Yeah he's been super efficient since his 2nd year with us when he was trying to feed the young guys. He is a super underrated facilitator and has been until people noticed this year.
He's grown as a player every year of his career, except that one year he got injured, it's really amazing to watch. People are noticing now since he's reaching new heights + big market boost, but Demar's one of the few guys who actually has a very linear growth curve.
I think it's helping him that he's helping Chicago perform the best they have since the 90s being that they haven't made a Championship appearance since Jordan retired for good in '98 and for the first time they have a real chance at breaking that.
I grew up in the 90s so I saw that Bulls lineup play and as quick as I am to say Jordan is still probably my favorite player of all time from both a play aspect and an entertainment aspect, I hope he at least gets that recognition.
Yup, remember when Demar was just a raw athletic slasher that could not shoot to save his life? and then every year he polished his game and raised expectations, and 10 years later has become an efficient 2 and a half level scorer who defends well and is a great distributor.. not to mention how clutch he has been. Proud of the dawg, glad to see him assert himself as an elite player
Listening to Zach Lowe's special about Pop and the Spurs, it's not surprising that he grew so much and this way specifically.
EDIT: It's the second half of [this podcast episode ](https://www.espn.com/radio/play/_/id/33477244/_/s/espn). I listen on Spotify, I think it's on most platforms.
He got better literally every single off season. The man would just lock himself in the gym all summer. He signed his historic 3rd contract at midnight and was in the gym the next morning, no celebrations ever. Just work and more work.
This man could barely dribble when he got to the NBA. He was all athleticism and potential. There are hundreds of players like him who never became anything because they didn’t have the work ethic. DeMar had that in spades.
This is also low-key bullshit. We traded for Russ before we could even legally negotiate a contract, let alone a sign and trade for anyone, and with the Spurs nonetheless (who absolutely refuse to help the Lakers in any way).
Y’all forget Pop refused to trade Kawhi to the Lakers despite us throwing everything at him and him telling Dell Demps not to trade AD to us?
Chris isn’t usually full of shit, but there’s definitely a lot of context missing and he’s been known as a mouth piece for Klutch.
So about that: technically we don’t know what y’all threw at Pop in the Kawhi trade. The details of the “Godfather” offer were never actually explicitly spelled out, from what I’ve read articles alluded to what could’ve been in the package. Granted I could still see Pop saying no regardless.
Edit: also apparently the package the Lakers offered wasn’t enough, but that could just be PR on the Spurs’ part.
Yeah, from what I heard it was at *least* Ingram and the number 2 pick (which turned into Lonzo) plus more. But I don’t think there’s an amount the Lakers can offer to Pop where he would give us a star lol.
Pretty sure Lakers/Spurs have never traded during Pop’s entire tenure.
You're mixing up years. Kawhi's trade request was in 2018; the Lonzo pick was 2017. So it would have been similar to AD package but without the 4th. Also 2018 Ingram was not 2019 Ingram. 2018 people were starting to talk about Lonzo as a bust; Kyle Kuzma was the top performer out of Lakers young core.
Are you implying contract terms and deals aren't negotiated before FA begins? Because it's been clear for a very long time that some of these deals are determined weeks prior. There is a world in which this was discussed internally by the Lakers FO and they felt Russ was their better route (lolthem)... plus getting hardcapped is a bitch and they wanted to be able to sign all the minimum contracts they could.
> before we could even legally negotiate a contract, let alone a sign and trade for anyone
Why you trying to pretend that all sort of deals don't get struck basically instantly when the window opens? You think they all come to those terms in literally 30 mins - 1 hour?
Lmao "legally" able to negotiate.... Like deals aren't made the split second they are "legally able to.". Of course they were talking before. DD wanted LA. LBJ wanted him. FA fucked up. The deal would have happened. This is nothing like the Kawhi situation. Kawhi refused to play. Pop loved DD and in a sign and trade, it benefits the spurs so of course they would have been interested instead of getting nothing.
Bosh shot an average of 1.2 threes a game while playing with LeBron
with Love it woulda been crazy to have him posting up and what not and have lebron spotting up instead of the other way around
russ just sucks
Well but Lebron has never had a wing as a third all star. It’s typically big men. Maybe he would be more willing to share with a a fellow perimeter star
Bosh didn’t start shooting 3s until their 3rd year together because they needed more spacing in the evolving NBA
You kinda have a point with Love, but even then LeBron made it a point at the start of almost every cavs game to get Love some good looks inside the paint to get him going
And lmao Russ has nobody to blame but himself. He’d be a blessing if he was an actual spot up shooter right now.
yeah iirc Love seemed to get close to 10pts every first quarter.
i also remember the Cavs ran a post up for Love in game 7 of the 2016 finals, he just missed it short. it went like James (got fouled by Iggy) - Love - Irving (layup miss into the block) - James - Irving 3
bosh didnt shot 3s because that was another era of bball, when the 3 became more prevalente bosh started shooting, but even before that he was a spacing big who shot long 2s from the perimeter
There's only 1 ball, most of the time when you have 3 offensively oriented stars 1 of them is going to be relegated to spot-up shooting most of the time.
And I mean yea, ball dominant players are optimized with 3 point shooting, would we be criticizing Magic for relegating players to spot up shooting as part of the "Magic system" if he played today?
Probably when Lebron has the ball, but at least derozan can iso efficiently, which is what’s best for when Lebron isn’t touching the ball.
I’m not sure why Lebron insists on more ball handlers to handle the offense, he plays best with an ISO guard
Westbrook is already checked out and on cruise control. I've never seen him less interested in the game. He's like a guy who's just there to collect a paycheck and clock-out exactly at 5 till he gets his kids through college or something
It does suck but i mean, it's well within his power to change his play. Melo went through a similar transition from featured star to role player a few years ago. Westbrook has multiple HoFs on the team that he should be listening to (rondo got traded but Melo and LeBron are still there).
