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

[baik]

I think D Lo needed to get out LA to grow as a player anyway.

Still don't erase the fact that we traded him for nothing so Lonzo can get his shine....and this growth as a player after leaving the lakers seems to happen to all our guys......BI/Dlo/Lonzo/Clarkson. Lakers are just not a good team for a young player who aren't quite superstars in the making

 

[tupac003]

Yall need to go to sleep.

Try again tomorrow.

 

[geno90221]

He was hittin for sure

 

[CP1708]

This coaching thing really bothers you....

No sir. Y'all were so adamant all year about how bad Vogel was and thinkin they some kind of ****in Jedi cuz Phil smoked peyote & ****.

It's the God damn NBA. The league entire history is titles won by the elites of the sport. Russell, Kareem/Magic, Bird, MJ, Duncan, Shaq/Kobe, Bron, Steph got damn near every title but a handful. 1,000+ players and 10 of them got the majority of the rings.

Roster construction + Stars is how the game is won. 75 years it's been this way. I'm not breakin new ground.

Chris Paul been on 4 squads......
New Orleans Hornets, franchise win record.
LA Clippers, franchise win record.
Houston Rockets, franchise win record.
Phoenix Suns, franchise win record.

Those coaches.......
Byron Scott
Doc Rivers
Mike D'Antoni
Monty Williams

Y'all need a ****in map to figure that **** out? The same ****in guy changed four friggin franchises with his arrival. And y'all hate every one of them coaches cept maybe Monty. (Who wasn't exactly crushin before CP3)

It's not hard.

And David Stern took that dude from linkin up with Kobe and prime D12. I don't care who that coach woulda been. They would have demolished everyone. (Health willing, of course)

 

[drewsone]

FO valuing nepotism over basketball

 

[akajae]

we got a championship player in the great Kyle Kuzma in that trade. Never forget.

 

[essential1]

we got a championship player in the great Kyle Kuzma in that trade. Never forget.

Would have gotten Kuzma anyway even without trading DLo. Lakers had the pick after Brooklyn and Sean Marks had publicly said Kuzma wasn’t on their radar.

 

[had pants]

 

[tupac003]

Would have gotten Kuzma anyway even without trading DLo. Lakers had the pick after Brooklyn and Sean Marks had publicly said Kuzma wasn’t on their radar.

We still would have had Mosgov

Still would have had Mosgov

Still would have had Mosgov....

Why are we leaving that aspect out?

Did you want Mosgov?

 

[tupac003]

No sir. Y'all were so adamant all year about how bad Vogel was and thinkin they some kind of ****in Jedi cuz Phil smoked peyote & ****.

It's the God damn NBA. The league entire history is titles won by the elites of the sport. Russell, Kareem/Magic, Bird, MJ, Duncan, Shaq/Kobe, Bron, Steph got damn near every title but a handful. 1,000+ players and 10 of them got the majority of the rings.

Roster construction + Stars is how the game is won. 75 years it's been this way. I'm not breakin new ground.

Chris Paul been on 4 squads......
New Orleans Hornets, franchise win record.
LA Clippers, franchise win record.
Houston Rockets, franchise win record.
Phoenix Suns, franchise win record.

Those coaches.......
Byron Scott
Doc Rivers
Mike D'Antoni
Monty Williams

Y'all need a ****in map to figure that **** out? The same ****in guy changed four friggin franchises with his arrival. And y'all hate every one of them coaches cept maybe Monty. (Who wasn't exactly crushin before CP3)

It's not hard.

And David Stern took that dude from linkin up with Kobe and prime D12. I don't care who that coach woulda been. They would have demolished everyone. (Health willing, of course)

This yall thing is old..

But just so I'm clear...

The only thing that matters is stars and roster construction?

 

[darthska]

The only thing that matters is stars and roster construction?

Thassit! There are ZERO examples of stars on well-constructed rosters who didn't win it all. And if there are, it's because of... wait for it... waaaaait for itttt... it's not because of coaching... waaaait for it... it's... INJURIES!!!

-foe

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

D'lo has been in the league going on 8 years now. He had a breakout season in BK but other than that he's been injury prone and hardly a factor. He's the 3rd best player on a 7 seed after being traded for Andrew Wiggins

 

[tupac003]

Thassit! There are ZERO examples of stars on well-constructed rosters who didn't win it all. And if there are, it's because of... wait for it... waaaaait for itttt... it's not because of coaching... waaaait for it... it's... INJURIES!!!

