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**LA LAKERS THREAD** Sitting on 17! 2023-2024 offseason begins
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by licensed to ball,
- Start date
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Doesn’t Vando have really good defensive versatility?Like he can guard 3-5?
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More of a center in a power forward's body. He expanded to being an okay-ish three point shooter from the corners this season.
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Underrated in this is that Russell already played with Vanderbilt & Beasley in Minny, that should help in settling in
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I like Rui, but a Rui for Cam Johnson swap would balance out this team a ton.
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Nets would have the Japan market on lock but I doubt they would go for that.
Cam would be so good for our squad tho. Would love to pick him up some how but I don’t think it’s possible.
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I'd throw in the leftover seconds (two I think), but probably wouldn't do the 2029 first. Cam will probably sign for $75-90M this summer.
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So your bet is the nets don’t want to pay him.
I can see that but if im another team in contention, I would give up a lottery protected or even top 10 protected first for Cam all day and that beats whatever we could probably offer. Unless the nets really want to corner the Japanese market (totally possible lol)
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Russell Westbrook trade might be too late but sets up Lakers for future
Four of the top seven players in minutes for the 2022 Minnesota Timberwolves will soon play for the Los Angeles Lakers. Can a return to Minneapolis be far behind? A Josh Okogie acquisition? Whither Greg Monroe?
Joke aside, the glass-half-full perspective in the wake of Wednesday night’s reported three-team trade between the Lakers, Jazz and Timberwolves is that the Lakers have the surrounding pieces from Minnesota’s 46-win team last season …. except instead of Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards, the headliners are LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
That’s a prima facie case that the Lakers, post-trade, should be quite a bit better than they were before. Did it justify the investment they just made of a future first-round pick? Squaring that requires believing that they helped their future at least as much as their present. I think, in this case, we can probably make that argument.
To review, the Lakers are finalizing a deal that would send Russell Westbrook, Damian Jones and Juan Toscano-Anderson to Utah, along with a top-four-protected 2027 first-round pick. Mike Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and second-round picks in 2025 and 2026 would go from Utah to Minnesota; D’Angelo Russell from Minnesota to the Lakers; a 2024 second-round pick would return from the Lakers to Minnesota; and Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt from Utah to the Lakers.
Because the universe revolves around the Lakers, let’s start with them. OK, actually let’s start with the Lakers because they gave up the most capital and made the clearest roster transformation. This is a deal we’ll be talking about for a while, hopefully in more positive terms than the disastrous trade to acquire Westbrook in 2021.
As much as the Lakers might believe themselves to be championship contenders, the evidence thus far is overwhelming that A) they’re not, and B) the three players they’re acquiring are highly unlikely to move the needle enough to change that state of affairs.
To wit: Russell is a mild upgrade on Westbrook (an aside: Is this the first first-name for last-name trade in NBA history? Was Anderson Varejao ever traded for Ryan Anderson?), another shoot-first guard, yes, but one who can actually shoot and won’t hijack the offense. Russell is a lethargic defender even on his best days, doesn’t rebounds like Westbrook and rarely gets downhill into the paint. But his shooting likely helps L.A. much more than Westbrook’s slaloms to the rim.
Much the same can be said for Beasley, a high-volume 3-point shooter (15.4 bombs per 100 possessions!) joining a team that ranks 26th in 3-point frequency. Yep, that’ll help. Beasley is at 38.0 percent career from distance too. Alas, he’s mostly been a “3-and” player in his career, with the “-D” part only making sporadic cameos. He’s always thrived best as a bench gunner, where he won’t have to guard starters; one can see him playing behind Patrick Beverley in this role exactly the same way he did in Minnesota.
In a vacuum, Vanderbilt might have as much value as anyone in this deal — his contract for next season pays him just $4.7 million even though he’s easily worth double that — but on the Lakers, his role could be constricted. Vanderbilt defends, rebounds and runs but doesn’t shoot and is undersized at five; on a roster that already has James, Davis and newly acquired Rui Hachimura, he could get squeezed.
The other factor for L.A.’s acquisitions is how low the bar is for them to help. This was the worst roster in the league after the top two players; now, it’ll be viable. The Lakers’ replacement-level bench combinations are likely to now be shunted aside for better combinations that feature these three new players and the recently acquired Hachimura. In particular, giving Russell to the keys to the second unit in a “Wolves West” lineup with Beasley and Vanderbilt seems promising.
In the short term, the problem is that the Lakers entered Wednesday 25-30, 1 1/2 games out of 12th place, 2.0 out of appearing in the Play-In and 5.0 out of home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. In all the excitement over LeBron James breaking the all-time scoring record on Tuesday, the Lakers also lost at home to 12th-place Oklahoma City.
