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Originally Posted by AllRedJs
possible to get d12 and cp3????
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=d8gpmza
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Originally Posted by AllRedJs
possible to get d12 and cp3????
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=d8gpmza
Originally Posted by mrdieselfuel09
Get outta here with the Barrea talk, dudes a bum.Barrea isn't going to do anything for this team. Anyone that wants him only fell in love because of how he destroyed the Lakers defense last year in the playoffs. Brooks>>Barrea.
Originally Posted by gaseousfashion
Wish we could get CP3 and D12 w/o giving up Gasol.
We can dream.
Lakers still have 5 billion reasons to believe
Congratulations, NBA owners. $3 billion!
You can rightly celebrate, because $3 billion is one heck of a haul to jerk from the players' side to yours, as is projected over the course of the new 10-year collective bargaining agreement.
But, um, how much are the Lakers – all by themselves – getting from Time Warner Cable for its new regional sports networks?
$5 billion.
I'd add a "Cha-ching!" sound effect, but no one is fitting $5 billion in any cash register.
That $5 billion is over 25 years – or it'll be merely $4 billion over 20 years if the future option isn't exercised. It has been widely and wrongly reported as less.
Let's pause and appreciate how much money one club, starting next season, will get per year all to itself just from local TV: $200 million ... when Forbes values the entire Milwaukee Bucks franchise at $258 million.
It leads to a very good question: whether the NBA's new supposedly prohibitive luxury-tax penalties to start in 2013 are really going to stop the Lakers from continuing to throw money at their problems – because they've solved a lot of them very well that way without having this new billionaire boys' club.
Well, there is a little thing called revenue sharing that has largely been forgotten while the players and owners have been arm-wrestling. The terms haven't been hammered out by the owners yet, but it is understood the large-market handouts are increasing ... exponentially.
And those new penalties are plenty severe – particularly the extra dollar charged if a club is a taxpayer four out of five years. The Lakers' 2010-11 $20 million tax bill would swell to $45 million under the new rules. Add the extra dollar as a regular taxpayer, and to field the sort of team the Lakers just did, you're looking at writing a $65 million check – for a lot of nothing in return when you get swept in the second round.
If you can win a championship and maintain the cachet that the Lakers' brand holds, though, maybe it can be worth it. That's a call the Lakers will have to make – or more accurately, hope they get to make – in the future.
Jim Buss said with a laugh while sitting next to his dad back in November 2009 that Jerry "yells at me every day, basically, for the payroll." So far, Jim has shown no reluctance to roll high as he takes the franchise forward.
But if things get worse before better, the Lakers could find themselves in rebuilding mode come 2013 and not even have to answer their door when that big, bad taxman starts to make his rounds.
If the Lakers don't win a championship this season, the first numbers that will be looked at aren't going to be the financial ones. They'll be the player ages. And basic logic tells you that Andrew Bynum is coveted by Jim Buss and is not old, and Kobe Bryant is getting old but has a no-trade clause and unique hometown value – so Pau Gasol, what is there to say?
Gasol, who by season's end will have played 14 seasons of professional basketball (not even counting all those Spanish national-team summers), does have a 15 percent trade kicker in his contract. Whether he could help bring Chris Paul, Deron Williams or Dwight Howard in trade is another conversation for another day.
Bear in mind, though, what fascination Jim Buss had once upon a time with re-energizing the Lakers by landing LeBron James, Yao Ming or Amar'e Stoudemire to pair with Bryant. So yes, the Lakers will be having those superstar-enticing summits someday.
For now, the hope is that Gasol has returned the Kwame Brown costume he wore during the last playoffs, Bynum has arrived as Howard's only peer in the pivot and Bryant has indeed built himself a bionic right knee. Those possibilities are why it makes sense for the Lakers not to burn their amnesty provision on Metta World Peace for at least a year and probably two – seeing if Mike Brown can recalibrate him the way he did in his first year as the Indiana Pacers' defensive coordinator in 2003-04, when Ron Artest was the NBA Defensive Player of the Year.
