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

[tupac003]

Seeing all the practice footage and certain behind the scenes stuff, it’s so obvious Russ don’t rock with Bron n AD like that. He usually keeps his distance and dialogue to a minimum with them. Strictly business for that man this year

Got no issue with that at all.

He trying to be in the league next year...he gotta make that work.

 

[noblekane]

Maybe there's a reason Jones stays floating on 10 day contracts

jones 5 different teams in 6 seasons

gabriel 5 different teams in 3 seasons

not expecting much from them

 

[SORIANOTRON]

Max Christie is exactly what they need.




If he was 27 smack in the middle if his prime. The athleticism and instincts are there. Nothing with the ball in his hands tho. He strictly catch and shoot.

+ he look like kobe in the face

 

[Brosizzlew30.23]

jones 5 different teams in 6 seasons

gabriel 5 different teams in 3 seasons

not expecting much from them

You'll eventually come around on Gabriel. He is solid.

 

[Brosizzlew30.23]

Christie is the new Kuzma. Long, can play above average D, can run the lanes, and can hit the occasional 3.

 

[DLF]

jones 5 different teams in 6 seasons

gabriel 5 different teams in 3 seasons

not expecting much from them

Russ 4 teams in 5 years LOL

 

[noblekane]

You'll eventually come around on Gabriel. He is solid.

he'll probably be waived or traded during the season.

 

[grittyman]

Christie is the new Kuzma

Just when you think the takes can’t get any worse…

Brosizzle “here hold my beer”

 

[lovehateself]

Christie is the new Kuzma. Long, can play above average D, can run the lanes, and can hit the occasional 3.

Wut

 

[DLF]

Jeanie needs to give the laker team to its rightful heiress: Lee.

 

[SORIANOTRON]

Not sure who christie remind me of yet, but I’m thinking he can be a thybull-esque type player for us

He really long and got spring, very solid on ball for a young fella.

His offense will come, just gotta focus on becoming a ball hawk

 

[pmatic]

Warriors broadcast mentioned Christie reminding them of Jeremy Lamb the other night, but I don't see that.

I thought he could be Courtney Lee after the draft. He's not much of a three point threat yet though.

 

[pmatic]

Spoiler

Los Angeles Lakers preview: Predictions and analysis for the 2022-23 NBA season

Last season: 33-49; 23rd in offense, 21st in defense
Key additions: Head coach Darvin Ham, SG Patrick Beverley, PG Dennis Schröder, PF Juan Toscano-Anderson, SG Lonnie Walker IV, C Damian Jones, C Thomas Bryant, SF Troy Brown Jr.
Key subtractions: SG Malik Monk, SG Talen Horton-Tucker, SF Kent Bazemore, PF Stanley Johnson, C Dwight Howard, PG D.J. Augustin, SG Wayne Ellington, SG Avery Bradley
Draft picks: SG Max Christie (35th)

Is this roster worth fighting for?

At the core of all the tension about Russell Westbrook, potential trades and the next steps for the Lakers is the lingering question that has to inform the team’s strategic choices over the next several months.

The Lakers just went 33-49, after all, and they’re not getting any younger: LeBron James is 37, and Anthony Davis turns 30 in March. While part of the reason for L.A.’s failure last season is that the two of them combined to miss 68 games, that’s hardly the only problem. Even when James and Davis took the floor together, the Lakers went 11-11 and were outscored by 30 points.

There’s an obvious, glaring reason for that: Simply put, the Lakers had the worst supporting cast in the NBA. Among teams that were actually trying to win, or even marginally trying, no roster was anywhere near as bad in spots No. 3 through No. 15. My BORG rating only graded a few of them as being above replacement level at all, and only the departed Monk rated as being anything like rotation caliber on a good team.

Otherwise, none of those guys would have looked out of place running with Aleksej Pokuševski and Théo Maledon in a Thunder game. Of the 16 Lakers who played more than 300 minutes last season, seven are out of the league (Augustin, Trevor Ariza, Rajon Rondo, Carmelo Anthony, Ellington, Bradley and, for the moment, Howard), and three others are hanging on by their fingernails (Bazemore, Jordan and Stanley Johnson).

A huge underlying reason for that was the disastrous Westbrook trade, in which the Lakers turned Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Montrezl Harrell, Kyle Kuzma, a first-round pick and whatever was left of their cap flexibility into Westbrook, who unleashed one of the league’s all-time destructively bad offensive seasons.