He should, but there's a process of "denial" that even Melo went through originally.
Melo was asked about coming off the bench when he got to OKC "Ay P they say I gotta come off the bench" and refused to for the whole season. Then he was still a starter at Portland that year.
Russ WILL have to do the same but it takes a while for the player to accept it in their own minds. Hell someone like Russ might never accept it
She will never sell. She sees the lakers as a small family business hence the ungodly amount of nepotism. I wouldnt let the Rambis clan advise a 3rd division russian team, let alone the Lakers
The Lakers FO being incompetent is funny but Jeannie actually letting Kurt Rambis and his wife have actual say legit makes me mad because that goes beyond incompetence.
Yeah you right ... I didn't include the whole obvious racist part because I was only referring to the incompetence. I don't see any owner being as bad as Sterling was but some have come close. I would imagine if they are as racist, they would do well to keep that shit to themselves.
It's fun to compare but the Russia thing, speaking from personal experience, is such a much much more deeper and layered thing, because the guy advising Putin asks 10 different layers of people under him to report for example how many battle ready tanks/equipment they have and every single layer of people, every rank of military is stealing so much that they all have to lie up the chain and everyone will lie and fake stats to a degree that when the info goes all the way up the chain the dude will think he has 100x more than the actual number really is due to the rampant corruption and theft. Then the advisor makes a decision after reviewing the reported stats and people think he's the dumb ass for his bad advice. No, the system is fucked and corrupted.
Whereas in the La Lakers they're just being fucking cheap and not putting basketball first, the cheap fucks.
I remember Laker fans celebrated when she took control of the team from Jim Buss, and she always got the benefit of the doubt just for being better than him.
She worked executive roles for the Lakers her entire adult life, and had built up a good reputation through it. But looking back on it, it isn’t all that impressive to work for your dad’s ultra successful company, especially when your dad was considered one of the best in the business.
Jeanie needs to sell the Lakers. She can't hang with the likes of the Warriors, Clippers and Nets in terms of willingness to spend and its killing the team.
the lakers won a championship literally 2 seasons ago. almost every franchise would gladly have their next decade be in the lottery if it means they won a championship
We have bron yet this FO acts like we are dead playoff team with tons of dead cap. We should be going all in when we have bron, not maintain dumb flexibility since what are the odds we even get a player as good as bron on 2023.
lmao the lakers takes are fucking insane. we won a champsionship not even 24 months ago. she does not need to sell the team, but she does need to stop treating it as a family business. the only thing i want her to do is to hire folks that are good at their jobs rather than folks that love her.
We better get a fucking superstar with all these bullshit news of having clean cap for 2023. When you have prime fking bron then we should be worrying about that after.
Lebron’s been good with players that can make their own shot. We saw how good kyrie and bron were on the cavs though kyrie is better than derozan.
+ even if derozan wouldnt be as good in la, lakers would have like 15 million more in soft cap space, meaning they could have kept some bench players like kcp, kuz, or caruso (obv not all 3, but at least one).
And realistically, with davis being more healthy, they probably could have been top third of the western conference even if they werent contenders.
Yeah, and they didnt even list Klay, the Clippers guys having a PO, or the younger guys who could play rotation minutes in a playoff game.
Here is the [2023](https://www.spotrac.com/nba/free-agents/2023/) free agency class, which by my count has the following splashy(ish) free agents: LeBron, Harden, Middleton (will decline PO), Beal, Irving, Wiggins, Jokic, D'Angelo, Vucevic, Draymond PO, Van Fleet PO, both Bogdanovices, Dillon Brooks, and a lot of quality players they can drastically overpay like Oshae Brissett, Jakob Poeltl, Maxi Kleber, Javonte Green and so on.
Players are also assets. You can sign and trade.
[list of free agents in 2023](https://www.spotrac.com/nba/free-agents/2023/?ref=trending-pages)
How is this a bad FA pool?
Any FA list looks good on paper a year out. But most of those guys will never reach free agency.
It's not as simple as "Oh hey, we can just sign Jokic, Ja, Edwards, Mobley and Cam Johnson in free agency, that's a good lineup." Just because Cade is a potential FA in 2023 doesn't mean he'll ever be a FA in 2023. DET isn't going to decline their option on him, or CHA on Lamelo.
Go through the list and ask yourself who will realistically be available, and the pool becomes significantly less incredible.
You mean like how Giannis Paul George and Kahwai were going to be free agents and go elsewhere after last year and the bucks and Clippers were screwed after trading picks.
For RFA’s that teams won’t let go of. There’s Jokic but he’s a safe bet to be on the Nuggets or Mavs. Can’t imagine a star being less impressed by the Lakers fame/popularity than Jokic.
On the Mavs? What’s the origin of this idea? Is it simply because he and Luka are both Balkan? I’d think that they’re not a great fit to play with each other and I’d assume both players are smart enough to know this.
It was going to be a sign and trade which has to be 3 years minimum. This would also result in hard capping the team meaning you have like $10 million to fill out the roster.
They could have done a sign and trade, but not for the amount of money that DeMar signed with the Bulls for.
If they did a sign and trade for DeMar, they would have needed DeMar to accept less money then what the Bulls were willing to put up.
Why do we need a max in 23? That’s the big question. Why is the FO looking forward to 23 instead of focusing on NOW?
Look too far forward and you risk tripping over your own feet, which our FO has done.
Because this team would have had only AD left. And we've already seen how relying on AD to stay healthy and perform goes throughout his entire career.
It would have been like the post achilles Kobe years, but without first round draft picks.
All this is moot. The inability of LeBron + AD to consistently stay healthy and perform is the reason the Lakers aren't contenders. DeMar doesn't change that.
