Charlotte Hornets have formally offered their GM post to Mitch Kupchak
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unleasHell
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 05, 2018 4:49 pm    Post subject:

This is great news, now he can do a trade to bring in Deng...!
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 05, 2018 7:56 pm    Post subject:

All is forgiven if you do that Mitch!

Make Deng dissapear!

Then show Dwight that you want to see his jersey up on the wall in 10 years.

Laker for life Mitch.

Bye.
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 05, 2018 8:15 pm    Post subject:

Deng for Dwight swap incoming...
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 10:41 am    Post subject:

Mitch has a huge and positive legacy as a NBA GM if the entire resume is considered. I do not think Mozgov and Deng was all Jim Buss, and definitely think that is still part of Mitch's resume....and still he was incredibly successful in the role, which is why he is so respected around the league. I am not sure why some only focus on the "misses". His "hits" far outweigh his "misses"....on Wall Street they have a name for those guys.....Billionaires.
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 12:34 pm    Post subject:

unleasHell wrote:
This is great news, now he can do a trade to bring in Deng...!


After how it ended with the Lakers and how they went about releasing him?

I doubt he wants to do us any favors.
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 12:47 pm    Post subject:

unleasHell wrote:
This is great news, now he can do a trade to bring in Deng...!


He doesn't have a coach asking for him this time.
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 9:15 pm    Post subject:

adkindo wrote:
Mitch has a huge and positive legacy as a NBA GM if the entire resume is considered. I do not think Mozgov and Deng was all Jim Buss, and definitely think that is still part of Mitch's resume....and still he was incredibly successful in the role, which is why he is so respected around the league. I am not sure why some only focus on the "misses". His "hits" far outweigh his "misses"....on Wall Street they have a name for those guys.....Billionaires.


I just think Mitch stuck to the Jerry West playbook too much. He didn't make enough adjustments to take into account the new CBA. E.g. the sudden drastic increase in salary cap leaving so many teams with cap room in 2016, the increased difficulty of getting multiple top tier FAs etc. We spent too much of our resources on trying to get Free agents, when we should have been stockpiling draft picks . I can't entirely blame Mitch for this though, because it was an approach that had worked well in the past, and Jim Buss gave him a pretty ridiculous deadline to work with.

Despite the above, at his core, Mitch is an excellent GM and I fully expect him to adapt to the changed environment now that he's taken some time to go to other FOs to learn from them. I do hope we retire Mitch's 'GM' jersey someday. He deserves that much for that ridiculous Gasol trade that single handedly brought us 2 championships.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 10:04 am    Post subject:

Speaking of Charlotte Hornets, the head coach Steve Clifford:

http://www.lakersnation.com/steve-clifford-top-seeds-worried-facing-kobe-bryant-dwight-howard-lakers-2013-playoffs/2018/03/23/?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation&spotim_referrer=recirculation

Quote:
“To be around Kobe, Steve, Pau Gasol, Metta and Dwight, and the whole dynamic of that group, the one thing people don’t give those guys credit for — or Mike (D’Antoni) — Mike did a great job, is we were struggling. [But] the last 40 games of that year, we were 28-12. I’m going to say this, and I feel confident in this, two weeks left in the regular season, I guarantee those tops seeds were saying, ‘That’s the team we don’t want to play.’ And then Steve goes down, Kobe does his Achilles.

“We ended up having to play San Antonio in the first round. Then Steve Blake, who’s really good, Game 1, we could’ve won. Had the ball, down one with a minute and a half, Blake had done an unbeliever job on Tony Parker. He gets hurt in that game, Metta gets hurt. We started Games 2, 3 and 4, Andrew Goudelock, who had played in the D League the whole year, we brought him up for game 82. We were devastated. And Mike D’Antoni, he did a phenomenal job that year keeping those guys together, teaching his system. … Those guys figured it out, they figured out how to play with each other. Once we got organized and tuned in, I think 28-12 over the last 40 was the third-best record at the time.”

WHAT COULDA, darn
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 12:34 pm    Post subject:

Vanquish wrote:
adkindo wrote:
Mitch has a huge and positive legacy as a NBA GM if the entire resume is considered. I do not think Mozgov and Deng was all Jim Buss, and definitely think that is still part of Mitch's resume....and still he was incredibly successful in the role, which is why he is so respected around the league. I am not sure why some only focus on the "misses". His "hits" far outweigh his "misses"....on Wall Street they have a name for those guys.....Billionaires.


I just think Mitch stuck to the Jerry West playbook too much. He didn't make enough adjustments to take into account the new CBA. E.g. the sudden drastic increase in salary cap leaving so many teams with cap room in 2016, the increased difficulty of getting multiple top tier FAs etc. We spent too much of our resources on trying to get Free agents, when we should have been stockpiling draft picks . I can't entirely blame Mitch for this though, because it was an approach that had worked well in the past, and Jim Buss gave him a pretty ridiculous deadline to work with.

Despite the above, at his core, Mitch is an excellent GM and I fully expect him to adapt to the changed environment now that he's taken some time to go to other FOs to learn from them. I do hope we retire Mitch's 'GM' jersey someday. He deserves that much for that ridiculous Gasol trade that single handedly brought us 2 championships.


Mitch called Chris Wallace to try to trade Odom for Mike Miller. The Gasol trade was actually Wallace's idea/counterproposal. His other major achievement was signing Payton and Malone, and they were basically just handed to him, so it doesn't count for much.

I feel like Mitch just made way too many errors to be considered an elite GM-- MozDeng, using the #2 draft pick on Russell, trading for Nash, letting Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol walk for nothing instead of trading them, signing Artest over Ariza and an MLE player, trading Caron for Kwame, hiring Byron Scott, hiring Mike Brown, not adding more young talent to the post-threepeat teams, etc.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 1:49 pm    Post subject:

To say that the Lakers screwed up by not trading Dwight is one of the sillier things said here. They wanted to re-sign him, remember the FA courting and STAY billboards? Saying that they should have traded a guy they wanted to re-sign fails the logic test.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 3:11 pm    Post subject:

CandyCanes wrote:
Vanquish wrote:
adkindo wrote:
Mitch has a huge and positive legacy as a NBA GM if the entire resume is considered. I do not think Mozgov and Deng was all Jim Buss, and definitely think that is still part of Mitch's resume....and still he was incredibly successful in the role, which is why he is so respected around the league. I am not sure why some only focus on the "misses". His "hits" far outweigh his "misses"....on Wall Street they have a name for those guys.....Billionaires.


I just think Mitch stuck to the Jerry West playbook too much. He didn't make enough adjustments to take into account the new CBA. E.g. the sudden drastic increase in salary cap leaving so many teams with cap room in 2016, the increased difficulty of getting multiple top tier FAs etc. We spent too much of our resources on trying to get Free agents, when we should have been stockpiling draft picks . I can't entirely blame Mitch for this though, because it was an approach that had worked well in the past, and Jim Buss gave him a pretty ridiculous deadline to work with.

Despite the above, at his core, Mitch is an excellent GM and I fully expect him to adapt to the changed environment now that he's taken some time to go to other FOs to learn from them. I do hope we retire Mitch's 'GM' jersey someday. He deserves that much for that ridiculous Gasol trade that single handedly brought us 2 championships.


Mitch called Chris Wallace to try to trade Odom for Mike Miller. The Gasol trade was actually Wallace's idea/counterproposal. His other major achievement was signing Payton and Malone, and they were basically just handed to him, so it doesn't count for much.

I feel like Mitch just made way too many errors to be considered an elite GM-- MozDeng, using the #2 draft pick on Russell, trading for Nash, letting Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol walk for nothing instead of trading them, signing Artest over Ariza and an MLE player, trading Caron for Kwame, hiring Byron Scott, hiring Mike Brown, not adding more young talent to the post-threepeat teams, etc.

Signing Mosgov was an abomination. I still don't understand why they not only signed him, but did so with great urgency. I don't blame him for signing Deng though, he was coming off a strong year and there was no reason to believe he would fall off a cliff like he did. Artest was a good signing given the circumstances, we probably needed him to beat Boston. Trading for Nash seemed like a good move at the time. Like Deng, there was no reason to believe he would break his leg and only be able to play like half a season.

