For the minimum…Solid, solid pickup who could have been great for us. These are the kind of things I’d be stoked for us to be doing right now. Rob can never swing these kind of things.

Evidently reputable journalists at BSPN now are required ro generate clickbait articles in order to keep their jobs? BTW BSPN isn’t a typo. I’m about 2 articles away from any fucking site from walking away for the summer because of how stupid and annoying all this has become. Let’s look……again……..at some what really are pretty simple facts.

1) LeBron has a No Trade clause. Meaning he will not go to a stripped down team with one other star and the last remianing MLE signed role-player. This was also implied in the Rich Paul press release. So for the love of fucking logic stop with any trades that have James end up in a city he won’t play in (any but San Fran, New York…not Brooklyn or LA). He is not going to Dallas. They are, at best, a year out from contending because of KI’s jnjury. Especially after they gut the roster which wouldn’t happen because of the optics of the Luka trade. Please, try and use basic logic, folks. Plus, any multi-player deal thatbbrings over 3-4 players would put the Lakers in a massive bind since our roster is already at 15. We can waive but one, solitary player with no penalties: Shake Milton. Everything else woukd require us to waive a player and take the cap hit. Not. Happening.

2) For like, the bajillionth time, the Lakers do not want to trade LeBron. “B-b-but they had a super secret than not secret at all meeting with Luka?!?!” Please. For one second I wish people would think. That dinner had to go down exactly like that. The Lakers are intentionally sending clear and vibrant signals that the top of the pecking order starts and ends with Luka. He did not ask to come here. He did not demand a trade. He was blind-sided and felt betrayed. The Lakers desperately need Luka to commit long term and they’re going to build trust by having him show up to a super secret but then not so secret dinner with the 41 year old face of the NBA and say “Heyyyyyy guy, you’re the man…he’s just here to pick the best bottle of grapes we’re sll gonna chug down. It’s cool, it’s alllllll coooooool”. That shit will not fly. Luka’s camp is looking for two things: winning and stability. So far everyone has said the right things but we all know what that amounts to in the world of pro sport.

3) This is all posturing. You know how I took the Rich Paul press release at first? Pro Forma, business as usual, standard operating procedure. Reading about some of the background now (LBJ not being consulted on the Williams trade, not being told of the sale, not getting an offer….even though he said from pretty mich the get-go he’d be picking upbthe option) it now reads like John Cusack holding a ghettoblaster over his head playing ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’. There is certainly a time limit on all of this and I, for one, applaud the Lakers for clearly stating their intentions of building around Luka. It sounds like, as akways, communication around certain issues could hsve been better but it’s also hard to argue that for the last few years the Lakers have willingly accomodated just about every single desire expressed by the James Camp. Now, they really have no choice but to start looking ahesd and they have done, with some big time Nico help, to be sure.

This is not necessarilly an ending, the Lakers are just making sure they have the strongest hand at the table next summer. A move on unexpected poise and power it reminds me of Dr. Buss who weathered more superstar tantrums than most teame dream of going through. LeBron may well retire a Laker if for no other reason than he has built a very comfortable life here in LA. While that may not be set in stone I ask you, what is?

Funny how folks seem to be making a mountain from a mole hill. I’m no Rob advocate but I don’t think we got burned in this. A future second round pick for nothing (Houston signed DFS using cap space, I believe) and I’m puzzled why folks are grasping at a player exception or, crazier still, a second round pick.

Anyhow, I get it that losing DFS for nothing sucks. It continues a troubling trend of the Pelinka front office, to be sure. But this wasn’t bad GMing, the player seemed to want to truly
move on. That’s it. I’m not going to see the Lakers pursue every chum and pal of Luka and call that intelligent.

It’s a bummer, yes, but that’s about it.

Would love a guard, someone who could be an above average in-ball defender. We have enough size now, it may not be elite but it’s what we have to work with. I can see some things will need to be worked out, especially if Ayton has another 40 some odd game season. My hope, and it’s pinning a lot on the fact that Portland is rebuilding, is that he missed as many games as he did because of an over-abundance of caution. It’s not a lotta hope, tho.

All in all, unless we add another young talent that can likely crack the rotation, it feels like we’re done and they’ll fill the roster out not having waived Shake (which is kinda odd, all things considered) with a low impact, minimum contract.

That would make my grade a C+. This off-season created as many questions as answers, left everyone wondering what direction the Lakers are going in, and makes me feel like Rob has a very, very short leash going forward.

One positive is that, come the deadline, we’ll have roughly 110-111 mil in expiring money (not counting Luka). Hard for me to see him not negotiate SOME kind of deal in August, if only to protect himself from injury, but you never know. If August comes and goes and no extension, Laker brass will be sweating atom bombs.

All of that is pressure in a GM who, historically, has under-performed in his role as a visionary and crafter of team identity. All of that is pressure on a second year coach who got his ass handed to him in the playoffs and seems to have a hard time doing the basic function of the job: connecting with his players. All of this is pressure on an incoming owner who will undoubtedly want to come in hot and ready for banner winning.

