Laker fans, please give the FO a break!!!

I'm going to follow KB24's advice for now . . . Free agency isn't done yet so I'm not sure how it will all play out for us. We took some pretty massive hits reputation-wise though in the past few days. No way to get around that.

If we don't do well this offseason, I definitely will have some things to say about it. But I haven't given up yet, there are still a number of players out there and I want to see who we end up with. The big name guys don't look likely, but there are still other guys who could contribute and fill out our roster. We don't know exactly what's going on behind the scenes right now, and Mitch usually keeps it close to the vest. But then again, that was part of what was so upsetting about the LMA talk - too much information spilled and almost all negative towards us.

 

Leave Mitchie alone! Leave him alone!

 

By the next day we'll be pounding people in Summer League. For a few days people will be distracted.

 

I'm glad someone posted this. I'd give you multiple "likes" if I could.

Tarik Black's per 36 minute stats last season were 11.4 pts and 11.1 boards. Robin Lopez's per 36 minute stats were 12.4 points and 8.7 boards. Stop and think about that. People on this board are having an utter meltdown that we didn't somehow lock up Lopez. Are we even sure the front office made a strong pitch for him? Lopez costs over 12 million dollars a year for the next 4 years. Black will cost less than a million next season and at most probably 13-15 million over the next 3 with the Gilbert Arenas provision. And this is to say nothing of Robin's injury history.

People think we should be washing Tobias Harris' balls. I like him, but he is a high scoring tweener that is pretty bad defensively. Not a "rare" commodity really. With our current makeup going forward (if Upshaw pans out to be Mutumbo light), we don't need a player like Harris. In fact, he's a bad fit. We need a 3 and D wing. I have a lot of confidence in Anthony Brown. I actually like him more for this team than Nance based on everything I've read on him.

So now who? DeAndre can get the most money by simply staying put on a loaded Clippers team. The Mavs have one of his best friends and no state income tax with an owner who everyone knows will do what it takes. He had two legit options that were better than us.

We didn't get Aldridge. So what? Why did we expect to? He's 30 and we're asking him to waste probably at least one season until we can sign more guys next year or maybe 2-3 if we don't land Durant and have to wait for Russell and Randle to develop. If you were Aldridge, would you sign with us? I sure as hell wouldn't. He probably knows he's got 3 years left at most at peak or near peak performance.

Yes, we have cap space this season when other teams do not. Next offseason pretty much every team will have a max spot open. But if this horrible Kobe contract has taught us something, it's that one max slot isn't enough. Stars want to team up with other stars. If we don't sign anyone this offseason, we could go into NEXT offseason with:

Russell: 5.4
Randle: 3.3
Nance: 1
A. Brown: 1
Clarkson: 5.5
Black: 5.5
Swaggy 5.5
Upshaw: 1
Cap Hold: .5

That's 9 players at a total of 29 million or so. That would leave us with roughly 58 million to spend. A Durant max is about 26 million. Now we have 32 million. That's enough to get a couple more good players or another max player to go with all our somewhat seasoned younglings. We will also be able to make a better judgement on the free agent pool as it pertains to team needs since we will know Randle and Russell's games.

The point is, we ARE adding players and building a team. We happen to be doing it through the draft and not free agency. We have added Randle, Clarkson, Black, Russell, Nance, Brown and Upshaw over the past two seasons. Every one of those guys looks like a keeper that can be at least a solid rotation player. Heck, we are potentially one player away from having a legitimate 8 man rotation.

 

Absolutely not true. Chandler Parsons is literally one of his best friends. Dirk is better than Kobe at this point. Dallas IS more money than the Lakers because of no state tax, and he grew up in Texas. If I was a player playing in Charlotte and I had a chance to go home and play in LA (Lakers or Clippers) I would seriously consider it.

And It's not as simple as that. If Kobe leaves and Russell and Randle don't show much, players won't be turning us down due to our front office. It will be because we have nothing to play with. I thought Laker fans were smarter than this. Too many Laker fans are buying into the doomsday narrative being spun by the media. No one thought we had a chance at DeAndre OR LMA. The media all of a sudden started saying we have a chance (likely to get page hits/viewers) and now Laker fans are crumbling over ANOTHER media creation.

 

He left for an inferior roster. I'll listen to any argument about friends, liking the owner, and all that fun... but this crap about them having a good roster right now is simply inaccurate. And that's the argument I see the most on twitter.

 

I didn't argue that. You and I have had discussions before about the inferior Dallas roster. If DJ was going somewhere other than the Lakers, I'm glad it's Dallas. Hurts the Clippers BAD and I still think Dallas misses the playoffs. LMA going to SA is also a good thing because SA will likely end it's run about the time our younglings are ready to start theirs. And Portland isn't really in a much better position than us at this point. Lillard is a little ahead of anyone on our roster. Matthews, Batum, Lopez...they will literally lose their 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th best players.

 

I agree actually. Jordan tanking their franchise is a huge help. They must have really mistreated him (or at least he perceived it that way). Him leaving them almost closes their window. They might not be too much better than us this season. Aldridge to San Antonio hurts only because we want after him so hard and he wanted nothing to do with us. I think San Antonio now continues their run of being pretty good for at least 4-5 more years.

I still consider this summer a failure at this point. I'd like to think Russell will approximate Lin's value and Randle will approximate Boozer's if not more... but then we've also lost Ed Davis which is a big blow to this roster (says a lot...). Right now we're worse than last year. We need to make a couple additions and I don't want to wait for Aldridge to make that happen.

 

Maybe we are worse. If Kobe's gut wrenching inefficiency was due to his shoulder being jacked up all season, Clarkson and Black continue to improve and Russell and Randle give us Boozer and Lin production (which I think they will actually exceed), we will be better. Russell may be equal to Lin from a scoring perspective, but I think Russell's passing ability will be light year's ahead of Lin's even his rookie year. And from what the FO and everyone is saying, Randle is beasting. He'll be better than Boozer. I'm not ready to call this offseason a failure yet. Like I said, an argument could be made Black is better than Lopez now.

Black/Randle/Kobe/Clarkson/Russell could be a really scary team to play/ They probably only win 30 games or so, but I think they will show us exciting flashes.

Why am I more optimistic than RealDeal right now? Has that ever happened?

 

No! But I've never had as little faith in the FO as I have right now. And no man I will not continue to entertain the idea that Black is as good as Robin Lopez. No way, no how. All you're saying is based off of faith that I share because we're Laker fans. But from an outsider looking in, does this roster look even close to New York's? No. This roster looks worst than last year's too.

All that can be saved with just two additions: Koufos and Harris. Get Koufos and Harris and I'll calm down.