The schedule doesn’t help from there. That Thunder team has the worst record of any team the Lakers will play in a 15-game stretch that began Tuesday. The evidence was overwhelming that the previous team just wasn’t that good; how much better are two rotation players and a back-end starter really going to make it, and will it even matter with the upcoming slate?
So I’m not expecting some overnight turnaround from L.A. Fortunately for the Lakers, making up the distance to 10th place and a Play-In appearance probably won’t be daunting; they just weakened the team in 10th (Utah) significantly and should at least have enough juice on this roster to pass Portland and Oklahoma City as long as James and Davis are healthy. (It also would help if the Davis who played in November would show up, rather than the guy who currently inhabits his uniform.) But even from the 10th spot, they have to win twice on the road — in, say, Minnesota and New Orleans — just to make the real playoffs.
And yet … I can argue the Lakers won this trade. They set themselves up with maximum just-in-case flexibility, preserved the juiciest pieces of the assets they owned via top-four protection and no encumbering into future years and got three rotation-caliber players.
Vanderbilt has a great contract, Beasley has a decent one because of a $16 million team option for next year, and Russell’s stinker of a deal is about to expire … which should allow the Lakers to either re-sign him for less money via Bird rights or use either him or Hachimura in a sign-and-trade to bring back more talent via their 2029 first (which, by summer, can be protected into 2030).
Getting the Beasley contract also allows the Lakers to pivot on draft night if an opportunistic trade comes up. They could pick up his option and use him and their 2023 first-round pick in a trade for a bigger talent; they can’t do that yet, but it will be kosher on draft night.
Nobody is discussing this, but the Lakers could also trade their 2023 first for a future first on draft night, so that it’s around later in the summer to package with the 2029 pick. (The Lakers’ first is subject to a swap with New Orleans, but in the worst case, they will have the Pelicans’ pick to trade.)
Four of the top seven players in minutes for the 2022 Minnesota Timberwolves will soon play for the Los Angeles Lakers. Can a return to Minneapolis be far behind? A Josh Okogie acquisition? Whither Greg Monroe?
Joke aside, the glass-half-full perspective in the wake of Wednesday night’s reported three-team trade between the Lakers, Jazz and Timberwolves is that the Lakers have the surrounding pieces from Minnesota’s 46-win team last season …. except instead of Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards, the headliners are LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
That’s a prima facie case that the Lakers, post-trade, should be quite a bit better than they were before. Did it justify the investment they just made of a future first-round pick? Squaring that requires believing that they helped their future at least as much as their present. I think, in this case, we can probably make that argument.
To review, the Lakers are finalizing a deal that would send Russell Westbrook, Damian Jones and Juan Toscano-Anderson to Utah, along with a top-four-protected 2027 first-round pick. Mike Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and second-round picks in 2025 and 2026 would go from Utah to Minnesota; D’Angelo Russell from Minnesota to the Lakers; a 2024 second-round pick would return from the Lakers to Minnesota; and Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt from Utah to the Lakers.
Because the universe revolves around the Lakers, let’s start with them. OK, actually let’s start with the Lakers because they gave up the most capital and made the clearest roster transformation. This is a deal we’ll be talking about for a while, hopefully in more positive terms than the disastrous trade to acquire Westbrook in 2021.
As much as the Lakers might believe themselves to be championship contenders, the evidence thus far is overwhelming that A) they’re not, and B) the three players they’re acquiring are highly unlikely to move the needle enough to change that state of affairs.
To wit: Russell is a mild upgrade on Westbrook (an aside: Is this the first first-name for last-name trade in NBA history? Was Anderson Varejao ever traded for Ryan Anderson?), another shoot-first guard, yes, but one who can actually shoot and won’t hijack the offense. Russell is a lethargic defender even on his best days, doesn’t rebounds like Westbrook and rarely gets downhill into the paint. But his shooting likely helps L.A. much more than Westbrook’s slaloms to the rim.
Much the same can be said for Beasley, a high-volume 3-point shooter (15.4 bombs per 100 possessions!) joining a team that ranks 26th in 3-point frequency. Yep, that’ll help. Beasley is at 38.0 percent career from distance too. Alas, he’s mostly been a “3-and” player in his career, with the “-D” part only making sporadic cameos. He’s always thrived best as a bench gunner, where he won’t have to guard starters; one can see him playing behind Patrick Beverley in this role exactly the same way he did in Minnesota.
