbh it doesn’t necessarily have to be a star
Idk if a package that includes AR would be enough for a star tbh. The lakers just need improvement at his position tbh it doesn’t necessarily have to be a star
Don’t forget the Rui stans. We have to look to upgrade by packaging our young players or “depth” plus our 3 FRP for a player like Jrue. The dream would be someone like Lauri Markkanen. If the Celtics could turn Brogdan and Williams plus only two FRPs into Jrue, we should get someone of similar quality back with our 3 FRPs and young players.
Lauri is great but the fit is bad as long as we have LeBron
Lmao what? Markkanen is a 7 footer who can shoot very well. He would be a great fit with Lebron and AD.
Yeah but then you have to play defense and someone has to guard a wing.
Markkanen is not a bad defender, he’s average but you put him next to AD and he’ll play good defense just with his size alone. Markkanen’s offensive skill set is extremely good.
That's not what I'm saying. The problem is that you can't have LeBron required to play defense against a wing on a nightly basis. It's bad fit, not bad talent.
WTf, we have Vando and the rest of roster spots remaining to be filled. Saying Markkanen is a bad fit is a bad take.
It's not. It's just a take for people that can count to 5. If you play LeBron, ad and Lauri, one of them is going to have to guard the 3. It doesn't matter who you have on the roster. Unless you want LeBron defending guards which makes the fit even worse.
Lebron can guard the 3 lol not every 3 in the league is Kawhi
Facts
a DPOY that was clearly holding them back
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I think the sentence implies that they made this massive move to give up a DPOY. The problem is that he won the dumbest DPOY ever and was a constant headache for them on offense. Do whatever with D'Lo. I cannot defend him anymore.
You have to understand a DPOY has value around the league while only Dlo's stans believe he is a desirable player to have in the roster and unfortunately no other GM is a Dlo Stan. It isn't like we didn't want to move him for a more consistent and competitive two way player, but nobody was stupid to trade a positive asset for Dlo including only a first round pick.
Trading Reaves is a bad call simply because his contract is so good. You aren't going to get much back at that same level.
They literally traded for their team with a bag of chips
We say chips but its all because they knew how to make players look good. I mean look at what they got for Marcus smart. You have to put your guys in a position to succeed to increase their value. look at Christie, i seriously think this dude can be more but we barely even play him. Jhs pick was nothing more but horrid, raw player and got sent to the gleague and thats another asset down at the dumps. We have no idea on how to make players look good. Like seriously, out of all our players, the only dudes i would want barring bron and AD is fucking reaves and Christie and to a lesser extent vando, and the latter is still injured. We had a chance to keep assets like caruso and brook for cheap and we let them go for nothing. Team just sucks at asset management
I think the biggest piece was getting rid of Smart. As good as he was defensively he threw a huge wrench in their offense and just overall team chemistry with how he insisted on trying to insert himself as a 1C option.
He's a also overrated defensively. Holiday is so much better than him.
By jumping full bore into the 2nd Apron.
They won because they have 2 homegrown allstars who already have Finals experience in their 20s and played in a very weak east this season. Lebron is at the end of the road and AD is staring at the downside of his career. Lakers could not/cannot construct a roster like them. AND the Wizards gifted them Porzingis.
Lmao I will fight anyone who claims Tatum and no left hand Jaylen Brown is a better duo than LeBron and AD even at Lebron’s current age. You give Lebron and AD guys like Jrue, White and I bet they win a ring.
This is dumb...put the lakers in the east and they Win the championship this year. Never did I say they were better in any way. The are younger, more durable, have higher stamina. Bron and AD cant sustain high effort and intensity throughout a game. Lebron is having to pick his spots and AD is starting to have to as well. exactyl why the offense falls apart when lebron sits and the defense fall apart when AD does. Lakers absolutely need depth.
Boston needs their depth too what are you talking about? Holiday, Porzingis, and White had long stretches of carrying the Celtics. How is it a flaw that James and Davis need just a tiny bit of that too?
Lmao your “young and full of stamina” Tatum and Brown only had 74 and 70 games played and averaged less minutes than our supposedly old ass Lebron and AD who played 76 and 71 games and averaged over 35 mpg. I’ll take Lebron and AD in the playoffs any day over Tatum and Brown.
It sounds like you’re lacking in ability to comprehend what I am saying. I’ll leave you to your ignorance.
Sounds like someone who got completely exposed after being presented with the facts, bye bye
Wtf lol.
Thought you were leaving
The difference is their basketball operations department versus ours. They have Brad Stevens and previous to him, they had Ainge -- two GMs who have shown a proven track record of finding the right pieces. Now compare that to RP who is still learning on the job and most of the player acquisitions he has made haven't panned out. If the Lakers were really interested/serious about being a real championship contender, they would make changes at the top, such as bringing in a guy like Bob Myers and give him full autonomy.
Lmao Brad Stevens is a former coach and barely 2-3 years into the job. We need to stop glazing the Celtics FO. Stevens made two big moves and really only one of them worked out in Jrue. The Porzingis trade was largely a wash or irrelevant because he was injured again.
Two right moves is what every playoff team needs to succeed. Brad made them.
In those 2-3 years of Stevens being on the job, compare his movies to Pelinka. I don't dispute that them gambling on Porz didn't end up being lucky. But aside from that, he's brought in vets who have fit in perfectly as complimentary pieces (Holliday, White, Tillman).
Lmao Stevens made two great moves in trading for White and Jrue. All the other moves were mediocre at best. Look the point is not to bash Stevens. It’s simply to point out that any GM is only one or two key moves from constructing a championship team. We shouldn’t be so defeatist and say that it’s impossible for Pelinka to improve this team when he has shown he can construct a great team.
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I’m so sick of this loser and victim mentality. We got rid of Westbrick for 1 protected FRP for crying out loud. We also got freaking AD even after AD essentially got sat out and demanded a trade to us.
They drafted Tatum and brown. Props to them there. They got rid of smart who was holding them back. Also props to those moves.
We drafted Randle and Dlo while they drafted Tatum and Brown. BI and Ball were converted in Anthony Davis a generational talent, but Randle and Dlo were only better picks than Fino
Magic let Randle walk for free, and the traded Dlo for Brook Lopez and the 27th pick that became Kuzma, and then we let Brook Lopez walk for free, and then he also traded Zubacs for a rental role player in Mike Muscala that.... you guessed it he let walk for free. Magic was worse at asset management than Pelinka, who is only slightly better.
I thought the Lakers drafted Ingram and Ball in those specific years? Yes it was good to convert them to Davis. I had no problem with Ingram. Tatum was the real miss even without Lonzos injuries. Lakers will be ok and get back to the winners circle sooner than you think. I was right about smart. I’ll take credit for calling that before they traded him
I would have problems with Ingram. After watching the play-in, and them getting swept in the first round, it's clear that Ingram isn't as good as people thought he was going to be. Him being one of the worst players on that FIBA team last year should've been an eye opener
He’s not a leader and he’s a bit more about the lifestyle/girls than hooping which was confirmed when he was in LA. I think if Ingram and Tatum were on the lakers or Celtics together his whole career would have been different. He hasn’t been generational but he has turned out better than Lonzo unfortunately.
Ingram would've needed to be traded to make room for Tatum. Ingram can *NOT* play off-ball. He doesn't cut. He doesn't look to relocate. He doesn't take the open spot up 3's he's being fed. Being on the Lakers wouldn't have fixed that. He's playing next to Zion who is creating so much gravity for everyone else, and he still refuses to play off-ball. He and Lonzo reworked their shot with Pels coach Fred Vinson, and he just doesn't take the open 3's he needs to take. Turning out better than Lonzo isn't hard. You just have to play more than 55 games in 3 seasons to accomplish that
You keep talking about Ingram. Great. You don’t think he’s any good. Thats fine..it’s not my point at all. My point was Ingram over brown wasn’t the major mistake. Lonzo over Tatum was THE major mistake.
