**LA LAKERS THREAD** Sitting on 17! 2023-2024 offseason begins

[drewsone]

magic looking more and more unfit to be the president yo lol

shoulda hired jerry west

 

[pmatic]

Literally the stupidest reasoning ever to trade a restricted free agent.

 

[sohi 23]

Literally the stupidest reasoning ever to trade a restricted free agent.

Wait until Magic leaks: “I never wanted to trade Dlo, Jeanie forced me to do it”

 

[jab step]

Literally the stupidest reasoning ever to trade a restricted free agent.

Do you have the Mitch article from The Athletic?

 

[MVP]

Keef to OKC

Melo coming ****

 

[atlsfinest]

Are we ever trying anymore?

 

[drewsone]

bro are you kidding me lol...
what the hell is magic doing was he low balling?

 

[mrdieselfuel09]

Magic wouldn't offer his offspring...

 

[Lizakers]

Becoming clear that they’re not lining up to play with Lebron and be his scapegoat

 

[MVP]

Probably more so to do with playing time. Way more opportunity in OKC as the backup 4. Morris twins never have been fond of Bron tho.

 

[dceja]

Magic needs to go...give tbe job to Jerry's kid...reports saying lakers leaked trade offers for ad to pressure them? Geezus

 

[had pants]

Keef to OKC

Melo coming ****

 

[geno90221]

Probably more so to do with playing time. Way more opportunity in OKC as the backup 4. Morris twins never have been fond of Bron tho.

Why they sign with his agency then?

 

[pmatic]

Do you have the Mitch article from The Athletic?

Life after Lakers: Mitch Kupchak’s quest to build an NBA contender in Charlotte

In the eight months since he was introduced as the Charlotte Hornets’ new president of basketball operations, Mitch Kupchak had done little work to spiff up his new office. A teal jersey bearing his name had been hung in a frame in one corner. Large monitors on the walls opposite his desk displayed the salary cap sheets of the 29 other NBA teams. Otherwise? No college degree. No photos from his playing days. His 10 championship rings were locked up in a safe deposit box back in Los Angeles.

When he welcomed a visitor to his office inside Spectrum Center on a drizzly day in December, Kupchak acknowledged he had devoted no time to decorating since his first day on the job.

Left alone in the office after his introductory press conference on April 10, 2018, Kupchak gazed down onto the Hornets’ practice court through a large window and contemplated his new reality.

“It was kind of a weird feeling,” Kupchak told The Athletic. “Kind of like, ‘OK, this is my office.’ You look around, the walls are bare, and it kind of felt like you were starting from scratch.”

He was back in North Carolina, where he had been ACC Player of the Year with the Tar Heels in 1976 and still maintained deep contacts. Those relationships included one with Michael Jordan, whom Kupchak met at the 1982 Final Four in New Orleans when Kupchak was playing for the Lakers and Jordan was a skinny freshman days away from hitting a legendary game-winning shot against Georgetown.

Now, Jordan, the Hornets owner, was giving Kupchak a second chance after his fall from grace as general manager of the Lakers.

The NBA will move its global operations to Charlotte this week as the city hosts its first All-Star Game in 28 years. Kupchak is the man in charge of keeping the home team relevant once the circus leaves town. It’s a job he knows well, having spent 30 years in the Lakers front office, including a 17-year run as GM that yielded four championships.

The inevitable parting was the culmination of years of frustration on the part of Lakers owner Jeanie Buss with her front office. The team cycled through four head coaches in four years and set franchise records for losses in three straight seasons. Then, in perhaps the final blow, Kupchak and Jim Buss, then the president of basketball operations, used the Lakers’ precious cap space in the summer of 2016 to sign Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng to contracts totaling $136 million.

In Charlotte, Kupchak has a chance to restore his image.

“A part of it is you don’t like the way things end,” he said, “and you want to end on your terms.”

Kupchak, 64, quickly got to work in Charlotte. By the end of his first week, he had overseen a painful organizational upheaval. On what he would describe as “a Black Friday if you were a part of it,” more than a dozen people, including head coach Steve Clifford, were fired.

To Kupchak, it was the first step of a bigger plan.