In a vacuum, Vanderbilt might have as much value as anyone in this deal — his contract for next season pays him just $4.7 million even though he’s easily worth double that — but on the Lakers, his role could be constricted. Vanderbilt defends, rebounds and runs but doesn’t shoot and is undersized at five; on a roster that already has James, Davis and newly acquired Rui Hachimura, he could get squeezed.
The other factor for L.A.’s acquisitions is how low the bar is for them to help. This was the worst roster in the league after the top two players; now, it’ll be viable. The Lakers’ replacement-level bench combinations are likely to now be shunted aside for better combinations that feature these three new players and the recently acquired Hachimura. In particular, giving Russell to the keys to the second unit in a “Wolves West” lineup with Beasley and Vanderbilt seems promising.
In the short term, the problem is that the Lakers entered Wednesday 25-30, 1 1/2 games out of 12th place, 2.0 out of appearing in the Play-In and 5.0 out of home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. In all the excitement over LeBron James breaking the all-time scoring record on Tuesday, the Lakers also lost at home to 12th-place Oklahoma City.
The schedule doesn’t help from there. That Thunder team has the worst record of any team the Lakers will play in a 15-game stretch that began Tuesday. The evidence was overwhelming that the previous team just wasn’t that good; how much better are two rotation players and a back-end starter really going to make it, and will it even matter with the upcoming slate?
So I’m not expecting some overnight turnaround from L.A. Fortunately for the Lakers, making up the distance to 10th place and a Play-In appearance probably won’t be daunting; they just weakened the team in 10th (Utah) significantly and should at least have enough juice on this roster to pass Portland and Oklahoma City as long as James and Davis are healthy. (It also would help if the Davis who played in November would show up, rather than the guy who currently inhabits his uniform.) But even from the 10th spot, they have to win twice on the road — in, say, Minnesota and New Orleans — just to make the real playoffs.
And yet … I can argue the Lakers won this trade. They set themselves up with maximum just-in-case flexibility, preserved the juiciest pieces of the assets they owned via top-four protection and no encumbering into future years and got three rotation-caliber players.
Vanderbilt has a great contract, Beasley has a decent one because of a $16 million team option for next year, and Russell’s stinker of a deal is about to expire … which should allow the Lakers to either re-sign him for less money via Bird rights or use either him or Hachimura in a sign-and-trade to bring back more talent via their 2029 first (which, by summer, can be protected into 2030).
Getting the Beasley contract also allows the Lakers to pivot on draft night if an opportunistic trade comes up. They could pick up his option and use him and their 2023 first-round pick in a trade for a bigger talent; they can’t do that yet, but it will be kosher on draft night.
Nobody is discussing this, but the Lakers could also trade their 2023 first for a future first on draft night, so that it’s around later in the summer to package with the 2029 pick. (The Lakers’ first is subject to a swap with New Orleans, but in the worst case, they will have the Pelicans’ pick to trade.)
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The Nets owe us.
The Nets are so ***.
The Nets are so ***.
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Oh...
And AD better EAT. We actually have floor spacing.
If AD is still taking fall away jumpers, trade him.
And AD better EAT. We actually have floor spacing.
If AD is still taking fall away jumpers, trade him.
darthska
Staff member
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darthska
Staff member
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Need a another wing and a solid big
I don’t trust AD
I don’t trust AD
darthska
Staff member
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Me, personally, I've never been wrong on a trade ssssooooo...
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Just thought of this.
Maybe AD was pissed he wasn’t in the game to share that moment with Bron. That video will be replayed for decades and it’s Bron hugging Thomas Bryant
Maybe AD was pissed he wasn’t in the game to share that moment with Bron. That video will be replayed for decades and it’s Bron hugging Thomas Bryant
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That or he was in trade talks.Just thought of this.
Maybe AD was pissed he wasn’t in the game to share that moment with Bron. That video will be replayed for decades and it’s Bron hugging Thomas Bryant
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Not saying this is what I want but I bet Jeanie is now thinking of the suns as the next Warriors so her thought is “why make big swings now when we have no shot”
I wonder if she even makes the D’lo trade if KD got traded hours earlier
I wonder if she even makes the D’lo trade if KD got traded hours earlier
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Man f the Nets, if they knew they were gonna blow it up they coulda had Russ expiring deal and we would a took Curry or Harris horrible contracts with Kyrie
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Should be thanking Tsai for not wanting to appease Kyrie.
Shrugs
Shrugs
darthska
Staff member
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KD on the Suns spoiled my coffee, man.
They're winning it all.
I hate Tsai.
They're winning it all.
I hate Tsai.
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Fr?