So we’ll see. If Reddick can grow, quickly, as a coach it would go a very long way in helping the team overall and get to where they want to be. If Luka comes in healthy, motivated and in full on leadership mode it’ll help. If Ayton plays like he did in his last contract season it’ll help.

So here’s hoping.

Rob’s out in the backyard literally turning over rocks waiting for some other GM to bail him out. Meanwhile all the ‘contend now’ centers are off the board, many of them squarely in our price range and us having a starting role to bequeath without competition.

The fact that Hayes is still out there is both a sign of our ineptitude and how much we seemingly blew it with him.

Luka’s working out, LeBron’s doing LeBron and there’s olllllld “Master Class” waiting for the tea leaves to dry while seemingly literally looking under stones.

It’d be funnier except, as Mongo astutely pointed out, this clownish futility all factors in to Luka re-upping for a quarter of a billion dollars.

If I know my absolute favorite GM he just might find a way to blow this, too. Incredible considering all we had to was hold onto one guy (DFS) and keep the phone lines open for a decent center or two…

Takes a lotta work to fuck up this much. Takes a lotta grace to fuck up this often and still have the job.

This has become real silly real quick. Rich Paul drops his standard “LeBron Wants to Win Now” press statement and planet Earth loses its shit. Let’s dig into why this is so much sound and fury signifying nothing.

1) LeBron is old. There will be zero teams ponying up alpha assets to toss at a player who will retire before some of the picks potentially used convey. This is a simple fact seemingly being ignored by, well, virtually everyone else.

2) LeBron can no longer take a team on a deep playoff run on his own. He honestly can’t even will a team into the playin, not anymore. AD wasn’t good enough to do it, even with LeBron and you can a big chunk of blame on the front office for several years of roster mismanagement. Of course The Westbrook deal comes to mind but that was just most egregious example of a front office that doesn’t have a clear notion of what the team identity needs to be.

3) The Kobe Konundrum. I feel like this is the 3rd or so time making this specific point here but evidently there’s still space between the nail head and the wood so let’s bang it down one more time: any team that trades for LeBron will decimate its roster to do so or trade their best player. For a 40 year old superstar that will not be happening.

4) The Lakers don’t want to trade LeBron. They want for every single record he breaks to be in a purple and gold jersey. They want his retirement tour to be as a Laker. They want to be the last team he plays for. He might technically retire a Cav (I could see them signing him on a vet minimum and then retiring) but it would be malpractice for them to gut the roster so he can take a personal victory tour. Not happening.

5) This is just more of Rich Paul doing what he does. Whenever he goes into an off-season where an extension is on the line he makes the media rounds with the same, basic statement: “the franchise needs to surround my max salaried player with the right pieces so he can win another title.” Surprise, that’s part of his job. Just like Rob and his “we’ll turn over every stone!” Quote he drops annually, this is just media posturing. That’s all any of this is and, since it’s a slow news day unless you’re paying attention to the real time dismemberment of our fragile democracy, it has dominated the news cycle. To me it’s all mildly funny but mostly boring and rehashed old BS.

Lastly, for anyone who wants to gripe that LBJ coulda taken a pay cut. While I feel I’ve addressed that ad nauseam let’s take one more whack at it. It’s not his job to build the team, it’s Rob’s. Rich Paul and LBJ did the Lakers a solid last summer and got bumped in the 1st round, after an all-in trade for Luka that signaled the Lakers preparing to move on from the era of The King. I’m sure that doesn’t sit great but I think James et al understand why because he had Luka on MTG podcast.

Put yourself in LeBron’s shoes, or try to. He takes a pay cut and suddenly he “bought” a title when he was old. Take a pay cut and you instantly lose street cred at every school and speaking engagement. Take a pay cut and you’re saying every sacrifice, every hour spent away from your family should be diminished because some rich white kids who inherited all of their success can’t figure out how to build a team around you without his specific sacrifice. If that isn’t a perfect example of everything that’s wrong with the planet right now I don’t know what the fuck else could be. LeBron has enough money? Tell that to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and every grifter in Congress voting for billionaire tax breaks right now. LeBron has and will continue to earn this paycheck. Try and be content with that before throwing other people’s money into the fire.

Well, that was quite a season. Seismic trades, surprise playoff exits, devastating injuries and a new champion crowned. 9th different champ in the 12 years under Adam Silver (8 in 30 under Stern, I believe). Now comes the mania, the endless clickbait articles proclaiming this master trade can reshape the course of human history if you are willing to suspend all logic and disbelief! For my part, I expect a fairly quiet Laker summer. I’ll be content if we retain Dorian Finney-Smith and fill the center position with a suitable compliment to Luka’s playing style. Still, everyone will try and scream and yell about how anyone can replicate the Thunder’s blueprint for winning and I’m just here to tell you now that’s a giant, steaming pile of…

Dookie.

