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

[MVP]

I honestly think either of them would get PT before Hayes. AD all but guaranteed to miss time as well.

 

[Brosizzlew30.23]

I honestly think either of them would get PT before Hayes. AD all but guaranteed to miss time as well.

Hayes is nice. He may even be starting at the 5 by midseason

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

Hayes is nice. He may even be starting at the 5 by midseason

We can bet anything you want on that

 

[SORIANOTRON]

Plumlee solid AF

really good hands and a good interior passer

Plumlee + Hayes + AD….

 

[DLF]

I’m hearing they are debating Bamba vs Thompson

I vote for Bamba bc he at least has some form of offensive game and when AD is out for games, having a center rotation of Hayes/Bamba is better than Hayes/Thompson- when AD is out.

I would actually vote for Wood over either. Not bc I love Wood, but when AD is hurt at least Wood can put up points and you can try and adjust lineups to hide Wood as sole “bad defender”

 

[Maximus Meridius]

Hayes is nice. He may even be starting at the 5 by midseason

Starting for who????

 

[atlsfinest]

If Plumlee or Wood sign for the min they should go somewhere they’ll get enough playing time to earn a bigger contract next time… that’s not gonna happen with the Lakers

I disagree. As MVP mentions, you have to anticipate that AD will miss around 20 regular season games. Also, even when AD is playing it makes sense to have someone else play the majority of the center minutes, especially during the grind of the regular season. No need to put that mileage on AD until the playoffs.

My biggest issue from a line of perspective is what to do with LeBron. I would imagine the starting lineup would look something like this:

PG: Russell
SG: Reaves
SF: LeBron
PF: AD
Center: Free Agent Center (Bamba/Plumlee/Wood)

At this stage in his career LeBron is a PF. Defensively he doesn't have the ability to consistently guard wing players. That line up would get eaten alive by elite wing players like KD and Tatum

 

[pdino]

Gimme Wood or Bamba for that last spot. TT just too old

 

[DLF]

Gimme Wood or Bamba for that last spot. TT just too old

Ya prob is that tt is great if ad and his backup were not injury prone/reliable players.

I know ad is gonna miss 20 games and we need players that will actually play basketball. Tt is just a locker room guy

 

[geno90221]

Gimme Wood or Bamba for that last spot. TT just too old

Chris isn’t a Center lol
He’s 215 pounds

 

[DLF]

Chris isn’t a Center lol
He’s 215 pounds

Ad isn’t either

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

Neither is Hayes

 

[grittyman]

I disagree. As MVP mentions, you have to anticipate that AD will miss around 20 regular season games. Also, even when AD is playing it makes sense to have someone else play the majority of the center minutes, especially during the grind of the regular season. No need to put that mileage on AD until the playoffs.

My biggest issue from a line of perspective is what to do with LeBron. I would imagine the starting lineup would look something like this:

PG: Russell
SG: Reaves
SF: LeBron
PF: AD
Center: Free Agent Center (Bamba/Plumlee/Wood)

At this stage in his career LeBron is a PF. Defensively he doesn't have the ability to consistently guard wing players. That line up would get eaten alive by elite wing players like KD and Tatum

We’ll just agree to disagree on this one…

- Not changing my core starting lineup that just went to the WCF…especially not to have the worst spacing in the league for no good reason.
- Feel pretty confident most players want to play, even TB requested a trade because of lack of playing time. Right now as is the Lakers have 2 centers who are going to take up most of the minutes
- Now you have an 18 mil player in Rui who’s not going to play much because you have AD at the 4 eating the bulk of those minutes
- Also if LBJ’s at the 3, he’s seeing most of those minutes…so one of Prince or Vando will be racking up DNP’s.
- Last time we saw LBJ defensively on a bum foot he was still able to keep up with Jamal Murray. So while he doesn’t always play defense in the regular season I wouldn’t say he’s not capable. Until we see differently in year 21

But I mean what are we even talking about here…

 

[atlsfinest]

We’ll just agree to disagree on this one…

- Not changing my core starting lineup that just went to the WCF…especially not to have the worst spacing in the league for no good reason.
- Feel pretty confident most players want to play, even TB requested a trade because of lack of playing time. Right now as is the Lakers have 2 centers who are going to take up most of the minutes
- Now you have an 18 mil player in Rui who’s not going to play much because you have AD at the 4 eating the bulk of those minutes
- Also if LBJ’s at the 3, he’s seeing most of those minutes…so one of Prince or Vando will be racking up DNP’s.
- Last time we saw LBJ defensively on a bum foot he was still able to keep up with Jamal Murray. So while he doesn’t always play defense in the regular season I wouldn’t say he’s not capable. Until we see differently in year 21

But I mean what are we even talking about here…

I agree with you that our ideal starting lineup is AD at the 5 with LeBron playing the 4 for all of the reasons you stated. I like having someone else play the majority of the center minutes throughout the regular season to save ADs body.

