I've been thinking about this a lot the past several days and have been looking more closely into this year's projected Mid-to-Late First Round players- and I think there's a potential path here for the Lakers to get creative and be a bit aggressive in the draft this year. As previously discussed, there's several potential Centers in that range who could be smart pickups for the Lakers to pursue, most notably Motiejus Krivas and Aday Mara IMO. And while Krivas is very clearly the more immediately "NBA ready" player of the two, I do think Mara could still be a good get for the Lakers long term and would work fine if we do "Center by Committee" for the first couple of seasons. More importantly though is the three-headed dragon of a frontcourt that Mara is a part of at Michigan this year, alongside combo forward Yaxel Lendeborg and forward-center Morez Johnson Jr. I think there's a way for the Lakers to at least get one more First for this year's draft class on Draft Night, maybe two if we're really lucky, and walk out of the First Round Draft Night with one of either Krivas or Mara and either Yaxel or Morez, as the Lakers' long term starting frontcourt to pair up alongside Luka and Austin. Notably if the Lakers were able to draft Krivas and Morez, that duo would be monstrous. Reminiscent a bit IMO of playing AD at the 4 and Dwight+McGee at the 5 during the Bubble Ring run in 2020. Essentially, what we could do on Draft Night is agree to a trade with Denver to take on Cam Johnson's contract into our cap space to enable them to resign Peyton Watson unperturbed, in exchange for their '26 First pick. That way, we'd be able to draft two potential longterm frontcourt pieces, have Cam as a bench piece and still have plenty of cap space left over to go do a S&T with Houston for Tari Eason after the fact.
Veesaar is a big that does basketball things on the court.Not just a specialist.His all around game is intriguing but does need to get stronger
i think denver can trade johnson into space for nothing, maybe even get an asset or two back, tbh. i'm trying to think of a time that a good player got traded in a salary dump AND the team gave a sweetener. even bad players on worse deals than johnson get dumped with seconds (not a first) attached right now. now, i could see situations where okc or denver gives us a first now for one of ours later during a salary absorption trade. but i'm not sure if it's worth it.
Denver's Michael Porter Jr. trade for Cam Johnson just last year. Also IDK that Cam Johnson's value is going to be particularly high this summer, considering the down year he's been having in Denver. That said, I've since pivoted towards the idea of trading our 2031 First and several of our Pick Swaps to OKC in exchange for absorbing Lu Dort in our cap space and getting their 15th pick in the First Round this year.
Maybe, but I could also see Presti being savvy in wanting to secure a rather valuable First from a rival team in OKC's conference that'd potentially be right around the end of Luka's prime.
1. mpj was a bad contract, but only 12 million of his 26-27 salary is guaranteed had his back gone out again. 2. they also got back cam johnson, probably the better player of the two on a better contract so, i don't view mpj as a pure salary dump. who's our cam johnson going back to denver or okc? this is true. he also didn't have a strong year the year before in bkn, which i was willing to write off cuz bkn, but two years in a row of meh is an issue. i still don't think he meets the kind of albatross qualifications required to attach a first to move somebody. i hope you're right, though--if that's true, even if we completely strike out in FA, there should be some assets to be gained via eating salary. lol, i think that's going too far. minny got the #8 overall pick for trading two future firsts a couple years back, and phx got three (likely lower, but still) firsts for their 2031 pick.
espn's mock has krivas, mara, morez johnson, swain, etc. all available at our pick or later, which is wild. a guy i've seen in the tournament that's really impressed me is billy richmond at arkansas. you want herb jones? draft this guy instead. espn doesn't even have him in the second round, but some have him as high as mid-first. i think his volatility is because he shoots 25% from three. but he shoots 78% from the line, and what an athlete. high motor, high iq, nba wing size/length, all the defensive tools.
Talk about leaving no stone unturned. Current guys I like who should be in our range: Forwards: Swain, Harris (will climb during workouts), or Cenac (less sure of him) Centers: Morez Johnson (love the motor if defense will translate), Krivas (like him, think it'll wait a year to enter when it's an easier path to the lotto), or Reed
don't know much about juke harris. i like swain. i still like the baylor wing (carr), too. i wonder if cenac will stay in school. he's got lotto tools but looked raw, kinda like ware did (lol, and then ware was an impact player year 1). i'm not super crazy about reed, from what i've seen. like, trey jemison could dominate in college in the same fashion for the same reasons. looking at the mocks, i think there are probably 40 guys who would be first rounders most years. i wonder how many of them decide to stay in school. guessing 5-10 will think it's better to do so, but there will be talent where we pick.
I definitely think some guys to go back. Especially if they can line up solid NIL money. But I also agree that there will be talent where we pick and I think we should be able to grab a good player. I expect some good guys to be sitting there in the second if we can we can buy back in.
yeah, i like a lot of the names projected to be available to us. interesting that mike thinks of morez johnson as a shooter.
Last thing we need is another 6’5” more offense than defense guard. Get a difference making non twig of a Big man.
you'd have to wait a year or two on carr, but he may end up being better than some of the guards taken in the lotto, imo. can't develop that kind of athleticism and shotmaking. he's like a (much) longer malik monk. some compare him to trey murphy (high end) or terrence ross (don't forget he was good for years). people have wanted djj for years, and he could be that (actually, his offense is way ahead of djj's at the same stage). IF he could defend POA like djj learned over time, he's theoretically the ideal luka/reaves third guard/wing player, imo. but i'm not a "draft for need" guy. the only reason i'm mentioning bigs is that there should be a few available where we pick that project as good nba players. but carr also projects well. i'd be glad to get him or swain or one of the other guards or forwards, too.
I'm pretty sure Carr would be off the board by 24, but if you can get him, get him. I alsonlike Onyeso at #24. Lob-threat and Shot-blocking machine.
yeah, i think the mocks have consistently underrated carr and that he'll jump up the boards after workouts.
Going to post this again in here, since it's all about nailing the draft. I'm still in the camp of targeting Mo Krivas in the draft and developing him in-house personally, but I also think guys like Morez Johnson Jr or Cameron Carr would be excellent targets for us to pursue and land in the draft this summer. That said, Jason Timpf just did a podcast interview with Brian Windhorst about the NBA in general and talked a great deal about the Lakers. And without getting into any personal thoughts on either JT or Windhorst themselves, the last few minutes of their talk on the Lakers is something I've been preaching about on this forum for awhile now and I think they both do a great job of framing the issue of the Lakers' roster building issues over the years and the necessity of nailing the margins moves for the roster beyond just the star names at the starting lineup. To put it bluntly, Windhorst notes that the last rookie that the Lakers drafted themselves and then later gave a contract extension to was Andrew Bynum. And to his credit, Windhorst does acknowledge that the Lakers have won multiple championships in the time since then, but as he and JT note- it's not an approach that the Lakers can afford to continue to rely on moving forward in this new CBA era with the Second Apron being designed to remove flexibility and essentially punish NBA teams that try to basically buy their way into winning rings by outpaying for superstars. Obviously I don't personally think the Lakers can afford to just do what OKC and San Antonio did and go into total tank mode for half a decade or longer in order to acquire more lottery players. Luka and AR widen the team's championship contending window a fair bit, but they still need to remain competitive and try to get to a championship winning level roster over the next couple of seasons, so free agency and trades will still be important for us too. But the template we have to follow moving forward is Boston. IMO? Every single summer from here on out, no matter what, the Lakers need to be buying into the second round and drafting players that Bennett and their new draft scouts see long term potential in and developing them. Try and draft most of the remaining First Round picks that the team still owns, rather than move them on Draft Night for some sort of package. The Lakers need to build a Dodgers-type farming system, where we are churning out just as many winning players in house as we are signing FAs and making trades with other teams. It'll take time and it could very easily be something that Luka and AR won't be in their primes long enough to see the full rewards of, but it's the key for the Lakers being championship contenders for the long haul on a regular basis again.
The more I watch film on Bidunga the more I like.The thing that stands out is his lateral foot speed for a 6’10 guy.Very switchable in JJ defense. Pure lob threat with bounce.