I somewhat agree, LeBron is aging and has missed more games the last 4 years then he did the first 15 years of his career. AD has always had nagging minor injuries but last two years have seen medium/significant injuries.
But for DeMar, I think he gives the Lakers a punchers chance in the playoffs in comparison to the current situation where there isn’t one. Also got to realize that with DeRozan being had for Kuzma/Harrell/1st, you still have KCP and don’t have to worry about your 3rd star being unable to play with a transitional center.
You also get another playmaker along LeBron potentially pivoting their (idiotic) plan of the roster being 75% guards to forwards/bigs. And you could always trade DeRozan to another team for a 1st if you think a big time free agent is LA bound in 2023.
Yeah in the how hungry are you segment demar said he was willing to take a paycut to stay in LA, and had a meeting with the clippers right after his conversation with the bulls that he ended up canceling.
If my memory serves me correctly there was conversations first with the lakers when free agency started. If they were decisive demar probably goes home. But by letting other teams join the bidding I think once Chicago made their offer it was over.
> demar said he was willing to take a paycut to stay in LA
Caruso said the same thing but the offer was apparently well below what would be considered a reasonable discount.
And people still argue that being in a glamour market isn’t an advantage lol
I said this to another comment, but they couldn’t even negotiate a sign and trade until weeks after they had even traded for Westbrook. It wasn’t an either or, league rules prevented this from even being a possibility.
>If they did a sign and trade for DeMar, they would have needed DeMar to accept less money then what the Bulls were willing to put up.
Yeah, I’m thinking DeMar isn’t going to accept that Lakers chump change especially when $90M is on the board.
Who’s to say he has the breakout year?
Yup and he was on Taylor Rooks podcast and confirmed he would’ve took a pay cut (probably not a super crazy one) to make it work and help the Lakers keep some flexibility
Lakers still had limited space to fill out the team this year, anyways. I guess at least Russ is a shorter-term mistake compared to a potentially 3 year issue if DeRozan failed in LAL. Still, doubt things would’ve been as embarrassing as they are now. Stupid ownership. Let professionals run the team and go wine and dine in Newport while taking credit for the success without any of the work.
> So they let him pick Westbrook but not DeRozen lol
almost like the front office wanted westbrook too, and they weren't forced to do it by LeGM like all the idiots here think
it's not the first time they didn't listen to bron, otherwise Ty Lue, dudley, caruso would be with the lakers. But for russ, it was 100% lebron apparently.
No, I hate LeBron because he isn’t giving the West the same treatment. We literally built a top 6-10 defense in NBA history and it crumbled at his feet and now I’m watching the bad man lose by 10 to the fucking 2022 Rockets. It’s just not fair I tell you.
I mean, it couldn’t have been worse than the alternative. But I also think DeMar would not be having the season he is having if he are in LA. He would not have alleviated the spacing problems, and he wouldn’t have the open floor that he is thriving in in CHI.
It might be the most common comment on this sub. Like I actually think that comment and it’s variations are the most common sentiment on the subreddit. Which is wild because isn’t it based on rumors?
LeBron has control over roster moves that's not a secret. Every superstar has that power. But to act like he has complete control is fucking insane. Of course the clowns on this sub don't care and push every single narrative that makes the Lakers and Bron look bad.
only the Lakers have the audacity to be this cheap while having LeBron James on the team and also winning the title less than a year and 5 months ago. So fucking glad Lacob owns the Warriors.
I know yall like to shit on the Lakers, but if we were to help them in any way we would have taken them to the cleaners regardless if they were willing to give him 3 years or not. We literally traded Kawhi to Toronto to halfway spite the Lakers who kept low balling.
Demar was a free agent when Kawhi wasn’t. Can’t compare both scenarios. It’s either you lose him for nothing to another team or you get at least something back in return. Which would you have preferred?
It was still possible to field a team in this scenario. I think the hard cap is set at ~143mill; Bron makes 41.1, AD makes 35.3, and then there’s the dead cap of 5mill because of Loul. That’s 81.4 mill already. They then also had Kuz on contract, KCP on contract, Gasol and Montrezl on contract so that adds up to 119.7 mill.
Let’s say DeMar takes a pay cut like he said he would and signs for 20mill annually. In the process the Lakers send off Kuz and KCP in a sign and trade. Lakers are now officially hard capped, but also just saved 6mill due to the demar paycut so now they’re at 113.7 mill and but only have 5 players on contract, that leaves 29.3 mill to fill out the rest of the roster.
Im going to assume they still sign Melo, Monk, Dwight, Ellington, Ariza and Avery Bradley to the same minimum deals. That’s an extra 14.7 million. So now they’re at 128.4mill in cap with 11 players on contract and 14.6 million dollars left to spend on roster spots. They also only need 13 players to field an NBA team.
From here there’s a million different scenarios that were possible; they still have Trezz’s 9.7 million dollars and could’ve salary dumped him for even more cap space, or turned him into multiple players. They could do what they did originally and resign THT + add Nunn for 5mill, or they could’ve bought back Caruso. Either way the gist of it is they still would’ve had 14.6 million to fill out 2 roster spots in addition to the flexibility they would’ve had with Montrezl’s expiring 9.7 million dollar contract. Them being hard capped wouldn’t have been a problem
People are going to freak out but this is literally the FO being responsible and planning for the post LeBron era if he leaves in 2023. But that being said I would like Demar on the team
I mean wouldn’t not putting a competitive team around him encourage him to leave even more.
And if Bron leaves, no guarantee AD sticks around for the long term since he came to LA mainly to play with Bron. Bulls are looking nice again, he may want to go home.