How helpful would it be to have someone like that crazy but crazy-good Artest guy in the final two rounds of this season again Kevin Durant and LeBron James?
And if it all goes that well, maybe we're having entirely different conversations when it's time to talk tax come 2013.
Maybe we're talking about contract extensions for Bryant and Gasol, but at lower salaries to keep a championship-quality team together with the All-Star Bynum. That was, remember, what the Lakers wanted to explore with Shaquille O'Neal, but he wanted no part of bringing down his league-high salary – triggering his 2004 trade to Miami.
Maybe we're talking about how it's absolutely worth it to the Buss family to burn that Time Warner money on unprecedented luxury taxes and keep surfing a killer wave. The Lakers certainly have not looked at the coming penalty system, cowered like Laker Girls with the ball bouncing their way and ruled out anteing up.
There are simply a myriad of trifles on which this all could turn in the coming year or two.
What we do know is that Jerry Buss stuck with his fellow owners during the lockout negotiations, and he'll soon be settling up with them separately on this revenue sharing. When he's done doing what has to be done so he has a league to play in, he can stop and take a good look around.
What he'll see is that he still has a soft-cap system and now has an epic regional sports deal. That is a combination which at least allows for the possibility the old Wyoming cowboy in him goes on continuing swinging those frayed-jeans cuffs and kicking fellow owners' butts.
It certainly won't be as easy as before, but be sure to tune in to the all-new Lakers HD network – and the sister station that will be the nation's first Spanish-language regional sports channel – to see how it all shakes out!
Sup brah! Laker season is upon us.Originally Posted by Night Marcher01
Hai Guise!
[h3]Jim Buss Finally Open To Dealing Bynum[/h3]
Dec 01, 2011 12:35 AM EST
Jim Buss has finally has dropped his opposition to trading Andrew Bynum "for the right deal", according to a source.
That right deal would almost certainly mean Dwight Howard, who is believed to be highly interested in joining the Lakers.
Some in the agent community have speculated that Bynum may not be the player Orlando would want and that a three-way trade involving Andrew Bogut could be consummated.
This can't be life.
Originally Posted by 23ska909red02
Originally Posted by KOD843
I see J.J. Barea is a free agent. He'd be a small upgrade over Blake, that's for sure![h6][/h6]
A small upgrade? I think it would be a HUGE upgrade. But I can't stand Blake, and I love Barea.
This can't be life.Originally Posted by mrdieselfuel09
[h3][/h3][h3]Jim Buss Finally Open To Dealing Bynum[/h3]
Dec 01, 2011 12:35 AM EST
Jim Buss has finally has dropped his opposition to trading Andrew Bynum "for the right deal", according to a source.
That right deal would almost certainly mean Dwight Howard, who is believed to be highly interested in joining the Lakers.
Some in the agent community have speculated that Bynum may not be the player Orlando would want and that a three-way trade involving Andrew Bogut could be consummated.
This can't be life.Originally Posted by mrdieselfuel09
[h3][/h3][h3]Jim Buss Finally Open To Dealing Bynum[/h3]
Dec 01, 2011 12:35 AM EST
Jim Buss has finally has dropped his opposition to trading Andrew Bynum "for the right deal", according to a source.
That right deal would almost certainly mean Dwight Howard, who is believed to be highly interested in joining the Lakers.
Some in the agent community have speculated that Bynum may not be the player Orlando would want and that a three-way trade involving Andrew Bogut could be consummated.
Originally Posted by lakersreppa008
This can't be life.Originally Posted by mrdieselfuel09
[h3][/h3][h3]Jim Buss Finally Open To Dealing Bynum[/h3]
Dec 01, 2011 12:35 AM EST
Jim Buss has finally has dropped his opposition to trading Andrew Bynum "for the right deal", according to a source.
That right deal would almost certainly mean Dwight Howard, who is believed to be highly interested in joining the Lakers.
Some in the agent community have speculated that Bynum may not be the player Orlando would want and that a three-way trade involving Andrew Bogut could be consummated.
Originally Posted by lakersreppa008
I've heard that the Lakers are interested in Shane Battier and Caron. How do you guys feel about those two?