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“Just the beginning” lol
**LA LAKERS THREAD** Sitting on 17! 2023-2024 offseason begins
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by licensed to ball,
- Start date
“Just the beginning” lol
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Bruhzzzzz... So happy right now Hahahahahahaha... gets even better when I see some y’all are sad Hahahahahaha. Let those tears run!!! Hahahahaha
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Do we owe the 2020 first round pick to another team...?
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No I think u can only trade picks every other year
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Ah forgot about the stepien rule. Thanks. The pick swaps threw me off too (technically not trading them away in consecutive years)
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Swaps are completely useless as long as we are a playoff team
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Charles still SALTY and the biggest Laker HATER
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As y’all can tell I love conspiracy theories
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Charles still SALTY and the biggest Laker HATER
Honestly I don’t even listen to these guys anymore. Literally just speaking out of their asses.
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Barkley is always in the corner of small markets.
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Wasn’t he pissed that his trade to LA didn’t go through? I can’t remember if it was him
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Believe he was going to get traded to LA for Worthy in 1992.
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ESPN trade grade
In February, I advised the Los Angeles Lakers against giving up all their young players for Anthony Davis, a move I felt wouldn't make them a contender this past season, would leave their roster old and thin going forward and would prevent them from potentially signing Davis outright in the summer of 2020.
Well, the Lakers didn't trade all their young players, managing to hang on to forward Kyle Kuzma as the one clear concession they won from the New Orleans Pelicans in a trade both sides agreed to on Saturday, according to a report by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
Above and beyond that, though, the way the past four months have played out has made an aggressive move for Davis more sensible.
Let's dive into the pros and cons of this trade for both teams.
The deal
Pelicans get: Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, 2019 No. 4 pick, 2021 top-8 protected first-rounder (becomes unprotected in 2022), first-round swap rights in 2023, 2024 first-round pick, first-round swap rights in 2025
Lakers get: Anthony Davis
Get more trade grades for every deal here
Los Angeles Lakers: C
L.A. looms as a possible contender in 2019-20. With the Golden State Warriors' roster severely weakened by injuries to Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson -- who also could leave as unrestricted free agents -- the Western Conference is suddenly wide open after five years of Warriors domination. The Lakers have every reason to believe they can contend for the West championship next season if they play this summer correctly, so why waste another precious year of LeBron James?
It's also become increasingly clear the Lakers weren't going to be a destination for any of this summer's top free agents, so using cap space to take back Davis' contract -- which it appears they'll do, as otherwise they could not complete this deal until 30 days after signing the No. 4 pick to use his matching salary -- is no longer a huge negative.
Those differences noted, the Lakers are still giving up the vast majority of their cost-controlled, young talent, which will leave them with a tremendously top-heavy roster. Aside from LeBron, AD and Kuzma, the other Lakers under contract for 2019-20 played a combined 709 minutes last season. That figure includes 120 minutes by rookie Jemerrio Jones, whose salary is non-guaranteed, meaning he could still be waived to maximize the Lakers' cap space. Merely hanging on to Hart would have made a huge difference in terms of the Lakers' depth.
NBA mock draft: Anthony Davis trade fallout, latest intel
As noted, the Lakers won't have max room if they make a Davis trade immediately after the moratorium. In fact, even if they traded everybody on the roster besides LeBron and AD -- and Davis waived his $4 million trade bonus -- they'd still come up a hair shy of the max for players with seven to nine years of experience based on current projections. So fans of other teams probably don't have to worry about the Lakers building a superteam around three present All-Stars.
Given those depth issues, the Lakers must be every bit as thrifty with their remaining cap space, as they were wasteful a year ago. They're looking at a roster on which no player under contract is truly a guard, so starters and reserves at both point guard and shooting guard are necessary. Although Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka got this deal done, it's tough after last summer to trust the front office to put together a roster in free agency that will complement Davis and James and put them in position to contend next season.
The Lakers will be counting heavily on players taking discounts to fill out the roster, and they might now take advantage of a relatively modest $4.8 million cap hold for shooting guard Reggie Bullock, acquired at the trade deadline with full Bird rights to exceed the cap in re-signing him.
Looking beyond 2019-20, the Lakers' ability to add to the roster will remain limited. Depending how they play things, the Lakers might be able to utilize their non-taxpayer midlevel exception and biannual exception in the summer of 2020 without going into the luxury tax, but beyond that, they'd likely be limited to the smaller taxpayer midlevel, with a new contract for Kuzma potentially pushing them into the tax in 2021-22. And the Lakers will be out two future first-round picks, taking away cost-controlled, young talent they could add to the roster.