While most run-of-the-mill bad players don’t have the ball in their hands enough to unleash total devastation, Westbrook shot both often (he led the team in field goal attempts!) and awfully (48.5 percent on 2s, 29.8 percent on 3s, 51.2 percent true shooting. Yum.). Along the way, he surely shattered the league record for attempted bank shots that missed off the top or the side of the backboard.

When he wasn’t sabotaging the offense, Westbrook chased ghosts on defense and actively hunted for the most absurd situation to give a “take” foul. It was a total disaster.

Oddly enough, there is upside in all the badness of a year ago. Do you realize how much better that Lakers team would have been if it just had replaced the awful players with average ones? Not even All-Stars or anything. Just six or seven “don’t kill us” guys like John Konchar or Caleb Martin, and they actually might have been good.

Anyway, that’s the upside conversation. The problem is that the Lakers have so few assets that even getting to the point of accumulating a few average players is problematic. It doesn’t help that they added a bad player into their only salary-cap vehicle, the taxpayer midlevel exception. At least they have the upside of a one-year deal for the 23-year-old Walker, so that if he turns out to be decent, he’ll be gone faster than you can say Malik Monk.

The Lakers at least did a couple of helpful things at the margin. Beverley’s advanced stats overrate him a bit because his propensity for fouling 50 feet from the basket hurts long after he’s left the court in the form of bonus free throws. But he is a helpful player who provides a defensive dog last season’s team lacked, especially in an undersized “3-and-D” shooting guard role. As an added bonus, they escaped next year’s $10 million option year on Horton-Tucker, further scrubbing a promising cap situation this coming summer.

The Lakers also got Schröder, Jones, Toscano-Anderson, Bryant and Brown on minimum deals. I don’t think these signings would move the needle much, if at all, on most teams, but relative to last season’s toenail-high bar, this haul is a clear upgrade (the Teammate of the Year competition between Westbrook and Schröder should be fun). Finally, that Kendrick Nunn looked healthy and back to his former Miami self in preseason is a major positive factor for the Lakers; his shooting and secondary playmaking should be a big help.

With that said, how much further do you want to push your chips on this roster? The price for getting off Westbrook’s contract is monstrous, at least if they want anybody remotely good in return — a 2027 first-round pick and a 2029 first-round pick, most likely, and most likely with little or no protection.

Compare that to an alternate scenario where the Lakers just … wait. Westbrook’s contract comes off the books this summer, as do those of every other Laker except James, Davis, second-round pick Max Christie and possibly the minimum deal of Jones (player option). The Lakers will be roughly $30 million below the cap, depending on where their first-round pick falls (New Orleans has swap rights from the Davis trade). As we’ve seen time and again, cap space in the L.A. market is a far more powerful currency than it is in most other places.

On the other hand … even that strategy leaves the Lakers with a denuded back end of the roster, and the fact that it still isn’t max space means it may not yield All-Star talent. Is it really worth the trouble of going the cap room route just to get, I dunno, Gary Trent Jr. or somebody like that?

One wonders, then, if the best pathway is to turn Westbrook’s contract into players under contact beyond this season … just not quite yet. It’s hard to imagine the price of dumping Westbrook’s expiring contract will stay this exorbitantly high at the trade deadline, when there will be two months left in the season and a handful of teams will have already given up on the season. Presuming the Lakers aren’t one of them (and remember, the pick swap removes their tanking incentive), it likely will be their best opportunity to put playoff-ready pieces around James and Davis.

Keep in mind too that by February the Lakers should be able to call these teams’ bluffs. If a below-cap team like Indiana or San Antonio has no alternate use of its cap space — and remember, both are below the floor right now, so they’re paying out that money either way — their price for taking on Westbrook could decrease quite a bit.

In the meantime? Well, the Lakers had a better offseason than they did a year ago. I don’t really get the Walker signing, but Beverley is a clear upgrade, Nunn’s return is massive, Schröder should mostly offset Monk’s departure as a bench scorer and, hey, young centers? This is allowed? Brown’s iffy shooting is an odd fit next to James and Davis, but the Lakers had a glaring lack of big wings; that’s why they got so fired up about the Stanley Johnson Experience last year.

In terms of the kids, Christie is a project who is unlikely to contribute much this year, but the Lakers’ scouting department has a strong enough track record of unearthing hidden gems that two-ways Cole Swider and Scotty Pippen Jr. are worth tracking. Swider, in particular, could gain traction as a stretch big off the bench if he knocks down shots. Speaking of scouting: The Lakers still have last year’s undrafted find, Austin Reaves, in the mix; if he’s starting, it feels like a red flag, but his size and playmaking can be very useful.