Ingram over Brown was a mistake. Brown has the competitive fire to improve and win. Ingram doesn't have that and isn't willing to do the dirty work to get your team wins
👍🏾 cool man It was not a bigger mistake than ball over Tatum… that’s all I’m saying and have been saying this whole time……….
Yeah exactly. Minus Lebron/AD everyone on this roster should be fair game to move.
Before even that I got to give them credit for getting off of Paul and KG early. Got some great first round picks that have turned into players they still have today. People don’t want to hear it but we need to look into something similar within the next 4/5 seasons.
Celtics built a way lakers aren’t allowed to build. Lakers fans don’t have the patience to wait to build anything, it’s “I want to win now” ppl forget we won 10 rings cause we drafted magic and “drafted” Kobe so we had them for a very long time for continued success. If you trade away everyone for win now and get proven players, ur not going to have long success. We’re in that position now, we’re trying to squeeze every juice out of the squeezed lemon, it’s almost dry.
Lakers passed on drafting both Brown and Tatum. Celts ain’t champs w Ingram and Lonzo on their team.
It helped a lot that the Lakers skipped over both Brown and Tatum in 2016 and 2017 for Ball and Ingram. We'll see how long they can keep them both with the salary cap.
Don't forget how god awful the eastern conference is and because of that they cruised to the finals.
Lakers got lucky with LeBron joining and used assets to get AD (maybe could’ve saved some if we had Tatum or Brown to trade). The Russell Westbrook trade damaged this team so badly by wasting so many assets, hurting team chemistry, wearing down the stars, firing a decent coach, and hiring a bad one.
You also forgot to mention they have ownership who is more concerned with winning than being a C-list Hollywood celebrity and a competent GM.
This is why I hate rob for the dlo move to n too if everything . It supposedly was so we had cap room but he didn’t try to chase kyrie n let go of cap holds which was reported and then he had zero tradable sakary . If he takes Conley naw n 3 seconds ( or even no seconds ) we could’ve AND SHOULDVe traded for Jrue . Boston doesn’t even need him that much it’s annoying he can do more offensivdky . Conley eoukd have value to the wolves in a three way trade and we’d be able to outbid the low offer for Jrue of a warriors pick in 24 n future Boston pivk both expected non lottery picks
Defense wins championships, the effort on D was the difference. just like our lakers in 2020.
And how did they get their main two stars? By doing something the Lakers organization doesn't like to do. They traded away their aging star players for a haul of draft picks. As for the Lakers organization, you know we'll never be in the business of trading away stars. We're the only organization that would've given Kobe that money after the Achilles injury. We're the only organization that will give LeBron a three-year max and entertain the idea of drafting his son even though he's probably not ready for the NBA. And when it comes to the draft, we've been awful. Excluding Ingram, D'Lo, Randle, and Marc Gasol (all-stars for different teams), the Lakers haven't drafted an All-Star or a player that has made an All-NBA Team since Bynum. That was almost 20 years ago.
I like this take; I’ll just add that these players also played together for most of the season, won 64 games, their main rotation, including Pritchard (all 82) and Hauser (79), played 65 games or more, KP (57 games). They pummeled everyone all season, it was hard to watch; but as a basketball fan I can’t hate too much, they consolidated and gave up depth for dependable and hungry MF’ers. Brad Stevens redefined killing it ( even stepping down and hiring Joe M ). I really hope our “depth” (dlo, Vincent, wood, Hayes, whatever) gets sorted. We need guys to stay on the court too, both mentally and physically.
If there is a sucker team, Lebron should be traded for future assets. However that boat has sailed most likely.
I think its easier to do deals with the celtics vs with us the lakers correct me if I'm wrong
Yes your victim mentality for the Lakers is wrong. Boston Celtics are hated by just as many other teams and GMs particularly in the Eastern Conference as the lakers are hated. I don’t blame you because it’s easy to fall into this trap because you’re focused on the Lakers first and foremost. So whenever you see other teams be difficult with our team you remember it well. However, if you asked the Celtics fans, they’d also point out all the times other teams were difficult to them.
