This team has gotten worse every year since the 2020 title, Pelinka can no longer coast on Magic’s laurels, he needs to go

It’s time. This franchise needs a top to bottom cultural rebuild.

for this long.


Outside of the one chip year, its been a lot of years of mediocrity.



I'm not the basketball fanatic I used to be, but one ring doesn't seem worth all these other shitty years. Especially with the future seeming so bleak.


Even if the chip was worth it to some, its still odd as f*ck that they essentially changed up the identify of that team and went after shit like the corpse of Marc Gasol. Made moves that completely changed the team's identity and didn't even let the title team try to repeat.


Just a weird situation and a shitty-ran team with poor decisions by Rob, Jeanie, LeGM, etc.

Gotta wonder about that alternate reality where you kept BI and just tried to build and get better more organically.

I honestly don't see a world where all the young guys stayed on the team, but it didn't have to come to THIS either.

But the title was worth it.

It just...is weird.

Were that the case, I’d be a billionaire and I’d already own the team.

I’d also be able to fly, shoot lasers from my eyes, and control minds like Purple Man.

But yeah this is gonna reach Knicks levels once Bron retires/leaves.

Trade it all for assets. It's LA. You can get free agents. But nothing good will come of striving for the 5th seed for the next few years while we're sold the image of having Bron/AD.

I love AD. But he's not the dude to lead a team anymore. He's one of the best second bananas in the league. The problem is the main guy is nearly 38 with about a billion miles on his legs.

Fire Jeanie. Fire Pelinka. Keep Ham. Keep Bron because you have to. And then just...go nuclear.

Yes, I'm mad.

this year's roster is worse than last year's, I can't remember a time when I had to constantly look up bio's on my phone to figure out who our players are on the court

Vogel was a scapegoat - he certainly didn't deserve to be fired. But he wasn't without fault whatsoever. He had some VERY questionable rotations. But when he had the personnel to do play the defense he was implementing? He was great.

>Vogel was a scapegoat - he certainly didn't deserve to be
>fired. But he wasn't without fault whatsoever. He had some
>VERY questionable rotations. But when he had the personnel to
>do play the defense he was implementing? He was great.

prior to last night the defense under Ham has been good too. But fielding what amounts to a g-league roster around Bron/AD/Russ or no Russ is not going to cut it.

Not that I like to compare us to the Clippers but when you look at the roster they've built around their stars then look at ours, well...

It just feels like this front office is more into getting names than anything else. Even people who are washed like last year.

Since (and even before) the title, they've signed/traded for:

Marc Gasol
Demarcus Cousins
Carmelo Anthony
Rajon Rondo
Dennis Schroder (2x)
Dwight Howard (2x)
Russell Westbrook

It just feels like Pelika/Jeanie/WHOEVERS knowledge of the NBA stopped in like...2011?

The 2020 team felt like a meme team at first - but KCP, Caruso, Rondo, Dwight, Danny Green, etc all had roles to play and they did it to perfection alongside a 3 years younger pairing than AD/Bron. Now? Woof. Now it just feels like they want to put marquee names together even if they don't make sense - and I sincerely have no idea how Pelinka got an extension after a 1st round knockout and a lottery team his 2 years after the title. It's getting WORSE, not better! Like even a little!

>It just feels like this front office is more into getting
>names than anything else. Even people who are washed like last
>year.
>
>Since (and even before) the title, they've signed/traded for:
>
>Marc Gasol
>Demarcus Cousins
>Carmelo Anthony
>Rajon Rondo
>Dennis Schroder (2x)
>Dwight Howard (2x)
>Russell Westbrook
>
>It just feels like Pelika/Jeanie/WHOEVERS knowledge of the NBA
>stopped in like...2011?
>
>The 2020 team felt like a meme team at first - but KCP,
>Caruso, Rondo, Dwight, Danny Green, etc all had roles to play
>and they did it to perfection alongside a 3 years younger
>pairing than AD/Bron. Now? Woof. Now it just feels like they
>want to put marquee names together even if they don't make
>sense - and I sincerely have no idea how Pelinka got an
>extension after a 1st round knockout and a lottery team his 2
>years after the title. It's getting WORSE, not better! Like
>even a little!

that's the thing, we don't even have names this year that were once good in the league even if it was 10 years ago.

Now we're sending out people like Matt Ryan, Troy Brown Jr, Damian Jones... At least we got Kendrick Nunn playing this year even though he has been terrible. And we traded THT and Stanley Johnson for Patrick Beverly? We got Juan Toscano-Anderson who was like the 12th man on the Warriors last year expecting major contributions from him lol

His contract was terrible. Too much money AND a player option? Yikes. Stanley might help, I guess...but at least Pat Bev has heart if nothing else.

But yeah. It's worse now. And half the team (or more?) from last year isn't even on a roster right today. I know they're handcuffed to an extent because of the money but how are you going to throw the MLE at Lonnie Walker who sure can jump high but can't do shit else??

>His contract was terrible. Too much money AND a player
>option? Yikes. Stanley might help, I guess...but at least Pat
>Bev has heart if nothing else.
>
>But yeah. It's worse now. And half the team (or more?) from
>last year isn't even on a roster right today. I know they're
>handcuffed to an extent because of the money but how are you
>going to throw the MLE at Lonnie Walker who sure can jump high
>but can't do shit else??

yeah its like they listened to all the chatter about last year's team being old so they wanted to get younger at all costs even if it meant filling out the roster with g-league level talent.

Everyone else can kick rocks though.

They won’t. But they should.

We should have traded him last year.
Or this past summer.
Or last week.

Any potential haul already looked light as fuck.

But now?

I mean, yeah there’s likely still a fair amount of delusional people who think the phrase “when healthy” doesn’t completely undo whatever superlatives come before or after they say it.

But I doubt there are many GMs in that camp.

Between that, the obvious state of disarray, and the active Lakers tax, I don’t see much of a return. Could we even get two unprotected picks and an expiring somewhere?

Then I'd ship Russ and the picks to Charlotte for Rozier and Hayward.

Rozier is exactly what we need from the guard spot, and Hayward is a quality shooter in his own right, who can also rebound and distribute.

Hayward would also make a decent trade chip on draft day, bundled with the pick, or at the deadline as an expiring.

That's the best deal on the (current) market for Russ: it gets us the best players available, keeps some financial flexibility, gives us shooting from two different positions, both can play off ball, etc.

That would give us Myles, Bron, Hield, Hayward, Rozier as a starting five, tons of shooting, great interior D, and we don't really lose much on AD since he and Myles will both spend a fair amount of games in street clothes anyways.

We'd have two expiring deals in Hield and Hayward next year, Myles coming off the books this year, and we trade Bron next summer.

We'd be light years ahead on a rebuild, while quite possibly fielding an interestingly competitive team this year.

That’s all I got, lol.

Even without the picks, I’d do that deal and ship Bron out this summer

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<---- 5....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlgiritpmfo

=======================================

Westbrick feels a bit hackey. Low hanging fruit.

Klang feels more clever for my money

for somebody that never played for us

We let Randle and Caruso go for nothing. Wouldn’t surprise me if we would have done the same with Zu.

Anyway…that one’s on Magic.

Zubac, not Caruso.

Anyway. Rob sucks. Doesn’t mean we can’t point out that was under Magic tho.

Or were you somehow, some way, for some strange reason under the impression that I was referencing decisions not in this particular thread of the post, outside the scope of his tenure?

The thread was about specific players, all of who left under Magic.

You said “ Oh we’re putting all that on Magic now”
I said “so Magic isn’t responsible for shit?”

We were clearly talking about those players, under magic

There’s no logical path to arrive at the conclusion that I was talking about today.

You’re being ridiculous.

And that is the ONLY silver lining to the year.

