LABron James Discussion: The Final Year?

we didn't have options. if we let him walk, we'd have only had the mle (and that's with letting everyone else walk--which we did!), and nobody was available for that who could start for our team. relatedly, the the worst thing we did that offseason was let beasley walk into air for cap savings. that was a 15 million expiring, at worst. top teams operating over the cap just don't do that. anyway, that's another thing i'm hoping will be finished with the new ownership group. with deeper pockets, we would have balloon-paid dlo for one year (instead of giving him a PO on a two-year deal at lower money) and kept beasley. this is certainly what would have happened if ballmer was our owner, imo, and then we'd have been in position to make more trades instead of being handcuffed. was that the year the clips got norm powell for expirings? can't remember, but that's the kind of thing we missed out on.

anyway, rich paul needs to get away from my team. stop talking about them and go away. did you enjoy watching westbrook's 10-30 team beat us, rich?

 

do not want retirement tour here

except for ticket sales

hahahaha

The business side of things rears its ugly head

 

Rich Paul’s comments suggesting the Lakers trade AR for JJJ are irresponsible and reckless. AR has never said anything but glowing things about Lebron publicly. It’s extremely disrespectful, and a sure fire way to torpedo locker room chemistry. I’m ready for the circus to leave town.

 

Not to mention AR makes 13M currently while JJJ makes 35M so out the door go other hopefully tradable expirings/assets, and JJJ's salary jumps way the H up after this year for the next 3 or 4 on his recently signed contract. FOH Rich, Horry and the rest of ya.

 

yeah, i know lebron will say he doesn't control rich, but...you could if you wanted.

like, you're friends, right? if my friend was out there saying stuff like this, i'd be like "can you chill for five minutes? you're making my life more difficult!"

 

How can an NBA agent talk so freely about trades like this? Its getting ridiculous lol.

I don't get the glazing of JJJ, he averages the same amount of rebounds as AR

 

The difference is LeBron is no longer in his prime. If this were prime LeBron, the Lakers franchise would bend over backwards for LeBron. But because everyone can see LeBron is obviously not the same player and only declining, the Lakers have zero incentive to cater to LeBron's demands.

The crazy part here is they are taking shots at AR. AR has been the only one outplaying the value of his contract since he joined the Lakers... every season, he gets better while making far less than what he's contributing. So ridiculous that RP is attacking Reaves like that... And if LeBron doesn't tell his goofball midget friend of his to stop attacking the Lakers, then good riddance to LeBron... he's outlived his welcome and I think us fans would love to move past this LeBron-saga and start building on the Luka-Reaves journey. There is no chemistry between LeBron and Luka. It looks like LeBron is jealous and being passive aggressive towards the Lakers because they are choosing to prioritize the younger stars over him!

 

And he's soft... he plays like he's afraid of contact and he's a big. We already have Rui for that... last thing we need is JJJ playing soft and can't even rebound over guards.

 

The king don't like being challenged. No one has the guts to tell him what to do. The king is broken in , will not change or sacrifice his stats for the betterment of the team.

 

LOL besides Luka with no AR playing do tell who else out there, “for the betterment of the team”, he should be constantly giving up the ball to ….. for them to put the ball in the basket? Considering how scorching hot they have been.

 

some fans are what we call "enablers"

 

Look you know I agree he's a **** but basketball wise the last 12 games where he has been scoring, assisting, rebounding to his normal levels, plus trying on defense and making his normal right play passes when guys are in position to score .... WHO ELSE out there beside just Luka now should he be "force feeding" the ball to? It's nonsense. I'm starting to think ADKobe is The Rock with a burner account.

 

we wouldn't have to score so much if we played some defense

 

Looked good man. It’s crazy. His athleticism has declined but the guy can just put up numbers.

Also I think at least some of the Rich Paul stuff has been addressed publicly and privately. Rich just needs to be quiet.

 

Old man nearly notched a 30 point triple double on night two of a back to back. Impressive.

 

the "he is his own man and that's his platform" is exactly what i expected him to say, and it's b*******. he's your agent, friend, and business partner and can't be yapping like this. if i hear another word from rich paul about the los angeles lakers, so help me god...

 

This is the crap that happens when you let simpletons speak for you. Rich Paul is still selling tshirts out of his trunk if Lebron wasn’t a genetic freak.

 

So, overall, what really comes to my mind is that behinds the scenes guys stay behind the scenes for a reason. Rich has allowed himself to get caught up in the entertainment aspects of the business and needs to just fall back and run his agency.

We need more people who are able to say "no" when one of these entertainment execs shows up with mics and podcast equipment. It's one thing if he wanted to actually shed light on the life of an agent and/or past clients. We absolutely do not need another set of talking heads throwing wild trades and stuff out there.

 

Rich Paul's podcast is part of The Ringer, which is owned by Bill Simmons. It's a Bill Simmons psy op to destroy the Lakers from within.