Mitch was a solid GM, but he was conservative. That works well when you're a contender, but when you're rebuilding or retooling you need to be more aggressive. After Kobe tore his Achilles Mitch went for the home run, trying to sign the big name FAs instead of loading up the team with young complimentary pieces like West did in the 90s. We'll see if he can adjust that now that he's the GM of a team that has never been good.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 3:11 pm    Post subject:

venturalakersfan wrote:
To say that the Lakers screwed up by not trading Dwight is one of the sillier things said here. They wanted to re-sign him, remember the FA courting and STAY billboards? Saying that they should have traded a guy they wanted to re-sign fails the logic test.


Well, they wanted to re-sign Pau too.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 6:28 pm    Post subject:

Omar Little wrote:
Wino wrote:
Hope he takes is and congratulations to Mitch. This is a chance for him to redeem himself. I tend to agree that Jimbo took them both down. Mitch was in an awkward position here. He had no idea how to deal with it, not sure anyone else could have dealt with it better. Jim had to go, the bummer was that Mitch aligned himself with Jim and I believe Jeannie felt undercut and betrayed by the two of them. I do believe that she was right and justified in cleaning house. I like our current direction much better than what we had going then. History is all it is now.


Mitch was an honorable guy who stood by his boss. It wasn't his fault Jeanie wasn't happy with Doc's decisions, and it wasn't on him to betray his boss with whom he worked well. He went down with the ship, and I'm glad he's going to get a shot elsewhere. But like Jerry West, he should have been a Laker for Life.


Yep. Mitch look a ton of unwarranted BS from far too many Lakers 'fans". The guy has a sharp mind and is a stand up individual who has always been held in high regard around the league as one of the best at what he does. Part of me kind of hopes he finds a way to screw the Lakers on a future deal just a figurative "Eff You" to Jeanie . . . he's earned that much for sure.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 10:57 pm    Post subject:

I wonder, if what Stern said after this whole deal went down did not convince Jeannie that Mitch was part of the problem.

Remember that Stern said Mitch pulled the plug too soon and all he was trying to get them to do was sweeten the pot a little. People forget this. Mitch got too emotionally involved with all his players being bummed out and rushed to finalize deals.

In retrospect, and assuming Stern was telling the truth, Mitch made a MAJOR mistake there. He read the situation all wrong and made a knee jerk reaction, especially with the Odom trade. Surely we would have been better off to sweeten that pot, rather than what happened instead?

I hated Stern, and not sure what I actually believe here, but I suspect that Jeannie did talk with him about all this and knew what Stern's position was. If she believed what he was saying, I think that is enough to think it was time to move on from Mitch. Throw his lack of analytics on top of it and it was doubly time to move on.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 11:29 pm    Post subject:

Wino wrote:
I wonder, if what Stern said after this whole deal went down did not convince Jeannie that Mitch was part of the problem.

Remember that Stern said Mitch pulled the plug too soon and all he was trying to get them to do was sweeten the pot a little. People forget this. Mitch got too emotionally involved with all his players being bummed out and rushed to finalize deals.

In retrospect, and assuming Stern was telling the truth, Mitch made a MAJOR mistake there. He read the situation all wrong and made a knee jerk reaction, especially with the Odom trade. Surely we would have been better off to sweeten that pot, rather than what happened instead?

I hated Stern, and not sure what I actually believe here, but I suspect that Jeannie did talk with him about all this and knew what Stern's position was. If she believed what he was saying, I think that is enough to think it was time to move on from Mitch. Throw his lack of analytics on top of it and it was doubly time to move on.


Honestly, I feel Stern's comments are a bunch of BS and probably evidence that Stern is a terrible human being full stop. Having listened to a bunch of Mitch interviews after the fact and having read a couple of news reports on the event thereafter, it seemed clear that Odom very likely had the mother of all breakdowns after finding out he was almost traded. I think I remembered Mitch saying that he had never seen any reaction approaching that of Odom's in his entire tenure as a GM and it was simply not feasible to have Odom on the team. Odom had to be traded ASAP, for his sake and the lakers.

If the criticism of Mitch, is that he should have simply Deng-ed Odom and kept his ass on the bench while 'tweaking' the trade, then my response would be that Mitch is simply a decent human being. Everyone saw how badly Odom's life went after the NO non-trade, to the point where he almost killed himself and that was with getting his wish to be traded ASAP. Who knows how long would it have taken to work out a new trade with NO and how long Odom would have been in limbo. There is also the possibility that even after further discussions, a new trade would not be agreed to (3 team trades are always extremely difficult to conclude) and Odom would have been with us for god knows how long. I shudder to think what would have happened if we had ignored Odom's wishes and simply kept him here for the Laker's benefit.

