LABron James Discussion: The Final Year?

only so much we can do to control the narrative at this point. lebron dropping passive aggressive stuff about us not mortgaging the future for him is pretty damaging. if we cave, he'll get off scot free in the press just like he has for the westbrook deal. then the narrative will be that our management is so incompetent that we can't see a sunk cost when it's sitting on our faces.

no win situation for us.

 

You know I’m not a huge Rob fan, but based off of LeGM’s latest tactics, I’m rolling with Rob’s plan to stop giving LeBaby everything thing he asks for.

 

I mean what does Lebron expect? I hate Rob, but when you have a top heavy team and a bunch of minimum players the margin for error is zero. You either have to have your 3 main players be consistently available (i'm looking at you AD and Lebron) and actually good relative to their contract (Westbrook) or you need multiple role players on minimum contracts play consistently above what they are worth. In our case, we have neither, so this is the result.

 

The Lakers post Kobe pre LeBron is what they want to go with? Good luck getting FAs and going with the Jerry Buss model after this

It's one thing not to appease stars but to try to not actively win is another thing entirely. Think the FOmis actually doing the right thing and waiting for a team to bite on the Wemby tank but if they are purposely not trying to improve the team: fans are grossly under estimating what other stars will place the Lakers. Particularly when you have big spenders outside of this.

Honestly Lakers fans should hope the team is sold otherwise it's going to be a long time unless you are able to draft a generational player which is hard

 

This Lebron centric view is annoying me. You know what got play Caruso's interview after how the Lakers blew him off. That stuff looks great to other agents and players

 

then maybe he should shut up?

 

Agreed. We have already seen this play out. I kinda think this would be worse as we would be losing AD as well. Two generational players forcing out of an organization isn’t going to be attractive to other stars. Especially guys who are largely liked and respected around the league.

so yeah, if we’ve got something in mind that we are waiting on then okay. But not making a move just to prove some kind of point to your star players (especially when you’ve got a shot to get back into playoffs) just isn’t a good move IMO.

And yes, it’s possible to make moves that help the team today and moving forward. A trade now doesn’t have to mean you are killing future options.

 

We would absolutely improve. Get some new blood and play some team ball again. We have some spurts but not consistent. Austin would take a huge leap and I think it would inspire AD. I'm not ready to write him off. Keep him at the four and get a starting quality center. Coach Ham and the front office behind closed doors would party all summer if Lebron asked for a trade. Like Cookie said the Russ trade and Lebron's contract have put us where we are. At the end of this we season we can be done with both. Get a few assets and have fun again. One thing the Lakers are good at is finding talent. I want to enjoy Laker basketball again. Watching out of a sense of duty is not the same...lol.

 

I wonder if AD would want to stay if LeGM is traded. It would take a lot of convincing.

 

i don't understand this at all. in what world is this a sensible take on what the FO is doing. and i respect you a lot, elgin, but this simply isn't grounded in any fact.

it's not about sticking it to lebron. it's about not throwing good money after bad. we don't even know what's actually been offered. if it's like the summer, i'll be glad again that we didn't do anything, because those deals were crap.

 

Caruso should shutup? I think you missed the point I was making.

 

That is in response to how some of these comments come across. That may not be the intent but there’s definitely a “let LeBron suffer with this team” vibe that I don’t really agree with.

Or at least I openly question how far we want to go with that mentality.

And that’s not a shot at you or really any particular poster. Just the sentiment as a whole. I get the frustration with LeBron and some of his diva ways but the team still needs to be careful with how it handles one of the leagues most popular players.

My thought here has always been looking for a deal that made sense and I think that’s possible even if it’s just a smaller move that nets a Rozier or Reddish/Fournier.

 

I believe he was referring to how Caruso’s comments about his contract situation were reported by the media.

 

The Washington Post has a recent article up about Lebron wanting to win, he's not happy, etc. If the comments are representative of NBA fans in general, it seems a lot of them know about Lebron's role in getting Brick on the team and aren't buying his whining.

 

That's good to hear. Would be crappy to have the masses fooled by his s***.

 

plus stuff like letting Westbrook expire does not make any present or future sense, as it means wasting 17 million of cap space moving forward.

 

Same. I also pick LeBron especially knowing AD is also in play. It’s been said numerous times but I will repeat it - only one guy was willing to take on the challenge of leading this team back. He’s high maintenance for sure but we knew that from the beginning and certainly when we resigned him. If he departs and there’s bad blood we will have a hard time getting someone else to sign up for this.

 

Come on, we need to give up this idea of appeasing James so down the line we will get more free agents. We took care of Kobe, look where that got us. Dont be fooled that James came here because we took care of Kobe. He has other interests here. I dont hate James, I just care more for the Lakers.

Players now are more incentivized to stay with the team that drafted them. They play their 6 months from where the hell hole they came from, then they all have vacation homes in Los Angeles. Why do they need to take less money just to play for the Lakers? Because we took care of Kobe or James?

We need to stop with this BS about trading for 2 more players just to give us more of a chance. More of a chance for what? getting bounce in the 1st round? If the trade doesn't hurt our future prospect, then I'm all for it, but all of these trades want our future drafts, that is a clear NO.

I'm tired of getting old free agents that are going to give us one or two good years then every year after that we struggle. I rather be in the Warriors/Bucks/Cavs/C Bags shoes than ours, they have remained competitive year after year after getting their stars through the draft.

 

"Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing"