Aloha,

Lots of trade chatter regarding Austin, especially to the Mav’s. Laker Tom has posted one. For me if I were to trade Autin to Dallas, I would ask for Lively and Max back. Max would at least give us a replacement shooting guard. With Kyrie out for most if not all of next year. They are desperate for a point guard. They will not be able to land anyone better than Austin, without a lot more salaries and picks. I would possibly consider Lively and Naji Marshall but I would want some draft capital as well. Marshall would be a big boost to our wing rotation.

The biggest problem with trading Austin is it opens up a hole at shooting guard and back up point guard. We won’t find one guy on the scrap heap that can do both. When making a trade one must consider the holes it opens in other areas.

My hope is we can assist Dallas in a 3 or 4 way deal that lands them a point guard and brings us Gafford. But if we are trading Austin, I definitely want Lively as part of the package.

Aloha,

Wow talk about miracles. The Mav’s lost a generational talent but we’re just handed another. Unless Nico does something totally stupid, the will draft Cooper Flag.

Dallas has an abundance of front court talent. Unfortunately Kyrie could miss most if not all of next season. The big problem for Dallas is that Flagg will earn 12 mil on his rookie deal.

His salary pushes their salaries to just 3mil under the 2nd apron. Which means they can’t even use the tax payer MLE. Daniel Gafford is probably the guy they will look to move. This is a contract year and Lively is due an extension. They just can’t afford to pay that many front court guys.
26 year old Gafford is the perfect center for the Lakers. He is a great defender, rebounder and lob threat. He averaged 12 points, 6.8 boards and 1.8 blocks in just 21 minutes. He will definitely get more run with the Lakers.

Nico is one of the few GM’s with a good relationship with Rob, If he’s not fired. The Lakers could help the Mav’s trade for a point guard. I look at DLO or Malcom Brogdon as guys that might help the Mav’s hold down the fort while they wait for Kyrie to return. Hopefully the Mav’s big break is a big break for the Lakers as well.

Aloha,

As usual as soon as the Lakers season ended, the click baiters came out in force. And as usual they are targeting trades for star players, regardless of how far fetched that trade may be.

The Lakers are not in a good position to trade for a star player. The minute the ink dried on the Luka trade, our limited remaining draft capital took a major hit. We now had a young superstar to replace the aging one.

I look at some of these trades and they are throwing in all of these trade swaps to make the deal. How valuable are those swaps? This team was the third seed even with all the chaos it endured. How valuable is a swap next year or in 2028 going to be? The answer, not very.

I see these made up JJJ trades, even though there hasn’t been a peep from the Griz about trading their 25 year old rising superstar. I’m sure they covet our one remaining 1st round pick and a bunch of meaningless swaps for him. Austin is a fine player but they already have Bane at the 2 and they would now be in the same boat we are, trying to find a quality starting center. If for some reason, they decide to trade him, they could do much better than the Lakers. Be real.

I really doubt that the Lakers can land any star with the package we have to offer. The rescinded Mark Williams trade is more in line with what the Lakers can do.

The truth is, we don’t need a star. We have a solid core, that with a couple of modest addition, like a decent center, can compete for a championship. It seems lost on the pundits that this was a very good team that lost in a playoff series that was hard fought, with 3 games lost in crunch time. We were close.

The Lakers will have the whole summer and training camp to work out the bugs. While that midseason trade was a huge win for the Lakers, we had to try and make it work on the fly and it left us with a glaring hole to fill. Now we can fill out the roster and have some time to make all the pieces fit.

So if you are waiting for the JJJ trade or Embid or Turner all I can say is, don’t hold your breath. You’ll pass out.

Aloha,

I have read quite a few articles on our series loss to the TWolves and honestly, I get a bit annoyed. You read words like embarrassing and humiliating dropped. It was as if they blew us out every game. Yet the last four games came down to the wire. Luka playing with the flu in game 4 and a bad back in game 5 didn’t help. Also LeBron injuring his knee in the 5th didn’t help and evidently Austin played the series on a bad toe. Still we lost the series for the very 3 reasons I was afraid of going into the playoffs.

1. Lack of size and rim protection at center.

2. Very little bench scoring.

3. And the team still trying to figure out how to play together in such a short period of time after the Luka trade.

I never believed that we could compete for a ring this year. But I actually came away encouraged by what I saw. I believe our core of Lebron, Luka, Austin, Rui and DFS is a championship core that needs a couple of additions.

Our small ball line up is one of the best in the league. But it takes a tremendous amount of energy to play that swarming, switching defense when you don’t have a big. Being forced to play that way most of the game, wore us down and we ran out of gas in every 4th quarter.

So naturally center is at the top of the list for the team this summer. For me it doesn’t have to be a high priced star center. Go after one of them and then it will require part of the core and now you have another hole or holes to fill. The center just needs to be starter quality. He doesn’t need to be a star, because we will continue to go small because it’s effective.

As for trades, everyone would love Walter Kessler from the Jazz and I would not be surprised if Rob hasn’t already called Danny but Kessler had a break out year and I doubt Danny will give him up, at least for what we have to offer.

I look around the League and it seems like the Magic might be the most logical trading partner. They have an abundance of bigs and no shooting. We have a shooter in Dalton.

Wendell Carter Jr would be an excellent fit for the Lakers. He is a big body at 6’ 10” and 270 pounds. He rebounds well and can occasionally knock down a corner 3. He is a lob threat as well but honestly has been utilized because the Magic lack a true playmaking PG. They also have Goga Bitadze . He’s 6’ 11” 250 and great rebounder. While he is not a shooter he is a better shot blocker with 1.5 blocks a game in only 20 minutes. Either would be perfect for what we need and they wouldn’t break the bank.

LeBron is the wild card in our off season plans. LeBron said last year he was willing to take less to sign a good player. Klay was his guy but fortunately for us Klay chose Dallas. If LeBron is willing perhaps he would give up enough to sign Clint Cappella if we can’t trade for a center. Clint saw his role diminish last year because the Hawks had a young center they were grooming, but he was still good for 9.5 boards and a block in a little over 20 minutes a game. And he still catches those lobs. Clint will probably fall into MLE or even mini MLE territory. He would be enough for us.

So let’s say we can trade for a center. We could also use a wing defender that can score some. If LeBron cooperated I would go after Alexander-Walker from the TWolves. He would definitely require the full MLE. With Randle and Nazz Reed both having player options that could push them into the 2nd apron they may not be able to keep Alexander-Walker. He would be the perfect addition.

When you look at the cap situation around the League, there isn’t a lot of cap space out there. Like last year there will be bargains available for the minimum. We could have had several good players including Gary Trent Jr if we had a roster spot available. Well this year we do. And with Luka we will be a top destination for those free agents.

I feel like we are close with the players we have and we only need a couple of guys to push us over the top. The Lakers as usual will be attached to every star and mentioned in blockbuster trades. But that isn’t what we need. A few smaller moves will be enough.

Aloha,

A very disappointing end to a very fun season. The one thing everyone thought might be our downfall was. Lack of a rim protector and rebounder killed us. We have a very good small ball line up but you can’t go small that much. Makes you wonder what would have happened if we had made that Mark Williams trade. Just a few observations.

The TWolves are a quality defensive team. But we made it much to easy for them. We played way too much one on one. The ball has to move to beat a team like the TWolves. It didn’t.

We didn’t get the others involved enough. Our bench was out scored 22 to 4. I still believe that Dalton should have gotten a little run, especially wit Austin having a bad shooting night.

What ever happened to feed the hot hand. Rui had his second great shooting game in a row. He was 5 for 8 from 3, after going 5 for 10 the game before. Considering no one else was lightning it up, I don’t know why they didn’t run more for him.

LeBron is still amazing
But at 40 years old, he can’t play 40 minutes and it showed in the 4th quarters of this series.

JJ was out coached the entire series. Hopefully He will learn.

For the most part I like this group. We will need to build a center rotation this summer. It would also help to get most scoring off the bench. Perhaps Dalton can provide that in year 2.

It’s important to keep in mind that Luka didn’t come on board until February. We will be better with a trading camp.

I think this team with time together and a couple additions can legitimately compete for a ring next year.

Aloha,

It was a hard fought game that we could have won. I think for me it boils down to 3 things.

1. Way too much dribbling in the 4 th quarter. The ball movement stalled out as we tried to win one on one.

2. No substitutions in the 4th. I really that fatigue set in down the stretch.

3. JJ never should have called that time out. It was a one point lead and a scramble underneath. It gave the TWolves time to review the play. I would have made the TWolves take a time out to challenge. Either you get the ball in and then call time out or worst case, you have a time out left to set up a play.

We are up against us now. The biggest concern for the Lakers coming into the series was our lack of a center. Which came back to bite us in the butt. The TWolves beat us with 18 offensive rebounds.

We are not dead yet but it will be extremely hard to beat this team 3 in a row.

Aloha,

Well that was not good. Still, not time to panic. Yet. Playoff series are rarely won without winning at least one road game and we have another shot tomorrow.

The most important thing for tomorrow will be Luka’s health. He gave his best but he was clearly struggling with what has been called a stomach flu. Our margin for error in the playoffs is slender and we need everyone healthy to have a chance.

Even with Luka sick we were tied at 103. And we definitely did some good things beyond LeBron’s stellar game. We found our 3 point stroke and shot 43% from 3. We were also even in rebounds. Rudy has been handled. Actually it is better for us when he’s playing.

Defensively we were fine. It was not our defense. It was our offense. 19 turnovers, most of them live ball turnovers that led to 28 points. Now some of those were the result of good Wolves defense but far too many were stupid, and they seemed to score every time we had one of those. Also, poor free throw shooting did not help the cause.

We can win this series but we will need Luka feeling better and fewer stupid turnovers to do it. Let’s hope that happens Sunday.

Aloha,

We now officially know that we will be playing the Timberwolves in the first round. Unless there is major upsets in the play in games and beyond, there just isn’t an easy path for any team in the west. It will be interesting to see if the Rockets win their first round series. They are the 2nd seed but I don’t have a lot of faith in them. The Warriors could knock them off if the win their play in.

That said, the seeding is about as favorable as the Lakers could have hoped for. I believe that that the Thunder, Clippers and Nuggets all pose more problems for us than the TWolves and we won’t face any of them until we reach the Western conference finals. Still it’s going to be a grind.

The TWolves posses a big front line that will be a challenge. We won the last game even though Luka wasn’t great but Randle did not play in that one. The good news is we can play Gobert off the court. The bad news is Reid comes in for him and he has given us fits in past games.

I am optimistic about the series. It will be extremely difficult for the TWolves to defend our big three. After having to play himself into shape after the injury and integrate himself into the Lakers system, over the last several games, Luka destroyer of worlds have finally arrived. Just in time for the playoffs.

Ant man will get his. We just have to make it hard on him. But after that we can handle the other threats. Randle can be a problem but Lebron and Rui have strong bodies to stand up to him.

It will come down to, can the TWolves defend our big 3 and somehow not give open looks to Rui, DFS and Gabe. By the way, Gabe must recover that shooting touch he had a few weeks ago. Our bench will get out scored but we have so much firepower that we can over come that.

Like I said, it will be a grind. But I think the Lakers win in 6.

Aloha,

The NBA just rescinded Luka’s 2nd technical foul. Does little good now. I doubt they lets us play the last 8 minutes over😡