We should just be fine with the fact he’s sorta a later stage Wilt to the Lakers org. Won a title, helped make the franchise relevant but won’t be remembered for his Laker tenure which is totally okay.

Truly wish this poverty franchise so worried about ticket sales or whatever would just fire sale AD, Russ, and Bron (next year I guess) for any small assets and rebuild but they won’t so…let’s enjoy this bum ass squad. Rob and Jeanie are some shit.

I was really excited for Russell, Ingram, Randle, Ball, Nance, Kuzma, Hart.

We drafted well in those years.

Hope we can do it again.

But that team might be a play in at best.

Let’s just hope they don’t fuck off these draft picks for some lateral move.

1. Take on a bunch of raw young promising talent

2. Develop it

3. Be aggressive in getting a star via trade/free agency

Shit it’d have been even easier to recruit a FA by just being the Lakers. Cavs had to give up a boat load to get DM (but it’s proven way worth it already)

I think Lakers and Bron surely both saw things going differently. You gotta KNOW Anthony Davis saw things going differently. But Bron too old, AD too frail, roster too trash, war chest too empty, West too competitive, front office too haphazard, etc. In hindsight it was all there but that doesn’t make it any easier to digest.

They can rip the band aid off of this and trade everyone away and get out of this healthily in like 2-3 years if they want, but they unfortunately are full of more hubris than any franchise in pro sports and that includes the Cowboys.

But even with the strategy of getting LeBron and AD……it’s almost incredible that the supporting cast is this bad at this point, given the depth of assets(cloaked!) we had when this thing started.

A couple years ago we could at least say “we’re good when AD and LeBron are both healthy!”

Now we are one of the worst teams in the league even when AD and LeBron are healthy. It’s almost impressive how bad of a team we’ve put around them.

Trades and signings would have altered that.

But I'd have loved to see BI/Julius come up together, possibly with Zo and his two-way brilliance. I can see the rest getting shipped out in trades or signings.

I said at the time that skipping steps was a bad idea.

You take the known over the unknown, sure. But I think the signs were there for all those guys.

We'd have eventually built out a contending team. I just think Lebron was skipping ahead too much, and trading so many picks and swaps was a huge mistake

had we waited until FA and explored our options then, we'd have kept far more assets.

Even then, had we not done the Russ deal, we could have at least been in play for Spyda or Murray or something, with three picks to deal along with Kuz, KCP, etc.

Randle and BI might have worked - who knows. I can’t see their game really working together but maybe. Zo simply cannot stay healthy. It’s sad. The other guys were nice pieces but I truly couldn’t see them all staying together with the inevitable contracts and overall fit.

>Randle and BI might have worked - who knows. I can’t see
>their game really working together but maybe. Zo simply cannot
>stay healthy. It’s sad. The other guys were nice pieces but
>I truly couldn’t see them all staying together with the
>inevitable contracts and overall fit.

It doesn’t have to be BI/Randle
It could just be BI

But having BI, plus smarter asset management, NOT trying to skip steps like we did and actually let them cook? yes, in the hands of a competent GM, we could easily be setup, right today, with a team built to contend for 4-5 years.

It doesn’t have to be my spitballed version of it. But i had deep concerns about rushing the process, and those concerns have now become our reality. And i think a different approach, that didn’t involve Lebron coming in and sucking the air out of everyone’s sails and necessitating a quicker turnaround, would have been the smarter move for long term stability.

See it in the extremely limited, narrow, basic as possible way you see everything.

HUGE asterisks, bigger than the 99 spurs

If non Laker fans want to feel that way, fine. I don’t care about that either, lol.

Lakers were the best team all season long, and won it and I enjoyed it all.

That doesn't cut the way you or anyone thinks.

It's just a failure of logic to put an asterisk on that chip.

Period.

It's not up for debate. You're factually, logically, objectively wrong here, as is everyone else on that bullshit.

If it was an easy chip, fine. It was an easy chip.

That means nobody else was able to get the easy chip.

Whatever negative it is to have won that, it's far, far worse for every other team who couldn't win that so-called easy chip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U7ZSKjuW0Q

He should be very happy for the ring and that terrible contract

Would you like for me to take out this trash for you.

Gotta be put out on curb before 6am

Damn.

Illinois has to do better.

expring 30+ mill off the books is a good deal unto itself >

I know this is just you on some fuck the lakers shit

but no, AD +Russ for Vuc, Dermar and a pick is far from a fair deal for the Lakers.

We can keep AD and get a comparable return for what we have

Even having a shot at Wemby while you have 2 all star level players is a serious come up.

Worth the title. But hard not to be jealous right now.

> But hard not to be jealous right now.

Fact is this franchise has been beyond fucked post Dr. Buss. We got so lucky Bron wanted to come here. The longer that this goes on, the whole front office looks worse and worse. Until we see real improvements there…hard for me to buy in to the “Lakers will always be relevant” narrative.

the fact that you feel the need to hedge over something so trivial says you're absolutely worried/bothered/whatever about being wrong

but do you

Or, when evidence or strong argument is presented, accept where I'm off base in my assertions.

Who is objectively prideful, that guy, or the one who couldn't just admit that he didn't know something without hedging- and couldn't handle an objectively reasonable retort without deflecting to something else altogether, THEN doing "I'm rubber you're glue" in the next response?

I'm sure you'll really show me in your next insincere reply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<---- 5....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlgiritpmfo

=======================================

https://www.silverscreenandroll.com/2022/11/20/23470212/lakers-raptors-trade-first-round-pick-talen-horton-tucker-khem-birch-report-rumor

"And if you’re looking for even MORE reason to be frustrated, Dave McMenamin of ESPN provided some more ammo recently. In his weekly podcast discussing the Lakers and Clippers with Ohm Youngmisuk, also of ESPN, McMenamin detailed a trade the Lakers didn’t do involving THT last season before pulling the trigger on the PatBev one (h/t OVOLakeShow/Twitter). “I’m told that the Lakers had talks with the Toronto Raptors where the Raptors late last year when it already looked like the Lakers were probably out of it or, at the very least, going to be a low seed and wouldn’t have a likely championship path to go all the way, the Raptors would have traded for Talen Horton-Tucker. Traded a first-round pick.”

Fucking morons.

We could have added a pick to our anemic cache of assets?

Theorhetically, we could have gone into this offseason with *4* picks and cap space.

Or had a chance to offer Russ' contract and three picks, plus maybe Nunn to at least try to get Spyda. Could have taken someone else off the books for them to sweeten the deal and match salaries.

Or...... something.

Fire everyone.

Would not have been the case with Birch.

Now - a first round pick would be NICE, but let's not forget that THT had a dogshit contract that Rob gave him with a PLAYER OPTION for next year which he will assuredly pick up now that he's proven to be worthless. You're essentially trading 7 mil in capspace for a 20's-ish pick in a draft that they haven't even named (so perhaps better, perhaps worse?)

2 wrongs don't make a right. THT's contract sucked and it was better for them to get out of it without attaching longterm money to it. I was a BIG proponent of trading THT for Lowry - but that looks to be the right move to have not. 7 mil for Khem Birch wasn't the move and actually would have taken away from the cap space you're saying was so important.

This has nothing to do with the pick.

I couldn't care less about these picks.

But those are the currency of modern NBA trades, and the more you have, the better your chances of getting a difference maker in a trade.

That's why I would rather have the pick, and why it wouldn't have been a 'two wrongs' scenario, IMO.

*skatin' the rings of saturn*


..and miles to go before i sleep...

and Lakers Nation sucks in general ( smiles).

I propose the following, which was tossed around by NBA gms in
discussion back in November.

AD wants to play in Chicago some day. Lavine wants to play in LA.


Bulls get: AD

Lakers get: Lavine, Patrick Williams, Dragic and a first round pick ( via Portland)


Anyway, Fock lakers.