Aloha,
Romona Shelburne is reporting that the Lakers had an offer on the table for Brook Lopez but Rich Paul’s quote spooked him so he signed the Clippers.
LeBron is beginning to irritate me. LeBron is concerned about playing for a championship. While no one should have to take a pay cut BUT if a championship is the goal than that 52 million available will not get it done. Not only does it hamper the Lakers ability to bring in necessary role players but the amount of assets a team would have to give up to trade for him is staggering. Teams just are not going to give up several very good players for a year or 2 of LeBron,
If winning was indeed his priority, he should have never picked up that option.
I had this debate with a friend. How can one say “I want to win” and simultaneously do the one thing that makes that very goal a lot harder? In a nut shell, it’s not LeBron’s problem. It’s Rob’s. Everyone wants LeBron to fix Master Class’s ineptitude. He offered that last season and got bounced in the 1st round. He’s watched the same front office bungles and stumbles we’ve all been watching. Only he works his ass off to be ready, and Hess’s doing that exact thing right now. Busting his tired, sore 40+ year old ass to be ready. Pelinka? He’s working on a Zen Garden or some other ridiculous bull shit. In short, what had Rob done to justify any kind of financial sacrifice? My feeling is not much. Not the way LeBron sees things, which is surely not how any fan sees things.
I have to disagree a little Jamie. We made a lot of moves for LeBron. We finally paid off our AD debt this draft. We sent Danny and a first for Dennis who had been 6th man of the year because LeBron had been our PG and he needed help. We were going to trade for Buddy. AD and LeBron have lunch with Westbrook and a couple of days later Rob trades for Westbrook forever pissing of the Kings because the deal was all but signed. There are other examples as well. Yes he works hard and has earned his pay but in today’s NBA with the cap aprons what they are you can’t have it both ways. And that’s not just LeBron. That’s guys like Giannis watching what the Bucks do. He and Dame were making 100 mil combined. The Joker said they need depth. How with that amount of salaries. When salaries get to a certain level it’s hard to do much. LeBron’s a smart guy and I know he must understand the cap dynamics. Having his agent put that statement out that cost him a center that could have helped him win just pissed me off.
I guess I just don’t like the heavy handed way he handled it.
I get all that. I think, for the players, they already feel like they give up a lot each and every year when it comes to the BRI split. If there was no cap, what would LeBron’s salary be if measured by in court impact, jersey sales, returning the Lakers to relevance and adding a title? Way more than $52.6 mil.
Rich Paul certainly dropped a poorly worded statement (and did the press rounds today to soothe the wound) but that is not the same as LeBron valuing his time and worth. Rob needs to be better, in this instance, not LeBron.
Folks can and will disagree but I’ve always felt, and said often, that the players need to maximize the dollars they earn playing a game for as much and as long as they can. Hell, in California that $52 mil drops to around $27 right off the bat.
I just never play with other people’s money. Got rich friends, got poor friends. Some inherited wealth, others earned. Regardless, it is theirs. Not my business how they go about theirs.
I will also forget advocate for a fair and more evenly distributed taxation system that benefits the lower earners. But that’s another topic lol
I’m just saying he can’t have it both ways, so don’t whine about it publicly.
Starting to get to me as well…seems to place his championship over team championship as well as developing his current team (the Lakers) to be a better team every single day and game going forward. I’d rather see a trade (I saw one proposal today involving the Knicks) and keep much of the roster intact, instead of trading players such as Reaves, Hachimuira, Knecht, for a 40% NBA center. Yes, I’d love to see Kleber, Vanderbilt, Vincent and Milton traded….but no one wants the bottom of the barrel Lakers.