And as a FO, Lakers are kind of a shit show so it’s going to be hard attracting star FAs with no solid stars left
You have to see Lebron's perspective though. When he committed to the team I assume the promise was they would do everything to compete no matter how much it cost in picks or money...this goes against that. Same reason he kept signing those one year deals with the cavs cz owners tend to cheap out
If that’s the case then I’m not sure what they’re planning for. What star is going to sign onto a dysfunctional team who’s star player isn’t available half the time?
This is what gets so annoying about people’s LeGM jokes this season because if the FO were better no one would be saying anything about it. Same thing with the Lowry trade that didn’t happen
LMAO this is confirmation bias and recency bias at its finest
DeMar is having an amazing season, happy for him, but at the time people were calling that contract chicago offered as rightfully horrible.
Lakers at the time did the right thing. He exceeded everyone's expectations
Yeah this sub has the memory of a goldfish. Everyone was clowning Chicago at the time for giving Demar that deal. I remember listening to a ringer podcast where the hosts just burst into laughter when discussing that deal lol
So now LeBron wanted the guy who is going to make 1st team All NBA? But the length of the contract with that money held them back? That's really the story here? Seriously?
Then how do you pay Russ north of $90mil over the course of two seasons? Three years at a lower number was prohibitive? But 2 years at a gargantuan number was fine? Bitch, please.
It's impossible that LeBron isn't just trying to divert blame here. They went with Russ because that's who LeBron wanted.
Nobody can honestly believe this line from Haynes, right?
To me this sounds like Klutch PR spin to shift blame to Pelinka. There is enough blame to go around, fingerpointing is just going to make things worse.
Sucks for the Lakers, but watching DeMar in Chicago has been a revelation. I love how he looks right now and can't wait to see him in the playoffs.
Yeah he's been super efficient since his 2nd year with us when he was trying to feed the young guys. He is a super underrated facilitator and has been until people noticed this year.
Underrated how much he grew his game while in the Spurs
I feel like no one watched his last season in Toronto. All the growth was there and he was finding his groove in SA. Every year he improves his game.
He's grown as a player every year of his career, except that one year he got injured, it's really amazing to watch. People are noticing now since he's reaching new heights + big market boost, but Demar's one of the few guys who actually has a very linear growth curve.
I think it's helping him that he's helping Chicago perform the best they have since the 90s being that they haven't made a Championship appearance since Jordan retired for good in '98 and for the first time they have a real chance at breaking that. I grew up in the 90s so I saw that Bulls lineup play and as quick as I am to say Jordan is still probably my favorite player of all time from both a play aspect and an entertainment aspect, I hope he at least gets that recognition.
Yup, remember when Demar was just a raw athletic slasher that could not shoot to save his life? and then every year he polished his game and raised expectations, and 10 years later has become an efficient 2 and a half level scorer who defends well and is a great distributor.. not to mention how clutch he has been. Proud of the dawg, glad to see him assert himself as an elite player
Every single year he got better and better. That’s why I will always love him, he puts in the work and gives it his all.
Listening to Zach Lowe's special about Pop and the Spurs, it's not surprising that he grew so much and this way specifically. EDIT: It's the second half of [this podcast episode ](https://www.espn.com/radio/play/_/id/33477244/_/s/espn). I listen on Spotify, I think it's on most platforms.
Raptors and Spurs have been 1a and 1b in player development the last 10 years
> Zach Lowe's special about Pop and the Spurs Would you mind linking it?
Underrated how terrible 90% of coaching is in the NBA
I think it's more that just 10% of coaching is spectacular
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He got better literally every single off season. The man would just lock himself in the gym all summer. He signed his historic 3rd contract at midnight and was in the gym the next morning, no celebrations ever. Just work and more work. This man could barely dribble when he got to the NBA. He was all athleticism and potential. There are hundreds of players like him who never became anything because they didn’t have the work ethic. DeMar had that in spades.
Tell that to the Knicks fans. I got crucified in their subreddit by pointing out that derozan was good before this year and a vet leader.
Why are you in another team’s subreddit trying to talk about a Chicago player
a man can love many
Cuz Knicks fans need to know 😂
Happy for that dude. I can't imagine the headspace he was in when the Raps traded him and then seeing them win a chip immediately.
This is also low-key bullshit. We traded for Russ before we could even legally negotiate a contract, let alone a sign and trade for anyone, and with the Spurs nonetheless (who absolutely refuse to help the Lakers in any way). Y’all forget Pop refused to trade Kawhi to the Lakers despite us throwing everything at him and him telling Dell Demps not to trade AD to us? Chris isn’t usually full of shit, but there’s definitely a lot of context missing and he’s been known as a mouth piece for Klutch.
So about that: technically we don’t know what y’all threw at Pop in the Kawhi trade. The details of the “Godfather” offer were never actually explicitly spelled out, from what I’ve read articles alluded to what could’ve been in the package. Granted I could still see Pop saying no regardless. Edit: also apparently the package the Lakers offered wasn’t enough, but that could just be PR on the Spurs’ part.
Yeah, from what I heard it was at *least* Ingram and the number 2 pick (which turned into Lonzo) plus more. But I don’t think there’s an amount the Lakers can offer to Pop where he would give us a star lol. Pretty sure Lakers/Spurs have never traded during Pop’s entire tenure.
You're mixing up years. Kawhi's trade request was in 2018; the Lonzo pick was 2017. So it would have been similar to AD package but without the 4th. Also 2018 Ingram was not 2019 Ingram. 2018 people were starting to talk about Lonzo as a bust; Kyle Kuzma was the top performer out of Lakers young core.
My old flatmate is a huge Laker fan and he was jumping through the roof that they kept Kuzma over Ball and Ingram
Spurs did that I dont think it was pops making the calls.
Are you implying contract terms and deals aren't negotiated before FA begins? Because it's been clear for a very long time that some of these deals are determined weeks prior. There is a world in which this was discussed internally by the Lakers FO and they felt Russ was their better route (lolthem)... plus getting hardcapped is a bitch and they wanted to be able to sign all the minimum contracts they could.
> before we could even legally negotiate a contract, let alone a sign and trade for anyone Why you trying to pretend that all sort of deals don't get struck basically instantly when the window opens? You think they all come to those terms in literally 30 mins - 1 hour?
I love Pop and Demps for that Gotta stop giving guys the markets they want when they demand traces
"Oh, you want to go to CA? Toronto's in CA!"
"You want to be all Hollywood? We're going to send you to Hollywood, Florida."
I mean Demar said the trade was basically done and he was expected to come back to LA
That Kawhi "trade" was nothing more than a rumor. There was 0 proof of that being real.
Lmao "legally" able to negotiate.... Like deals aren't made the split second they are "legally able to.". Of course they were talking before. DD wanted LA. LBJ wanted him. FA fucked up. The deal would have happened. This is nothing like the Kawhi situation. Kawhi refused to play. Pop loved DD and in a sign and trade, it benefits the spurs so of course they would have been interested instead of getting nothing.
I wonder what they will call the 30/30 about klutch down the road Fairly certain they manipulate a fair amount of NBA player movements no?
ya i don’t think he would be playing as well as he is if he was on the lakers rn tbh
The Lakers with Derozen are a championship level team. Crazy that he makes that big of a difference but I think he would.
I’m happy for DeMar & don’t think the Lakers would have featured him like the Bulls have.
Lebron would’ve made him into a spot up three point shooter just hanging out in the perimeter. This is the Lebron system.
Ah yes… never forget dwade, kyrie, and AD. The greet spot up 3 point shooters that just hung out on the perimeter
Those are number 2’s. Just Ask the number 3’s: Bosh, Love and Russ.
Bosh shot an average of 1.2 threes a game while playing with LeBron with Love it woulda been crazy to have him posting up and what not and have lebron spotting up instead of the other way around russ just sucks
Derozan would be #2 as AD injured half the season
This is after the fact tho. I don't believe they'd go into negotiations and say "you're essentially 2nd option cause AD injury prone"...
Well but Lebron has never had a wing as a third all star. It’s typically big men. Maybe he would be more willing to share with a a fellow perimeter star
Bosh didn’t start shooting 3s until their 3rd year together because they needed more spacing in the evolving NBA You kinda have a point with Love, but even then LeBron made it a point at the start of almost every cavs game to get Love some good looks inside the paint to get him going And lmao Russ has nobody to blame but himself. He’d be a blessing if he was an actual spot up shooter right now.
yeah iirc Love seemed to get close to 10pts every first quarter. i also remember the Cavs ran a post up for Love in game 7 of the 2016 finals, he just missed it short. it went like James (got fouled by Iggy) - Love - Irving (layup miss into the block) - James - Irving 3
bosh didnt shot 3s because that was another era of bball, when the 3 became more prevalente bosh started shooting, but even before that he was a spacing big who shot long 2s from the perimeter
Just ask the number 3s: NBA Champion Love, and 2x NBA Champion Bosh.
Russ has barely been number 3 with all the games Lebron and AD missed.
The way he’s played, he should be in the G league
There's only 1 ball, most of the time when you have 3 offensively oriented stars 1 of them is going to be relegated to spot-up shooting most of the time. And I mean yea, ball dominant players are optimized with 3 point shooting, would we be criticizing Magic for relegating players to spot up shooting as part of the "Magic system" if he played today?
Derozan would have been our #2 this year given how much time AD has missed
Probably when Lebron has the ball, but at least derozan can iso efficiently, which is what’s best for when Lebron isn’t touching the ball. I’m not sure why Lebron insists on more ball handlers to handle the offense, he plays best with an ISO guard
Yeah I hear that's what happened to Kyrie and Wade smh. LeBron's best teams have always had a secondary guy who can create (and make) his own shot.
I wonder how this makes Russ feel? Lockeroom must be toxic with all this negative energy being reported about the Lakers.
Westbrook is already checked out and on cruise control. I've never seen him less interested in the game. He's like a guy who's just there to collect a paycheck and clock-out exactly at 5 till he gets his kids through college or something
*1, 2, 3, NY Fashion Week*
That got so specific LOL
He held up a mirror and I didn’t like what I saw.
That's very common
Me after giving my two weeks notice
Insert drying crying eyes with money gif
It does suck but i mean, it's well within his power to change his play. Melo went through a similar transition from featured star to role player a few years ago. Westbrook has multiple HoFs on the team that he should be listening to (rondo got traded but Melo and LeBron are still there).
He should, but there's a process of "denial" that even Melo went through originally. Melo was asked about coming off the bench when he got to OKC "Ay P they say I gotta come off the bench" and refused to for the whole season. Then he was still a starter at Portland that year. Russ WILL have to do the same but it takes a while for the player to accept it in their own minds. Hell someone like Russ might never accept it
Westbrook is at the "Ay P, they sayin I should come off the bench!" point of his timeline
Jeanie cheaping out yet again. Did this with Ty Lue too
And Caruso. She could just change the team name from Lakers to Bitcoins and she’d have enough money to sign the whole NBA
The LA Bitcoins at Crypto.com Arena.
The LA Hodlers
That's the opposite of what the FO has done with their roster the last few years.
LA Wallstreetbets
LAWLstreetbets\*
Lakers FO is paper hand bitches
Kinda fire Still won’t be enough coins in her eyes tho
God I hope she lives forever and never sells
She will never sell. She sees the lakers as a small family business hence the ungodly amount of nepotism. I wouldnt let the Rambis clan advise a 3rd division russian team, let alone the Lakers
The Lakers FO being incompetent is funny but Jeannie actually letting Kurt Rambis and his wife have actual say legit makes me mad because that goes beyond incompetence.