The Lakers are also taking some risk that is things go poorly enough next season, Davis could opt to walk away in free agency -- something that already happened to the organization when it traded for Dwight Howard in 2012. That's a long shot, given Davis' desire to play in L.A. and with LeBron, but it's also a possibility that must be acknowledged.
The bigger gamble for the Lakers is giving up swap rights in 2023 and 2025, first reported by ESPN's Tim Bontemps, which could turn this trade from reasonable to disaster. We're probably guilty of overvaluing swaps a bit because of the outcome of the Brooklyn Nets' deal with the Boston Celtics, which was a worst-case scenario in this regard. (The Nets' 2017 pick ended up No. 1, and the Celtics swapped it for No. 27 and No. 57.)
The odds of the Pelicans becoming dominant at the same time the Lakers fall into ruin are remote, but even innocuous-looking pick swaps have proven costly. At the time the Sacramento Kings gave up pick swaps in 2016 and 2017 to the Philadelphia 76ers in a 2015 cap-clearing move, it seemed unlikely the Kings would be worse than the Sixers in that span. They weren't, but Sacramento moved up in the 2017 lottery and lost the No. 3 pick, getting back No. 5 in return.
It's a measure of either the Lakers' desperation or their arrogance -- or both -- that they were willing to ignore that history with pick swaps and include a pair of them, meaning they will have control of just two of their next seven first-round picks (2020 and either 2021, which is top-8 protected, or 2022 if the pick conveys that year).
This deal certainly could work out ideally for the Lakers if they can properly build around Davis and LeBron, creating a championship contender now that makes them attractive enough to free agents that they can turn over the roster and remain competitive as James ages. (He'll be 40 in 2024-25, the last year New Orleans can swap picks.) But the full picture of this deal shows a lot of ways things could go wrong for the Lakers.
New Orleans Pelicans: A
If the Boston Celtics were unwilling to include Jayson Tatum in a trade for Davis with Kyrie Irving looking increasingly unlikely to re-sign in Boston, the Pelicans weren't going to do better than this kind of package from the Lakers. New Orleans gets an entire perimeter lineup full of young talent, a top lottery pick (albeit in a weak draft) and two additional first-round picks plus swaps with huge upside.
In general, given New Orleans' difficulty putting competent perimeter players around Davis, it's sad that the only way the Pelicans could build depth in the backcourt was by trading him. But if Ball, Hart and Ingram pan out, New Orleans can avoid the same fit for this year's presumptive No. 1 overall pick, Zion Williamson.
Anthony Davis traded to Lakers[/paste:font]
The Pelicans have agreed to send six-time All-Star Anthony Davis to Los Angeles, where he'll team up with LeBron James, sources tell ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. Full story
• Shelburne: Risks and rewards behind trade
• 5-on-5: How trade changes title chase
• Grades: Who wins this blockbuster deal?
• Updated mock draft: Culver at No. 4
• Social media: 'NBA is a 365 operation'
• Free agent buzz | Trade tracker
Much of your opinion about this trade probably depends what you think of the players going from the Lakers to the Pelicans, of whom opinions are mixed. I've steadfastly been a believer in Ball and am excited to see what he could do in a lower-pressure setting in New Orleans. Consider that in Davis' entire time with the Pelicans, just one guard besides Jrue Holiday posted a better rating in ESPN's real plus-minus than Ball's plus-1.1 mark as a rookie. (That was Tyreke Evans, in both 2014-15 and 2015-16.)
Hart is the kind of 3-and-D role player whose game should travel well, particularly if he shoots more like he did from 3-point range as a rookie (40 percent) than last year's 34 percent mark. Given Hart will make just $5.4 million over the two remaining years on his rookie contract, he'll be a strong value either way.
For me, Ingram is the question mark. While Ingram fans see his strong scoring (18.3 points per game last season at age 21) and solid ballhandling skill for a 6-foot-9 forward, Ingram's reliance on midrange jumpers has limited his efficiency, and he rarely contributes elsewhere in the box score. As a result, Ingram rated below replacement level by Basketball-Reference.com's box plus-minus metric last season.