-foe

I mean...jokes aside, I'm really trying to understand where he is coming from.

His example with CP makes sense...

But a team with Bron and AD should at least make the playin. Injuries or not.

Yes the roster construction wasn't the best, but ate we saying Reggie Jackson, and the role players the Clippers had all year is better than Bron, AD and Russ?

The lame jabs at J. Kidd make no sense. A player can get hurt in any game. Our squad for sure knows that.

I don't know. I'll wait on the next book.

 

[tupac003]

D'lo has been in the league going on 8 years now. He had a breakout season in BK but other than that he's been injury prone and hardly a factor. He's the 3rd best player on a 7 seed after being traded for Andrew Wiggins

D.Lo's team makes it to the 7th seed and now we "all cheered" when he was traded, Magic is dumb yada yada...

But when the Wolves are eliminated in the first round, nobody will bring his name up again...

I love NT.

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

D.Lo's team makes it to the 7th seed and now we "all cheered" when he was traded, Magic is dumb yada yada...

But when the Wolves are eliminated in the first round, nobody will bring his name up again...

I love NT.

I mean this has probably been his worst season statistically since leaving the Lakers. But now he's the one that got away

 

[pmatic]

I'm a D'Lo fan, but why is his name being brought up?

The real mistake was letting Lopez walk for nothing. He would have been perfect next to Bron the following season. But instead we gave $16M combined to Rondo, Beasley and Lance.

 

[tupac003]

I'm a D'Lo fan, but why is his name being brought up?

The real mistake was letting Lopez walk for nothing. He would have been perfect next to Bron the following season. But instead we gave $16M combined to Rondo, Beasley and Lance.

This is why his name is brought up

Remember when Magic gave D’lo away in a salary dump….to create salary space to then sign….lance, Beasley, rondo


Lol

Then apparently "we" all cheered when he was traded.

But you are right about Lopez. Never understood why we let him walk. Seems we like doing that. Same thing with Javale. Just let him walk.

 

[DLF]

I'm a D'Lo fan, but why is his name being brought up?

The real mistake was letting Lopez walk for nothing. He would have been perfect next to Bron the following season. But instead we gave $16M combined to Rondo, Beasley and Lance.

Brought up bc we we chronicling all the mistakes the team made over the years.

 

[darthska]

I'm really trying to understand where he is coming from.

-foe

 

[CP1708]

His example with CP makes sense...

Praise Jesus!!!!

 

[Maximus Meridius]

Ummm...

I guess we all forget that we got out of the Mosgov contract with that trade.

I guess yall wanted Mosgov and Deng on the pay roll...

Typical NT. Leave out the details and focus on things that make your narrative make sense.

Carry on.

Dudes just saying stuff with no context at all

 

[pmatic]

 

[noblekane]

Well, actually, I was just jotting all the names down cuz, coaching in the NBA is so SUUUUUUUUPER important, we'll just offer the ole job to just about anybody who'll take it.

Then, we'll all cheer and praise, and be excited, only to find out a year from now folks will be cursing "rotations" and "offensive identity" and "adjustments" and all the other fan speak catch phrases that are so popular in today's fandom.

Then, we'll sit back and actually examine the names, and so far none of them are actual definitive upgrades over the guy we fired. Won't that be a hoot?

So, I'm just jottin some notes is all. Nothin more.

were you this pissed off when the lakers fired mike brown after 5 games?

5 ******* games

its over

vogel belong to the streets now.

 

[noblekane]

D'lo has been in the league going on 8 years now. He had a breakout season in BK but other than that he's been injury prone and hardly a factor. He's the 3rd best player on a 7 seed after being traded for Andrew Wiggins

the real **** up was magic letting lavar seduce him with pancakes into taking lonzo ball over deaaron fox or jason tatum smh

 

[pmatic]

Spoiler

Rob Pelinka accepts responsibility because there’s no one else to blame

The Los Angeles Lakers were turnover-prone long before Russell Westbrook became their highest-paid player.

To see it, one needed only to look at their bench year after year.

In the last five seasons, the Lakers have cycled through three head athletic trainers, three head strength coaches and a couple dozen supporting staffers. To say nothing of a roster that has been overhauled annually.

Now, they are looking for their third head coach in that span.

With Rob Pelinka’s Lakers, there has always been someone to take the fall.

But after firing Frank Vogel on Monday, the Lakers general manager is running out of human shields.

What comes next will be squarely on him.