“I’d like to build a team that can contend,” Kupchak said. “That’s my goal.”

On Feb. 21, 2017, Kupchak’s 92-year-old mother was visiting from New York. That morning, two days before the NBA’s trade deadline, Kupchak received the call informing him that he had been fired along with Jim Buss and John Black, the team’s longtime head of public relations.

“I kind of knew that the situation was tenuous,” Kupchak said. “There was a lot going on. … It was a challenge. And nothing lasts forever, so I really was not that surprised.”

Soon, he was in the car with his mother and sister, navigating the 405 Freeway toward LAX.

“I had to take them to the airport like an hour after I got the phone call, so that was tough for them,” he said.

Kupchak focused on the overwhelming positives of his tenure. The two titles as a player, in addition to the one he won in 1978 with Washington. The seven rings as an executive. He saw Shaq and Kobe and Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. The bitterness that most assumed he would feel eluded him.

“I’ve got nothing to complain about after 35 years,” he said. “The way the Lakers treated me? I mean, nobody can complain about that.”

The Lakers front office was now in the hands of Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Kupchak’s former teammate with the Showtime Lakers. Kupchak checked in on his former colleagues who remained in place to explain what happened.

“He called me and told me that morning,” said former Lakers assistant GM Glenn Carraro, who has since made a fresh start of his own by opening a pizzeria in Hollywood. “I was on my way to work. Everything that was going on, he felt that, ‘Hey, it’s business as usual.’ He just wanted to make sure I held down the fort and got everyone up to speed. So, I don’t think there was any animosity. He wanted to make sure we still did the right thing even though he wasn’t there anymore.”

Those close to Kupchak say that he was uniquely poised during the transition.

“He was the best of everybody,” former Lakers trainer Gary Vitti said. “Other than Jimmy, he was the guy who lost the most because he was the one who had the biggest position. He was great. He appreciated the time and the run we had and the people that he worked with.”

Kupchak also had time to prepare for the moment. Buss had perhaps sealed the pair’s fate when he set an unrealistic timeline for the Lakers to be back atop the Western Conference.

They had to do that with a wounded Kobe Bryant, who sustained three season-ending injuries in his final four seasons. While rehabbing from a torn Achilles in November 2013, Bryant signed a two-year contract extension worth $48.5 million. More than five years later, Kupchak still defended the hefty contract.

“We were lucky to have Kobe for his last two years,” Kupchak said, “because he really was a great distraction considering we were going through a rebuild and losing games. It was kind of like we were rebuilding under cover, but it was a rebuild.”

Kupchak and Buss tried to recruit stars like Carmelo Anthony and LaMarcus Aldridge to join Bryant, but no one was interested. The summer after Bryant retired, Kevin Durant refused to even meet with the Lakers.

Instead, the Lakers ended up with Deng and Mozgov. Johnson and general manager Rob Pelinka have since paid a premium to get the Lakers out from under those contracts. They traded 2015 No. 2 overall pick D’Angelo Russell to unload the final three years of Mozgov’s three-year, $64 million deal, and they waived Deng under the NBA’s stretch provision. Deng will count against the Lakers’ salary cap at $5 million a year through 2022.

In the four years after Dr. Jerry Buss died in 2013, the Lakers had made the playoffs just once, and the organization was splintered at the top. Dr. Buss’ wishes of having Jim run basketball and Jeanie be in charge of business were not working. The siblings did not speak. Jeanie did not trust Jim to make the right decisions.

And Kupchak was caught in the middle.

“I think everybody knows, when Dr. Buss passed away, everything changed,” Kupchak said. “And, quite frankly, the further away we got from his passing, the worse it got.”

Kupchak was seen as an old school, by-the-book executive — one of the few in the league who stuck to league policy by abstaining from recruiting free agents until July 1.

“I think he took a lot of criticism,” Vitti said. “More than he should’ve, when things didn’t go right, but he never got enough credit for things when they did go right.”

Vitti pointed to the Chris Paul trade of 2011 that was vetoed by then-commissioner David Stern. If that trade had been allowed, the entire course of Lakers history would have changed.