1. Replicating the Thunder’s path to success is impossible. It was forged in failure, tempered with the kind of patience rarely seen nowadays in pro sport, and was not borne of any single defining philosophy other than not wasting money. From the moment they chose cap space over James Harden and watched their first drafted core walk away one by one, or get traded for the current core, the Thunder have been a model in the one thing most sport analysts and fans seem to abhor: patience. You could argue that moss was growing on the Thunder after Russell Westbrook asked out but all that did was put the final nail in the coffin of the old Thunder that was built around Westbrook, Durant, Ibaka and Harden. Of that core, only Durant and Ibaka have won rings. Sam Presti, and the Thunder ownership, should be commended for the patience and logic they’ve deployed over the last 10 years to get to this exact moment. So, unless you have the organizational patience to wade through several losing seasons, not trade draft picks out of habit, and patiently build a complimentary and affordable roster, nobody will be replicating the success of the Thunder the way they did it any time soon.
2. Same goes for Indiana. I can’t count the number of fake trades I’ve seen here proclaiming that the Pacers have NO CHOICE WHATSOEVER but to trade Myles Turner for a couple of feeble draft picks and 3 broken down players. They ignored all of that noise, also chose to move on from the same superstar talent known as Paul George and, in doing so, paved the way for all of their current success. Trading Sabonis and George were the two catalysts for the Pacers to assemble the roster of talent that they have. They kept the defensive specialist who can, sometimes, hit a three and built around the electric Haliburton with long, gritty, defense first players who can also sometimes hit a three. The defense on both teams, came first and defined their team identity. And, yes, sometimes you need to make a three. Certainly not all the time, though.
3. The three point revolution stalls out in the NBA Finals. Again. Every season you hear it all regular season long…”the three point revolution is here to stay!”, “we need more three point shooting!”, “that guy only plays defense and can’t hit the three…” and so on. Yet every time the playoffs, and especially the Finals, roll around suddenly the midrange game and scoring in the paint return to dominance. I get it, and I even agree to a point: sometimes you need to make a three pointer. But to rely on it as the penultimate offensive option is as foolhardy as relying on backdoor cuts and lobs as your path to a banner. In the playoffs, those long misses lead to opponent fastbreak points and those run you right out of a series. The Lakers saw that first hand as we shot the 5th most three pointers/game at 36.4 our 36.6% accuracy was good for 14th…out of 16 playoff teams. The Timberwolves turned that futility into fastbreak points, often at the rim. The Lakers need to have a better balance on offense as we struggled to get to the rim in the playoffs when the lob game stalled out and our paint drivers were hobbled. The Thunder do not rely on the three ball, when it falls for them they generally blow you out. But they don’t need it to fall, they’re dominant defensively and have several guys who can attack the rim. Sometimes they make a three. More often and not, they pass it up for a better shot.
4. Fewer max contracts. This one is why the Lakers can never be expected to follow the blueprint of the Thunder, they do it The Lakers Way which is big, splashy…and expensive. OKC has zero players on max contracts after Shai who signed his back in 2022-23 when he had fewer than 6 years of NBA experience under his belt, hence the $35 mil (which looks like an absolute bargain and he will definitely make a ton more on his net extension). That alone allowed OKC to retain key drafted players or sign elite role players like Alex Caruso and Isiah Hartenstein. Holmgren is a particularly cheap and effective player (also soon to be due for an extension) who came even cheaper due to past injuries and slow start to his NBA career. The Lakers aren’t ever going to follow this path because they never draft young players if they can avoid it in any way. They trade for their stars, they’re homegrown a lot more rarely. This means we’re often shipping out our own elite role-players, or letting them walk for nothing and having to reform a team every few seasons around one or two massive contracts. In the modern NBA that’s a tight path to navigate smoothly. Rob hasn’t really proved he’s capable of it as he dismantled the team he basically inherited from Magic that won a banner.
5. Luck. Especially in the healthy players department. We just saw how one injury can completely alter a series (but go ahead and tell that to the Bad Boy Pistons who certainly didn’t put an asterisk next to their win against us when our guys all had bad hamstring pulls, a title is a title). The Lakers haven’t had the best luck but they also haven’t maxed out the resources or capabilities of a truly modern training staff and so, with the new owner, perhaps that could start to tilt back in our favor sooner than later. A healthy team is a good team and OKC had good health at the right time and it showed. they also hustled the hardest, played with the most grit, and adapted better than anyone else. So, while luck is certainly apart of it, so, too is toughness and tenacity.
   
   In short I don’t expect the Lakers to be able to replicate anything the Thunder have done and anyone who says otherwise is really just full of it. The Lakers need to do it their way, within the confines of the current CBA. They need to retain their current key contributors and improve around the margins. A lot of money was tied up in players that didn’t really play in the playoffs (Kleber) or have much of an impact (Vincent, Vando, Knecht, Hayes). Some of the guys who were ineffectual didn’t get much run and some didn’t do much with what they got. That’s something for the staff to mull over and figure out. A full training camp with Luka and LeBron and some chemistry could go a long way. Internal improvement from guys like Knecht and Hayes on defense or Vando and Goodwin on offense could go a long way to closing some of the roster gaps we currently have. Regardless, whatever moves we make they won’t be seismic like the Luka trade unless we trade Luka or LeBron which we all know ain’t happening. Getting Luka was our “all in” move.