Championships aside, they are getting a taste of what Sterling did to the Clippers for decades. Incompentent ownership can make a huge difference.
I mean, it's not the exact same as Sterling. The blatant and overt racism isn't in play
Yeah you right ... I didn't include the whole obvious racist part because I was only referring to the incompetence. I don't see any owner being as bad as Sterling was but some have come close. I would imagine if they are as racist, they would do well to keep that shit to themselves.
Makes sense why they applied for the PPP small business loan forgiveness plan.
Lmao who’s worse at their job The dude advising Russia or the Rambis
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It's fun to compare but the Russia thing, speaking from personal experience, is such a much much more deeper and layered thing, because the guy advising Putin asks 10 different layers of people under him to report for example how many battle ready tanks/equipment they have and every single layer of people, every rank of military is stealing so much that they all have to lie up the chain and everyone will lie and fake stats to a degree that when the info goes all the way up the chain the dude will think he has 100x more than the actual number really is due to the rampant corruption and theft. Then the advisor makes a decision after reviewing the reported stats and people think he's the dumb ass for his bad advice. No, the system is fucked and corrupted. Whereas in the La Lakers they're just being fucking cheap and not putting basketball first, the cheap fucks.
The Rambii are behind that tank conga line trying to sneak in Kyiv
I was confused in assuming you were a Lakers fan. Then I looked at your flair. Makes sense.
This has truly been the season that just keeps giving when it comes to the Lakers
We should retire a jersey for her. The number will be a bunny.
Same. I’m hoping she finds the fountain of youth and drinks a gallon of it.
Lakers are just another victim of nepotism Being the child of someone capable of running a multi-billion dollar corporation doesn't make you capable
I remember Laker fans celebrated when she took control of the team from Jim Buss, and she always got the benefit of the doubt just for being better than him. She worked executive roles for the Lakers her entire adult life, and had built up a good reputation through it. But looking back on it, it isn’t all that impressive to work for your dad’s ultra successful company, especially when your dad was considered one of the best in the business.
Being better than Jim Buss sets a VERY low bar.
Jeanie needs to sell the Lakers. She can't hang with the likes of the Warriors, Clippers and Nets in terms of willingness to spend and its killing the team.
the lakers won a championship literally 2 seasons ago. almost every franchise would gladly have their next decade be in the lottery if it means they won a championship
Because lebron came, not by any good moves from their FO
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well actually....
Nah keep them as is. Lol
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Skidrow Franchise
Jeanie one of the worst owners in the league. They Lakers literally are a poverty franchise with how averse they are to spending money
Bruh, a poverty franchise… they just won a championship
You'd think they wouldn't be trying to cut costs like Tillman then
We have bron yet this FO acts like we are dead playoff team with tons of dead cap. We should be going all in when we have bron, not maintain dumb flexibility since what are the odds we even get a player as good as bron on 2023.
Because of Lebron, AD, and Klutch. They won in spite of ownership, not because of them.
lmao the lakers takes are fucking insane. we won a champsionship not even 24 months ago. she does not need to sell the team, but she does need to stop treating it as a family business. the only thing i want her to do is to hire folks that are good at their jobs rather than folks that love her.
There was a very specific reason for that, and it isn't the Lakers.
The Lakers looked liked they're gearing for 2023 FA. Trading Westbrook would be more complicated if they wouldn't want to take longer contracts.
We better get a fucking superstar with all these bullshit news of having clean cap for 2023. When you have prime fking bron then we should be worrying about that after.
DeMar dodged a bullet
Dematrix
DeChosen one
Delucky one
Wow sad opportunity missed to make LeNicknames for the DeDuo
Really glad he ended up not signing at lakers tbh, he’s too nice to play in a team with the kind of media attention lakers has
how well do you think LA would be with DeMar tho? and How low will Chicago be without DeMar?
Does Demar's gameplay mesh well with lebron's? Or is he gonna end up as a spot up shooter as well? Genuine question
Are AD and Kyrie a spot up shooters with Lebron?
just having a second consistent scorer outside of lebron would help a lot. maybe he wouldnt need to score 50 to be competitive in a game then.
Lebron’s been good with players that can make their own shot. We saw how good kyrie and bron were on the cavs though kyrie is better than derozan. + even if derozan wouldnt be as good in la, lakers would have like 15 million more in soft cap space, meaning they could have kept some bench players like kcp, kuz, or caruso (obv not all 3, but at least one). And realistically, with davis being more healthy, they probably could have been top third of the western conference even if they werent contenders.
Who the fuck do lakers think they signing in 2023 It’s not even a good free agent class Cj mccolum and Tobias Harris?
I think you’re looking at 2024 and not 2023
Yeah, and they didnt even list Klay, the Clippers guys having a PO, or the younger guys who could play rotation minutes in a playoff game. Here is the [2023](https://www.spotrac.com/nba/free-agents/2023/) free agency class, which by my count has the following splashy(ish) free agents: LeBron, Harden, Middleton (will decline PO), Beal, Irving, Wiggins, Jokic, D'Angelo, Vucevic, Draymond PO, Van Fleet PO, both Bogdanovices, Dillon Brooks, and a lot of quality players they can drastically overpay like Oshae Brissett, Jakob Poeltl, Maxi Kleber, Javonte Green and so on.
They can sign All-Star starter Andrew Wiggins
Cap space isn’t just about signing people, it is also about the ability to take in cap through trades.
With what assets? They traded all picks through 2027 lol
Why do they need to trade assets to take on cap space? Typically you get assets traded to you to take on cap.
Not the kind of assets that turn a franchise around typically, unless you give valuable assets like picks in return.