“Had we continued to win championships,” Kupchak said, “I’m assuming that maybe I’d still be there.”

While Kupchak tried to guide the Lakers through the treacherous waters of an NBA rebuild, he was dealing with a much bigger issue off the court. In 2015, Kupchak’s 15-year-old daughter, Alina, died after a lengthy illness.

For months, Kupchak split his time between the office and the hospital. He never talked about his daughter publicly, and many within the organization did not realize the extent of her illness. After she died, Kupchak was back on the job almost immediately.

“He didn’t talk about it,” Vitti said. “And if you brought it up, he would tell you, ‘I know I should talk about it, but I can’t.’ He’s just a stoic guy.”

It remains an unspeakably painful subject for Kupchak. Asked in December about that time, his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper.

“There’s nothing to say,” he said. After a long pause, he added, “It never goes away.”

When Kupchak got the job in Charlotte, his wife, Claire, remained in L.A. His son, Maxwell, is finishing his senior year at UC Santa Barbara, where he is a forward on the basketball team.

Carraro, who befriended Kupchak when he attended one of his camps as a 13-year-old in New York, said he gained even more respect for Kupchak as he watched him work through the grief.

“It took such a toll on him,” Carraro said. “And for him to finally now move, it’s almost like he’s starting over. So, I’m happy for him.”

For the first year he was out of work, Kupchak was on the move. He organized group dinners with former Lakers colleagues like Black, Carraro and Vitti.

Kupchak became a “Gaucho Groupie,” traveling to support his son and UC Santa Barbara basketball. One morning at breakfast with Maxwell, Kupchak asked, “How far is Yosemite from here?”

He hit the road after they cleared their plates.

He visited other NBA teams’ training camps. Dallas. Utah. Washington. He got together with buddies from the Bel Air Country Club and golfed Bandon Dunes in Oregon and Whistling Straits in Wisconsin. Roy Williams invited him to Augusta. Friends tried to keep tabs on his whereabouts.

“He called me and said, ‘You will not guess where I am,’ ” Carraro said. “He was at Joshua Tree.”

Carraro added: “He was finally unwinding. It was a stress release for him, to take a step back.”

But Kupchak also made it clear early on that he wanted to get back into the game.

“I did want to work,” Kupchak said. “This is a special business that 30 people (as general managers) get to do.”

When the Hornets fired GM Rich Cho last February, Kupchak was quickly linked to the job. Two months later, after the end of the regular season, it became official.

He called it “a perfect fit for me.” Charlotte is a two-hour drive from Chapel Hill, where he remains close with the University of North Carolina program. He appears alongside Jordan at big UNC games, like Monday’s loss to fourth-ranked Virginia. When the Lakers played the Hornets in Charlotte, Kupchak did not attend the game, opting instead to scout a clash between the Tar Heels and Gonzaga.

Once the initial organizational shakeup was complete, Kupchak dove deeper into his roster, including All-Star Kemba Walker.

“One of the first things that jumped out at me is Kemba is so much better than I thought,” Kupchak said. “He does not get the kind of (star) exposure. He’s getting it now because of the way he started the season, but I had no idea how good this kid is.”

He tabbed former Spurs assistant James Borrego as the team’s head coach and, in July, he traded former Lakers center Dwight Howard.

Kupchak holds the coveted dual title of president of basketball operations and general manager. He focuses solely on basketball, whereas he said he “had more responsibility in L.A. in other business areas.”

Of course, the organizational structure is more straightforward — like the Lakers before Dr. Buss died in 2013.

“There’s one person to report to, which was Dr. Buss, and that made it easy for me there, and I feel the same way here,” Kupchak said. “That was made clear to me. … At the end of the day, I report to Michael. And that makes it simple, too.”

Working with Jordan, Kupchak said, is similar to working for Dr. Buss.

“I can imagine him and Dr. Buss in the same room, kind of sparring a little bit,” Kupchak said. “I don’t think Michael would feel overmatched for a second — because Dr. Buss was good. He was smart, he didn’t have a pad in front of him, he didn’t need a calculator, he just had a way about him. But I feel like Michael’s the same way.”