I liked the way we did things in 19-20 with McGee starting at the 5 and playing a lot of minutes at center and only moving AD to the five in crunch time.

 

[DLF]

We are going all in on Christie. Obviously they know more than us so they must like what they saw. As long as he’s a 35+% shooter from 3 and his defense was always at the level of average nba player so I’m sure they will be fine.


If he’s not ready then we have a big hole in backup 2 spot in case of injurie. A hole perfect for Lonnie or Beasley but you have to take a leap I guess and those players ain’t stupid- they know they’d be 3rd in line to start season

 

[pdino]

Plumlee would be great, just don't think he's available for the vet minimum. He started all last year before the trade, then was taking Zubacs job after the trade. I think Plumlee will go somewhere else for more than the vet minimum

I'm expecting the starting lineup would be (maybe mid-season after HAM tinkers with smaller ball lineups that don't work):
PG: Vincent or Dlo
SG: AR
SF: Rui
PF: Bron
C: AD

Prince is a solid 3/D vet, can play SG-SF (small ball PF). He's just going to sit in the corner and shoot 3s, cut, and defend.

Similar to last year, I'm expecting AD ~50 games and Bron another year older ~55 games, Bron should be load managed at this point sitting back to backs at the very least.

 

[grittyman]

I agree with you that our ideal starting lineup is AD at the 5 with LeBron playing the 4 for all of the reasons you stated. I like having someone else play the majority of the center minutes throughout the regular season to save ADs body.

I liked the way we did things in 19-20 with McGee starting at the 5 and playing a lot of minutes at center and only moving AD to the five in crunch time.

I’m not really worried about AD playing the 5… most of his injuries seem to be leg related and not due to bigger guys beating him up.

AD’s jumper has gotten worse since the bubble, hopefully Bron returns to his average from last season but if they don’t that means 3 non shooters next to DLo and AR. That’s just not going to work

 

[lovehateself]

Game 4 legend.

Neither will Steph curry

C wood is AD lite with even less dawg in him

Plumlee > bamba, c wood etc

 

[Korofi]

Hassan

 

[DLF]

So far who has taken the full mid level at the number we were offering to stay below tax like?

I only count Divencenzo so far and he was always going to NYK.

Shroeder got 13 mill
Brown at 22 mill
Lopez got 24
Brooks got 20 mill


As far as splitting the MLE. Maybe we need to see how it goes with Plumlee but we maybe could have split it between Josh richardson and Plumlee but we also don’t know what kind of convo lakers had with D’lo. its possible they truly felt like he might leave and who knows, maybe they would not have matched 100 m for Austin and we’re thinking “let’s lock down Vincent to make sure we have a backup plan for Austin and D’lo potentially leaving…at worse he’s a great 6th man at 11 mill”

 

[tonelow]

Hayes is really replacing Wenyen, who knew his role and played hard but was usually just too small. The hope is Hayes can feast against second units running the floor and catching lobs. Seems doable.

AD will be the starting center until the trade deadline at least.

I think all of the signings are upgrades, only one I’m iffy on is Gabe vs dennis but I think the shooting is real for Gabe so I’m higher on him than most ppl.

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

I like Gabe because he fills a need -- a guard that can produce on both ends in the playoffs. I'm just not sure if he'll keep shooting like that. If not he's still no worse than Dennis. Him and Christie have potential to be hell defensively

Hayes is just a low IQ player and he can't defend the paint or rebound. His best position is at the 4 which he'll never play because of Bron/Rui/Vando/Prince. I wish it would work but it would be a miracle if he all of a sudden figures it out. And then he has character issues and is on probation right now. I'd expect Castleton to be ahead of him in the rotation sooner than later because he actually knows how to play basketball

 

[had pants]

 

[noblekane]

wood would be a good addition if ad goes down but imagine a starting line up that has wood, lebron, and russel. would be giving up 200 points a night

 

[atlsfinest]

Caruso was on this squad too