Nonetheless, this season does actually get back in a very large way to James and Davis. Davis looked like an all-timer in the 2020 bubble but has not been that player since; in addition to his propensity for missing games with injuries, he seems to have forgotten how to shoot. If he and James aren’t two of the 15 best players in the league this season, it doesn’t matter what the role players do; the Lakers won’t be anywhere near good enough to justify what they think of themselves.

There’s a new sheriff on the sideline as well after the Lakers opted to fire Frank Vogel because … well, because their cap situation made it hard to do anything else. That said, new hire Darvin Ham was among the league’s most respected assistants and was on virtually everyone’s short list of future head coaches. He immediately inherits a very tricky situation in managing the Westbrook issue, the limited back half of the roster and the sky-high expectations.

Overall, I’m not totally pessimistic. This team carries upside that some others in the middle of the pack lack, but getting there requires hitting on an inside straight: James and Davis stay healthy and play at or near their peaks, the role players show a pulse, and Westbrook either stops lighting things on fire or is traded for better-fitting pieces.

All those things are possible, but too many other teams in the West have made too many moves to feel good about the Lakers reclaiming their perch as contenders. If this team has a postseason run in it, it’s most likely going to start in the Play-In Tournament.

Projection: 40-42, ninth in the Western Conference

 

[pmatic]

 

[MIKE LOWERY]

Forget Christmas, CLT is tanking by Thanksgiving.

Only preseason, but they've been awful. Rozier been the only consistent guy really. All they got to look forward to now is developing Ball/Bouknight and their young bigs, which I'm not sure Steve Clifford is the guy for, unfortunately. Oubre out. Hayward out, again. Plumlee a space cadet. Lamelo ain't there yet. They probably move off PJ now rather than give him the extension.

They might lock up worst in the league before allstar break without MB. Prices are going expeditiously.

DO IT MITCH.

 

[DLF]

Forget Christmas, CLT is tanking by Thanksgiving.

Only preseason, but they've been awful. Rozier been the only consistent guy really. All they got to look forward to now is developing Ball/Bouknight and their young bigs, which I'm not sure Steve Clifford is the guy for, unfortunately. Oubre out. Hayward out, again. Plumlee a space cadet. Lamelo ain't there yet. They probably move off PJ now rather than give him the extension.

They might lock up worst in the league before allstar break without MB. Prices are going expeditiously.

DO IT MITCH.

Unfortunately for us the lakers are taking back ZERO long term salary so unless it’s for an expiring, we ain’t doing it.

With kyrie and Draymond potential free agents and the latters Klutch connection - they want cap space. This will lower our trade capability DRASTICALLY (see: no Hield. No Hayward.) also if AD starts at C and excels at it and we can get good minutes between Gabriel jones and Thomas, trading for Turner who will want 25 mill next year or he leaves will be dumb too.


Watch Legacy, you’ll see the brain trust that runs things in LA. Bunch of lead paint eating meth head looking spoiled brats that never had any success in life outside what daddy gave them

 

[noblekane]

its hell playing with the lakers in 2k23

 

[CP1708]

That last ep of the Hulu series was rough man.....

 

[pmatic]

Felt like the last episode could've been stretched to two, maybe even three episodes.

 

[DLF]

Pacers get a first for turner. Lottery protected bc why not, ain’t like anyone else giving up a good first for him. If it doesn’t convey, they get 2 seconds in 2028.plus they get a wing on pair with Matherin and Halliburton and save money.

Hornets get off of a terrible albatross of a contract. Save 30 mill over lifetime of deal and only costs them 2nd rounders.

Lakers get wing and center. Albeit very injury prone, it doesn’t cost much bc Russ sucks and team is ok without him anyways. Plus we still have 2029 pick to use with Hayward to get someone else

 

[Brosizzlew30.23]

Pacers get a first for turner. Lottery protected bc why not, ain’t like anyone else giving up a good first for him. If it doesn’t convey, they get 2 seconds in 2028.plus they get a wing on pair with Matherin and Halliburton and save money.

Hornets get off of a terrible albatross of a contract. Save 30 mill over lifetime of deal and only costs them 2nd rounders.

Lakers get wing and center. Albeit very injury prone, it doesn’t cost much bc Russ sucks and team is ok without him anyways. Plus we still have 2029 pick to use with Hayward to get someone else

If it improves the team do it Rob

#TMapproved

 

[pmatic]

Lakers deserve to lose for approving and wearing these.

 

[tupac003]

Lakers deserve to lose for approving and wearing these.

Uniforms are the least of our problems...

 

[MIKE LOWERY]

They are ugly tho.




And personally, I think the jumpman makes it worse. Why are they JB and not Nike?

 

[akajae]

Is the purple brighter now too?