Jordan will come into Kupchak’s office, sit on the couch across from his desk and talk about the roster and how the Hornets can become a great team. They have hovered around .500 for much of this season and in the mix for a playoff berth in the East.

“I was interviewing (for the job), and Michael asked me how do I see the game, how do I see this Hornets team,” Kupchak said. “I told him exactly how I saw the game and what I thought of his team. He listens, and he says, ‘Mitch, that’s exactly how I see the game.’ ”

“That was the good feeling to me to know that the owner sees the same things I do,” Kupchak added.

This summer, the Hornets will try to keep Walker, who is due for free agency, from leaving town for more exposure — say, perhaps, the Lakers. Kupchak was reportedly active at the trade deadline, nearly landing Memphis center Marc Gasol, whom he drafted in the second round in 2007.

Kupchak seems energized by his new role. He spends more time on the floor and travels to more road games than he did with the Lakers.

“He’s more talkative than I’ve ever seen,” said ex-Lakers forward Larry Nance Jr., who visited with Kupchak when the Cavaliers played in Charlotte earlier this season. “Almost seemed freer.”

The two-year anniversary of Kupchak’s dismissal from L.A. will arrive on Feb. 21, the Lakers’ Black Tuesday. It’s likely the occasion will pass unacknowledged by Kupchak. He is growing further and further removed from the franchise that defined his entire professional career.

In less than two years, Johnson and Pelinka have systematically deconstructed the roster Kupchak built. The trade of Ivica Zubac to the Clippers at last week’s deadline left Brandon Ingram, the No. 2 pick in 2016, as the last player on the Lakers roster with ties to Kupchak.

With LeBron James, Kyle Kuzma and Lonzo Ball, the Lakers are unrecognizable from Kupchak’s Lakers. They are just another team in the database on the monitor on his office wall.

“Obviously, I know their team,” Kupchak said. “I know their salary structure. I know everything about them from a business point of view.”

But emotionally? His only attachment is to the Charlotte Hornets.

“I’m consumed with this team,” he said.

https://theathletic.com/815105/2019...quest-to-build-an-nba-contender-in-charlotte/

 

[Maximus Meridius]

Why would Morris twin sign with the Lakers who are in 10th place over OKC?


Ya'll really expect to sign any and everybody.

 

[geno90221]

F it bring Melo in and let’s roll

 

[MVP]

Why they sign with his agency then?

Idk I felt like they always had dust ups with Bron tho.

Magic needs to go...give tbe job to Jerry's kid...reports saying lakers leaked trade offers for ad to pressure them? Geezus

Didn't we just get a report last week the Pels leaked the offers to cause discord in the locker room?

 

[Maximus Meridius]

Idk I felt like they always had dust ups with Bron tho.

Dray called Bron a garden tool and they cool.

These dudes don't be beefin like that in real life. Except maybe Tristan and Dray.

 

[drewsone]

Dray called Bron a garden tool and they cool.

These dudes don't be beefin like that in real life. Except maybe Tristan and Dray.

facts lol

 

[VinMillerHearn58]

Kief to OKC



Here comes Melo.

 

[had pants]

 

[drewsone]

that looks bad/worse than what it was but..

kuz dropped a very catchable pass in a crucial moment of the game..
i think they were only like 6 feet apart at the elbow 3pt line.

not sure if im remembering corretly tho but it was a pretty bad time to fumble a pass haha

 

[had pants]

 

[CP1708]

I wanna make sure I have this right.....

Magic signed Javale McGee and Michael Beasley, then Magic decides he needs to trade a 21 year old legit Center to rid himself of Beasley and make Javale "happier" and somehow you guys blame LUKE for this?

For real?

I can't wait to see who y'all's next scapegoat is. You guys almost need Luke to stay to keep blaming someone for stuff.

 

[drewsone]

I wanna make sure I have this right.....

Magic signed Javale McGee and Michael Beasley, then Magic decides he needs to trade a 21 year old legit Center to rid himself of Beasley and make Javale "happier" and somehow you guys blame LUKE for this?

For real?

I can't wait to see who y'all's next scapegoat is. You guys almost need Luke to stay to keep blaming someone for stuff.

its always luke and bron apparently