Ingram's closest comp at the same age in my SCHOENE projection system is Andrew Wiggins, who offers a cautionary tale as the Pelicans decide whether to extend Ingram ahead of potential restricted free agency in the summer of 2020. The Minnesota Timberwolves looked at Wiggins' precious scoring and athletic frame and saw enough reason for optimism to hand him a five-year, maximum extension in the fall of 2017. Less than two years later, it appears the Timberwolves might have to trade that contract at a loss if they want to move on from the frustrating Wiggins.
If I were Pelicans executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin, I would look to reroute Ingram to another team that views him as a budding star before making a decision on his next contract. New Orleans could then target a better catch-and-shoot option at small forward to complement the backcourt of Ball and Holiday, whose playmaking skills might limit Ingram's ability to play with the ball in his hands.
Instead, it looks like the Pelicans will consider a deal involving the No. 4 pick ahead of Thursday's NBA draft. It's tough to find a quality veteran player in his prime whom New Orleans could realistically get in return for the pick, which might leave the Pelicans either staying put at No. 4 or hoping to trade down to the bottom end of the top 10 if a team such as the Atlanta Hawks (who have the eighth and 10th picks) wants to move up.
If you were looking for New Orleans to get a surefire future star in return for Davis, this package might look a little disappointing. Even as a Lonzo believer, I must admit his ability to develop into a top-tier starting point guard will hinge on becoming a more reliable outside shooter than we've seen so far in the NBA. But unless Tatum was on the table, I don't think the Pelicans were getting that kind of prospect either now or before the deadline. And fortunately, New Orleans will have that kind of anchor prospect in Williamson thanks to lottery luck.
Given those conditions, I think the Pelicans taking multiple shots at a star between the Lakers' young players and the No. 4 pick makes sense. New Orleans was also able to squeeze maximum future draft-pick compensation out of L.A. Moving the picks and swaps years out increases the uncertainty about how good the Lakers (and the Pelicans) will be, meaning better odds they will be able to benefit from the pick swaps and get a strong unprotected first-round pick in 2024.
So far, Griffin's tenure in New Orleans has been nothing but positive, highlighted by the lottery win but also including beefing up the team's front office with new GM Trajan Langdon and VP of basketball operations/player development Swin Cash and importing highly regarded Aaron Nelson from the Phoenix Suns as VP of player care and performance. Besides the No. 1 pick, none of those moves was as important as how the Pelicans handled a Davis trade. Again, Griffin has positioned New Orleans for success.
before the pick swap info was known, it was B for the lakers and B+ for the pels
Well, the Lakers didn't trade all their young players, managing to hang on to forward Kyle Kuzma as the one clear concession they won from the New Orleans Pelicans in a trade both sides agreed to on Saturday, according to a report by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
Above and beyond that, though, the way the past four months have played out has made an aggressive move for Davis more sensible.
Let's dive into the pros and cons of this trade for both teams.
The deal
Pelicans get: Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, 2019 No. 4 pick, 2021 top-8 protected first-rounder (becomes unprotected in 2022), first-round swap rights in 2023, 2024 first-round pick, first-round swap rights in 2025
Lakers get: Anthony Davis
Get more trade grades for every deal here
Los Angeles Lakers: C
L.A. looms as a possible contender in 2019-20. With the Golden State Warriors' roster severely weakened by injuries to Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson -- who also could leave as unrestricted free agents -- the Western Conference is suddenly wide open after five years of Warriors domination. The Lakers have every reason to believe they can contend for the West championship next season if they play this summer correctly, so why waste another precious year of LeBron James?
It's also become increasingly clear the Lakers weren't going to be a destination for any of this summer's top free agents, so using cap space to take back Davis' contract -- which it appears they'll do, as otherwise they could not complete this deal until 30 days after signing the No. 4 pick to use his matching salary -- is no longer a huge negative.
Those differences noted, the Lakers are still giving up the vast majority of their cost-controlled, young talent, which will leave them with a tremendously top-heavy roster. Aside from LeBron, AD and Kuzma, the other Lakers under contract for 2019-20 played a combined 709 minutes last season. That figure includes 120 minutes by rookie Jemerrio Jones, whose salary is non-guaranteed, meaning he could still be waived to maximize the Lakers' cap space. Merely hanging on to Hart would have made a huge difference in terms of the Lakers' depth.