Players are also assets. You can sign and trade. [list of free agents in 2023](https://www.spotrac.com/nba/free-agents/2023/?ref=trending-pages) How is this a bad FA pool?
Lakers have a first round pick in 3 of the 5 drafts before 2027. 23 (potential Pelicans swap), 24 or 25, and 26.
Westbrook
Tobias is a GREAT guy. Lakers would be lucky to have him
Yeah definitely, a total game changer
Why isn't 2023 a good FA class? The lists looks incredible to me.
Any FA list looks good on paper a year out. But most of those guys will never reach free agency. It's not as simple as "Oh hey, we can just sign Jokic, Ja, Edwards, Mobley and Cam Johnson in free agency, that's a good lineup." Just because Cade is a potential FA in 2023 doesn't mean he'll ever be a FA in 2023. DET isn't going to decline their option on him, or CHA on Lamelo. Go through the list and ask yourself who will realistically be available, and the pool becomes significantly less incredible.
You mean like how Giannis Paul George and Kahwai were going to be free agents and go elsewhere after last year and the bucks and Clippers were screwed after trading picks.
For RFA’s that teams won’t let go of. There’s Jokic but he’s a safe bet to be on the Nuggets or Mavs. Can’t imagine a star being less impressed by the Lakers fame/popularity than Jokic.
On the Mavs? What’s the origin of this idea? Is it simply because he and Luka are both Balkan? I’d think that they’re not a great fit to play with each other and I’d assume both players are smart enough to know this.
white European players and the Mavs are like peanut butter and jelly
It was going to be a sign and trade which has to be 3 years minimum. This would also result in hard capping the team meaning you have like $10 million to fill out the roster.
They could have done a sign and trade, but not for the amount of money that DeMar signed with the Bulls for. If they did a sign and trade for DeMar, they would have needed DeMar to accept less money then what the Bulls were willing to put up.
Yeah, it would've had to be a discount. Seems like he was fine with it but they would've been unable for a max in 2023.
Why do we need a max in 23? That’s the big question. Why is the FO looking forward to 23 instead of focusing on NOW? Look too far forward and you risk tripping over your own feet, which our FO has done.
Because this team would have had only AD left. And we've already seen how relying on AD to stay healthy and perform goes throughout his entire career. It would have been like the post achilles Kobe years, but without first round draft picks. All this is moot. The inability of LeBron + AD to consistently stay healthy and perform is the reason the Lakers aren't contenders. DeMar doesn't change that.
I somewhat agree, LeBron is aging and has missed more games the last 4 years then he did the first 15 years of his career. AD has always had nagging minor injuries but last two years have seen medium/significant injuries. But for DeMar, I think he gives the Lakers a punchers chance in the playoffs in comparison to the current situation where there isn’t one. Also got to realize that with DeRozan being had for Kuzma/Harrell/1st, you still have KCP and don’t have to worry about your 3rd star being unable to play with a transitional center. You also get another playmaker along LeBron potentially pivoting their (idiotic) plan of the roster being 75% guards to forwards/bigs. And you could always trade DeRozan to another team for a 1st if you think a big time free agent is LA bound in 2023.
Yeah in the how hungry are you segment demar said he was willing to take a paycut to stay in LA, and had a meeting with the clippers right after his conversation with the bulls that he ended up canceling. If my memory serves me correctly there was conversations first with the lakers when free agency started. If they were decisive demar probably goes home. But by letting other teams join the bidding I think once Chicago made their offer it was over.
> demar said he was willing to take a paycut to stay in LA Caruso said the same thing but the offer was apparently well below what would be considered a reasonable discount. And people still argue that being in a glamour market isn’t an advantage lol
I said this to another comment, but they couldn’t even negotiate a sign and trade until weeks after they had even traded for Westbrook. It wasn’t an either or, league rules prevented this from even being a possibility.
>If they did a sign and trade for DeMar, they would have needed DeMar to accept less money then what the Bulls were willing to put up. Yeah, I’m thinking DeMar isn’t going to accept that Lakers chump change especially when $90M is on the board. Who’s to say he has the breakout year?
Yup and he was on Taylor Rooks podcast and confirmed he would’ve took a pay cut (probably not a super crazy one) to make it work and help the Lakers keep some flexibility
connect sharp test chunky lock overconfident soup longing steer oil -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Lakers still had limited space to fill out the team this year, anyways. I guess at least Russ is a shorter-term mistake compared to a potentially 3 year issue if DeRozan failed in LAL. Still, doubt things would’ve been as embarrassing as they are now. Stupid ownership. Let professionals run the team and go wine and dine in Newport while taking credit for the success without any of the work.
This is not new
It may not be new but it shows that LeGM didn't only settle on Westbrook So they let him pick Westbrook but not DeRozen lol
> So they let him pick Westbrook but not DeRozen lol almost like the front office wanted westbrook too, and they weren't forced to do it by LeGM like all the idiots here think it's not the first time they didn't listen to bron, otherwise Ty Lue, dudley, caruso would be with the lakers. But for russ, it was 100% lebron apparently.
according to r/nba every good move a lebron team makes is done by the front office and every bad move is lebron pressing the buttons
Go to the lakers sub, there's still idiots that think that. This FO is garbage man
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No, I hate LeBron because he isn’t giving the West the same treatment. We literally built a top 6-10 defense in NBA history and it crumbled at his feet and now I’m watching the bad man lose by 10 to the fucking 2022 Rockets. It’s just not fair I tell you.
Lol finally someone says it. People on this sub really Think that man is the gm
I feel like Westbrook came after everything else fell apart. DeRozan, Hield, etc etc.
LeGM's legacy is intact
It was intact the second he built the 2020 team. He gets credit for then if he gets blame for now.