Pelinka seemed to understand that on Monday, when he acknowledged the source of the Lakers issues in a 33-49 season that ended on Sunday.

“Our roster did not work,” he said bluntly.

Contrast that to a year ago: When the defending-champion Lakers were eliminated in the first round by Phoenix, Pelinka lamented “a championship-caliber roster” that fell short because of circumstances “that weren’t within our control.”

To his credit, Pelinka struck a much different tone after a second straight disappointment, and third in four years.

“I’m the one who leads the basketball operations department,” he said, “and will take ultimate accountability for the roster decisions that are made.”

Pelinka still tried to tie his life raft to others. He hid behind the decision to fire Vogel as a “collaboration” with Jeanie Buss and Tim Harris, the Lakers president of business; he highlighted the responsibilities of the coaching and training staffs; he made sure to remind everyone that Kurt Rambis and brothers Joey and Jesse Buss had a hand in building the roster, too.

But after he pulled the trigger on the trade for Russell Westbrook, refused to match an offer for Alex Caruso, overinvested in Talen Horton-Tucker, and created such a void of depth that the Lakers needed to sign eight players to minimum contracts, there really was no point in Pelinka trying to hide behind anyone else in the organization.

This team was his responsibility.

And the next one will be, too.

Pelinka made himself more accountable than ever before, but he did not look comfortable doing so. Beneath the table, he tapped his left foot nervously, like a gliding duck paddling furiously underwater.

Is he on the clock? Would Jeanie Buss put him there?

Consider the next five months the Summer of Pelinka.

The GM is entering an offseason where he faces more pressure than he has since 2019, when Magic Johnson bolted and left Pelinka holding the bag.

“I’m confident that, like we did in 2019 after a year of disappointment, we (will) put our heads together,” Pelinka said Monday, “and I think we’ll spend the next several weeks and months doing an autopsy of what worked well and what didn’t work well this year and come out of that with a clear plan of how to get it right in July.”

But this is a different situation than three years ago. Back then, the Lakers had Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram. They had draft picks. They had assets to wave around like a whale on the casino floor with his roll of hundreds. This time, there is no trade to be made like the one Pelinka executed for Anthony Davis.

In honestly, Johnson left Pelinka with a golden opportunity: a wealth of trade assets and a motivated LeBron James.

This situation requires a far defter touch.

He will need to make a decision about Westbrook — a conundrum that would seem to put two of the Lakers’ fundamental values in opposition to one another: keeping the books clean to sign another top free agent in 2023? Or taking on long-term money to get rid of Westbrook and give themselves the best chance of winning with LeBron James next season?

It would seem to be an easy choice — the Lakers were ready to stray from their 2023 cap space plan last summer, when they nearly traded for Buddy Hield instead of Westbrook. But the Lakers remember all too well what happens when an embattled front office fixates too heavily on the short term: The Lakers only just stopped paying Luol Deng after the ill-planned summer of 2016 in which Mitch Kupchak and Jim Buss signed Deng and Timofey Mozgov for a combined $136 million.

Kupchak and Buss didn’t make it to another summer.

Can Pelinka learn from the past and somehow navigate these narrow corridors? Acquiring multiple starters for Westbrook would seem to be a huge win for Pelinka. And while teams are always eager to shed bad contracts, would teams expect extra draft compensation to play ball with the Lakers?

Pelinka already bungled the first move of the offseason by failing to control the news of Vogel’s pending dismissal. Rather than acknowledge that Vogel deserved something better, Pelinka dismissed the initial news report as “speculative and unsourced.” Vogel wasn’t fired, in Pelinka parlance, he just transition “from being the leader of the Lakers to part of our legacy.”

Now he needs to find a willing replacement for a mistreated coach and to unveil a long-term strategy for the next stage of the Lakers partnership with LeBron.

James may have said on Monday that he had not yet given much thought to the two-year extension he will be eligible to sign later this season, but you can bet Pelinka has.

“Every indication that we’ve received is that he sees the Lakers as his home,” Pelinka said.

That extension can’t be hammered out until August anyway. So between now and then, the two people who will be watching Pelinka most closely will be James and Jeanie Buss.

Sources have told The Athletic that Pelinka has two years left on the contract extension that accompanied his promotion to vice president of basketball operations last year. Would Jeanie fire Pelinka, who she views as an extension of Kobe Bryant?

Another disaster like last season, and she would almost have no choice. Pelinka didn’t have to tell us he would accept responsibility. He’s the only one left.