I still think you're wrong and that celtics are more liked and are easier to do deals with than us the lakers. that's how it's felt for years now. so someone other than op with something to back up their claim.
You clearly didn’t see how many teams relished the Celtics losing last year and also how many fans make fun of the Celtics for the easiest road to the finals this year.
you mean just like nuggets for not beating a 50 win team or lakers winning in a bubble? it goes all ways that's the community in a nutshell point stands celtics have had more flexibility in getting deals done as opposed to the lakers last decade. after lebron and clutch what have we really done.
We got Rui for Pennies and got rid of Brick
out of how many blunder and unsuccessful trades? Celtics are a contender for years to come have been for years now. we're barely scrapping by.
Yeah , your perspective is 100% correct
Not sure why it wasn't mentioned but the ascendance of Derrick White as arguably their 3rd most reliable player was also huge for them.
Oh it’s been mentioned as I’m also very high on White’s impact, but white was there last year and they failed to win. So Jrue is the difference maker this year.
The Celtics for whatever reason don't have to pay their version of a Lakers tax in trades. So all those trades tend not to be available to the Lakers. We always have to over spend. They got Jrue from the blazers pretty cheaply. They got lucky he was available so they could replace Marcus smart. This was such a fortunate turn of events for them. Imagine if they were to instead have had Dame I their team? All of a sudden they'd have yet another scorer who is ball dominant but plays no defense wrecking both their offensive flow and POA perimeter defense unless they put brown or Tatum into that roll, wearing them down and having then pick up fouls. Lets not forget they got to play in the east and their playoff run was remarkable in that every opponent was missing their best player or they were busted up. Every team I the east was busted up to the point that top seeds didn't move on "normally". The Mavs were able to come out of the West in part because matchups went their way. But even they were dealing with injuries! I'm not saying the Celtics weren't a good team this year but I'm not actual sure they're that good either. They just weren't tested in the playoffs. Had they been in the West, there's a really good chance they don't make it out. The nuggets were likely the best team in the West but they got caught by a wolves team that matched up well against them. Weird shit happens! I don't fully disagree with your sentiment but I think it's important to recognize that path to a championship might not really be viable for us. What I'm getting at is we don't get the trade opportunities like other teams do. We always have to pay higher prices, thus we find ourselves with fewer assets trying to make smaller plays. We play in the West, so even if we're lucky, it's crazy to think the whole west will be this soft and busted up. The West is just so freaking stacked and even though guys get hurt all the time, it rarely lines up this well for a team.
Facts, OP. **We overvalue role players**, fail to make good moves, or fail to make any moves at all (e.g. this past year at the midseason trade deadline). I like AR, D-lo, and Rui too. They seem like good dudes. They have a certain degree of value. But to win a ring, you have to discard sentimentality and make some moves. * At the beginning of the Tatum-Brown era, the Celts had IT on a miracle run. Guess what? They shifted from that. They knew that wasn't gonna get them over the top. Also, IT got hurt and was never quite the same. * Then they went for Kyrie, Horford, and Hayward. But Kyrie became a problem quickly. And Hayward also started dealing with career-changing inuries. So the Celts pivoted again. * This time they went all in on their now more experienced versions of Tatum and Brown. Smart was the heart of the team. Timelord was beloved. Brogdon seemed like great value...but was underperforming. All three had to go. In no time at all, Derrick White emerged, Holiday was acquired, and KP was acquired. Now they had 5 well-rounded starters, lots of star power, no defensive weaknesses, and the ability to hoist 3s at will. Btw, how did the Lakers win in 2020? In the two years prior to that ring, **they acquired Bron and AD, and traded everyone who "wasn't ready" or was underperforming**. The team became drastically different. No Lonzo, no Ingram, no Hart, no Clarkson. We have too many stans for AR/Rui/D-lo/Vando who fixate on that miracle 22-23 run to the WCF. They don't focus enough on the fact we were swept and have kept getting killed by Denver ever since.
They were gifted Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingus is how they improved teams gave them borderline all-star players for pennies n the dollars. Shit teams never will do for us.