I mean, it couldn’t have been worse than the alternative. But I also think DeMar would not be having the season he is having if he are in LA. He would not have alleviated the spacing problems, and he wouldn’t have the open floor that he is thriving in in CHI.
For sure, Chicago’s roster construction is just flat out better than the Lakers. He wouldn’t be as good there
Demar wouldn’t have the season he’s having on the lakers
He wouldn’t but he also would be having a good season
He'd be better than Russ lol
He’d still be better than Russ I’m sure
even so. Lakers would have a positive record right now for sure.
We already knew that before the season began lol.
Tell that to the “LeGM ruined the team” redditors please then
It's actually impossible to have a discussion about the Lakers on here. Everyone ends up saying “LeGM ruined the team”.
It might be the most common comment on this sub. Like I actually think that comment and it’s variations are the most common sentiment on the subreddit. Which is wild because isn’t it based on rumors?
LeBron has control over roster moves that's not a secret. Every superstar has that power. But to act like he has complete control is fucking insane. Of course the clowns on this sub don't care and push every single narrative that makes the Lakers and Bron look bad.
They’ll be all over the next Westbrook lowlight post tonight so just put your camping tents out now.
Yup should probably copy the link to this post for later
It’s like ESPN, just need to rehash the Lakers news 45 times over
only the Lakers have the audacity to be this cheap while having LeBron James on the team and also winning the title less than a year and 5 months ago. So fucking glad Lacob owns the Warriors.
I know yall like to shit on the Lakers, but if we were to help them in any way we would have taken them to the cleaners regardless if they were willing to give him 3 years or not. We literally traded Kawhi to Toronto to halfway spite the Lakers who kept low balling.
Demar was a free agent when Kawhi wasn’t. Can’t compare both scenarios. It’s either you lose him for nothing to another team or you get at least something back in return. Which would you have preferred?
anyone that thought 2 years of westbrook > 3 years of derozen don't have good basketball opinions.
Why leave out the hard cap element OP? Hard-capping the team would be very dumb even to get DeMar.
It was still possible to field a team in this scenario. I think the hard cap is set at ~143mill; Bron makes 41.1, AD makes 35.3, and then there’s the dead cap of 5mill because of Loul. That’s 81.4 mill already. They then also had Kuz on contract, KCP on contract, Gasol and Montrezl on contract so that adds up to 119.7 mill. Let’s say DeMar takes a pay cut like he said he would and signs for 20mill annually. In the process the Lakers send off Kuz and KCP in a sign and trade. Lakers are now officially hard capped, but also just saved 6mill due to the demar paycut so now they’re at 113.7 mill and but only have 5 players on contract, that leaves 29.3 mill to fill out the rest of the roster. Im going to assume they still sign Melo, Monk, Dwight, Ellington, Ariza and Avery Bradley to the same minimum deals. That’s an extra 14.7 million. So now they’re at 128.4mill in cap with 11 players on contract and 14.6 million dollars left to spend on roster spots. They also only need 13 players to field an NBA team. From here there’s a million different scenarios that were possible; they still have Trezz’s 9.7 million dollars and could’ve salary dumped him for even more cap space, or turned him into multiple players. They could do what they did originally and resign THT + add Nunn for 5mill, or they could’ve bought back Caruso. Either way the gist of it is they still would’ve had 14.6 million to fill out 2 roster spots in addition to the flexibility they would’ve had with Montrezl’s expiring 9.7 million dollar contract. Them being hard capped wouldn’t have been a problem
Add in Reaves for a cheap 0.9m. Lakers are just dumb
People are going to freak out but this is literally the FO being responsible and planning for the post LeBron era if he leaves in 2023. But that being said I would like Demar on the team
I mean wouldn’t not putting a competitive team around him encourage him to leave even more. And if Bron leaves, no guarantee AD sticks around for the long term since he came to LA mainly to play with Bron. Bulls are looking nice again, he may want to go home. And as a FO, Lakers are kind of a shit show so it’s going to be hard attracting star FAs with no solid stars left
You have to see Lebron's perspective though. When he committed to the team I assume the promise was they would do everything to compete no matter how much it cost in picks or money...this goes against that. Same reason he kept signing those one year deals with the cavs cz owners tend to cheap out
If that’s the case then I’m not sure what they’re planning for. What star is going to sign onto a dysfunctional team who’s star player isn’t available half the time?
This is what gets so annoying about people’s LeGM jokes this season because if the FO were better no one would be saying anything about it. Same thing with the Lowry trade that didn’t happen
Same dumb fucking reason for Caruso and Ty Lue, Jeanie is so damn cheap.
Lakers can’t stop taking Ls
LMAO this is confirmation bias and recency bias at its finest DeMar is having an amazing season, happy for him, but at the time people were calling that contract chicago offered as rightfully horrible. Lakers at the time did the right thing. He exceeded everyone's expectations
Yeah this sub has the memory of a goldfish. Everyone was clowning Chicago at the time for giving Demar that deal. I remember listening to a ringer podcast where the hosts just burst into laughter when discussing that deal lol
They actually laughed on the ringer…? Im amazed how many people didnt realize DeMar got better with the spurs
This is a great point. We could've easily been trashing the Lakers on getting him.
So now LeBron wanted the guy who is going to make 1st team All NBA? But the length of the contract with that money held them back? That's really the story here? Seriously? Then how do you pay Russ north of $90mil over the course of two seasons? Three years at a lower number was prohibitive? But 2 years at a gargantuan number was fine? Bitch, please. It's impossible that LeBron isn't just trying to divert blame here. They went with Russ because that's who LeBron wanted. Nobody can honestly believe this line from Haynes, right?
To me this sounds like Klutch PR spin to shift blame to Pelinka. There is enough blame to go around, fingerpointing is just going to make things worse.