NBA mock draft: Anthony Davis trade fallout, latest intel
As noted, the Lakers won't have max room if they make a Davis trade immediately after the moratorium. In fact, even if they traded everybody on the roster besides LeBron and AD -- and Davis waived his $4 million trade bonus -- they'd still come up a hair shy of the max for players with seven to nine years of experience based on current projections. So fans of other teams probably don't have to worry about the Lakers building a superteam around three present All-Stars.
Given those depth issues, the Lakers must be every bit as thrifty with their remaining cap space, as they were wasteful a year ago. They're looking at a roster on which no player under contract is truly a guard, so starters and reserves at both point guard and shooting guard are necessary. Although Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka got this deal done, it's tough after last summer to trust the front office to put together a roster in free agency that will complement Davis and James and put them in position to contend next season.
The Lakers will be counting heavily on players taking discounts to fill out the roster, and they might now take advantage of a relatively modest $4.8 million cap hold for shooting guard Reggie Bullock, acquired at the trade deadline with full Bird rights to exceed the cap in re-signing him.
Looking beyond 2019-20, the Lakers' ability to add to the roster will remain limited. Depending how they play things, the Lakers might be able to utilize their non-taxpayer midlevel exception and biannual exception in the summer of 2020 without going into the luxury tax, but beyond that, they'd likely be limited to the smaller taxpayer midlevel, with a new contract for Kuzma potentially pushing them into the tax in 2021-22. And the Lakers will be out two future first-round picks, taking away cost-controlled, young talent they could add to the roster.
The Lakers are also taking some risk that is things go poorly enough next season, Davis could opt to walk away in free agency -- something that already happened to the organization when it traded for Dwight Howard in 2012. That's a long shot, given Davis' desire to play in L.A. and with LeBron, but it's also a possibility that must be acknowledged.
The bigger gamble for the Lakers is giving up swap rights in 2023 and 2025, first reported by ESPN's Tim Bontemps, which could turn this trade from reasonable to disaster. We're probably guilty of overvaluing swaps a bit because of the outcome of the Brooklyn Nets' deal with the Boston Celtics, which was a worst-case scenario in this regard. (The Nets' 2017 pick ended up No. 1, and the Celtics swapped it for No. 27 and No. 57.)
The odds of the Pelicans becoming dominant at the same time the Lakers fall into ruin are remote, but even innocuous-looking pick swaps have proven costly. At the time the Sacramento Kings gave up pick swaps in 2016 and 2017 to the Philadelphia 76ers in a 2015 cap-clearing move, it seemed unlikely the Kings would be worse than the Sixers in that span. They weren't, but Sacramento moved up in the 2017 lottery and lost the No. 3 pick, getting back No. 5 in return.
It's a measure of either the Lakers' desperation or their arrogance -- or both -- that they were willing to ignore that history with pick swaps and include a pair of them, meaning they will have control of just two of their next seven first-round picks (2020 and either 2021, which is top-8 protected, or 2022 if the pick conveys that year).
This deal certainly could work out ideally for the Lakers if they can properly build around Davis and LeBron, creating a championship contender now that makes them attractive enough to free agents that they can turn over the roster and remain competitive as James ages. (He'll be 40 in 2024-25, the last year New Orleans can swap picks.) But the full picture of this deal shows a lot of ways things could go wrong for the Lakers.
New Orleans Pelicans: A
If the Boston Celtics were unwilling to include Jayson Tatum in a trade for Davis with Kyrie Irving looking increasingly unlikely to re-sign in Boston, the Pelicans weren't going to do better than this kind of package from the Lakers. New Orleans gets an entire perimeter lineup full of young talent, a top lottery pick (albeit in a weak draft) and two additional first-round picks plus swaps with huge upside.
In general, given New Orleans' difficulty putting competent perimeter players around Davis, it's sad that the only way the Pelicans could build depth in the backcourt was by trading him. But if Ball, Hart and Ingram pan out, New Orleans can avoid the same fit for this year's presumptive No. 1 overall pick, Zion Williamson.
Anthony Davis traded to Lakers[/paste:font]
The Pelicans have agreed to send six-time All-Star Anthony Davis to Los Angeles, where he'll team up with LeBron James, sources tell ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. Full story
• Shelburne: Risks and rewards behind trade
• 5-on-5: How trade changes title chase
• Grades: Who wins this blockbuster deal?
• Updated mock draft: Culver at No. 4
• Social media: 'NBA is a 365 operation'
• Free agent buzz | Trade tracker
Much of your opinion about this trade probably depends what you think of the players going from the Lakers to the Pelicans, of whom opinions are mixed. I've steadfastly been a believer in Ball and am excited to see what he could do in a lower-pressure setting in New Orleans. Consider that in Davis' entire time with the Pelicans, just one guard besides Jrue Holiday posted a better rating in ESPN's real plus-minus than Ball's plus-1.1 mark as a rookie. (That was Tyreke Evans, in both 2014-15 and 2015-16.)
Hart is the kind of 3-and-D role player whose game should travel well, particularly if he shoots more like he did from 3-point range as a rookie (40 percent) than last year's 34 percent mark. Given Hart will make just $5.4 million over the two remaining years on his rookie contract, he'll be a strong value either way.
For me, Ingram is the question mark. While Ingram fans see his strong scoring (18.3 points per game last season at age 21) and solid ballhandling skill for a 6-foot-9 forward, Ingram's reliance on midrange jumpers has limited his efficiency, and he rarely contributes elsewhere in the box score. As a result, Ingram rated below replacement level by Basketball-Reference.com's box plus-minus metric last season.
Ingram's closest comp at the same age in my SCHOENE projection system is Andrew Wiggins, who offers a cautionary tale as the Pelicans decide whether to extend Ingram ahead of potential restricted free agency in the summer of 2020. The Minnesota Timberwolves looked at Wiggins' precious scoring and athletic frame and saw enough reason for optimism to hand him a five-year, maximum extension in the fall of 2017. Less than two years later, it appears the Timberwolves might have to trade that contract at a loss if they want to move on from the frustrating Wiggins.
If I were Pelicans executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin, I would look to reroute Ingram to another team that views him as a budding star before making a decision on his next contract. New Orleans could then target a better catch-and-shoot option at small forward to complement the backcourt of Ball and Holiday, whose playmaking skills might limit Ingram's ability to play with the ball in his hands.
Instead, it looks like the Pelicans will consider a deal involving the No. 4 pick ahead of Thursday's NBA draft. It's tough to find a quality veteran player in his prime whom New Orleans could realistically get in return for the pick, which might leave the Pelicans either staying put at No. 4 or hoping to trade down to the bottom end of the top 10 if a team such as the Atlanta Hawks (who have the eighth and 10th picks) wants to move up.
If you were looking for New Orleans to get a surefire future star in return for Davis, this package might look a little disappointing. Even as a Lonzo believer, I must admit his ability to develop into a top-tier starting point guard will hinge on becoming a more reliable outside shooter than we've seen so far in the NBA. But unless Tatum was on the table, I don't think the Pelicans were getting that kind of prospect either now or before the deadline. And fortunately, New Orleans will have that kind of anchor prospect in Williamson thanks to lottery luck.
Given those conditions, I think the Pelicans taking multiple shots at a star between the Lakers' young players and the No. 4 pick makes sense. New Orleans was also able to squeeze maximum future draft-pick compensation out of L.A. Moving the picks and swaps years out increases the uncertainty about how good the Lakers (and the Pelicans) will be, meaning better odds they will be able to benefit from the pick swaps and get a strong unprotected first-round pick in 2024.
So far, Griffin's tenure in New Orleans has been nothing but positive, highlighted by the lottery win but also including beefing up the team's front office with new GM Trajan Langdon and VP of basketball operations/player development Swin Cash and importing highly regarded Aaron Nelson from the Phoenix Suns as VP of player care and performance. Besides the No. 1 pick, none of those moves was as important as how the Pelicans handled a Davis trade. Again, Griffin has positioned New Orleans for success.
before the pick swap info was known, it was B for the lakers and B+ for the pels
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Hate to see it.. but neeeeed that NBA youngboy x Zo collab now
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The Lakers grade cracks me up , lots of haters , we just got a top 5 player in his prime and they are worried about swap picks smh
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Thank god we still got next years pick:
Lamelo ball
Lamelo ball
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Watching kuz highlights from the 2nd half. Him and Bron have pretty good chemistry in transition. Kuz runs hard even after makes. That makes him valuable even with a 3rd star.
If that 3 pt shooting comes back....
If that 3 pt shooting comes back....
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His cutting and cherry picking are the only things that saved his offensive efficiency this past season. He and the Lakers need him to get back to 37%+ three point shooting.
D_eezus
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Kuz going to flourish this year and he’s been working with artest on his defense
MVP
Supporter
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Lol wtf does Damon Jones know??