So I'm on Mitch's side on this one. Sometimes human life is worth more than a basketball game. Mitch only crime in the 'basketball reasons' mess is that he was a nice guy.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 11:47 pm    Post subject:

Vanquish wrote:
Wino wrote:
I wonder, if what Stern said after this whole deal went down did not convince Jeannie that Mitch was part of the problem.

Remember that Stern said Mitch pulled the plug too soon and all he was trying to get them to do was sweeten the pot a little. People forget this. Mitch got too emotionally involved with all his players being bummed out and rushed to finalize deals.

In retrospect, and assuming Stern was telling the truth, Mitch made a MAJOR mistake there. He read the situation all wrong and made a knee jerk reaction, especially with the Odom trade. Surely we would have been better off to sweeten that pot, rather than what happened instead?

I hated Stern, and not sure what I actually believe here, but I suspect that Jeannie did talk with him about all this and knew what Stern's position was. If she believed what he was saying, I think that is enough to think it was time to move on from Mitch. Throw his lack of analytics on top of it and it was doubly time to move on.


Honestly, I feel Stern's comments are a bunch of BS and probably evidence that Stern is a terrible human being full stop. Having listened to a bunch of Mitch interviews after the fact and having read a couple of news reports on the event thereafter, it seemed clear that Odom very likely had the mother of all breakdowns after finding out he was almost traded. I think I remembered Mitch saying that he had never seen any reaction approaching that of Odom's in his entire tenure as a GM and it was simply not feasible to have Odom on the team. Odom had to be traded ASAP, for his sake and the lakers.

If the criticism of Mitch, is that he should have simply Deng-ed Odom and kept his ass on the bench while working on a new trade, then my response would be that Mitch is simply a decent human being. Everyone saw how badly Odom's life went after the trade, to the point where he almost killed himself and that was with getting his wish to be traded ASAP. I shudder to think what would have happened if we had ignored Odom's wishes and simply kept him here for the Laker's benefit.


But if all Mitch had to do was sweeten the pot and add another draft pick or another player, it should have only taken 10 minutes. It really sounds to me like he just stopped cold turkey while everything was falling apart. Stern was an (bleep), but I am not sure he was a lying SOB who clawed and cheated his way to the top. While I hate his part in this and feel like he screwed us, I am not sure he would actually lie about it after the fact. It gives me pause.

The thing is, I will never know what really happened here, but I bet Jeannie has a pretty good idea of what happened and it was her call.

If Mitch messed this up and if Mitch was involved in the Moz/Deng contracts and with him siding with Jim in the Buss feud. Well, how much more do you need? If I was the owner and looked at those three things alone, I would probably fire him. Throw the Lakers lack of building an analytics department and being the last team in the league to do so, it's got to make you think that things are not going in a positive direction.

And personally I like this team a lot more than I did. The draft picks and trades that Magic and Rob have made have turned us into a serious team that strives to compete. That party atmosphere we had going on here was a complete joke. It made us worse than the Clippers back when they sucked. It was unbearable. Our culture had gone to hell. Losing by 20 and the guys were joking around on camera and obviously couldn't care less. All that is gone and out of here. While I liked some of the guys, our current guys are better people and harder working players.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 11:58 pm    Post subject:

Wino wrote:


But if all Mitch had to do was sweeten the pot and add another draft pick or another player, it should have only taken 10 minutes. It really sounds to me like he just stopped cold turkey while everything was falling apart. Stern was an (bleep), but I am not sure he was a lying SOB who clawed and cheated his way to the top. While I hate his part in this and feel like he screwed us, I am not sure he would actually lie about it after the fact. It gives me pause.

The thing is, I will never know what really happened here, but I bet Jeannie has a pretty good idea of what happened and it was her call.

If Mitch messed this up and if Mitch was involved in the Moz/Deng contracts and with him siding with Jim in the Buss feud. Well, how much more do you need? If I was the owner and looked at those three things alone, I would probably fire him. Throw the Lakers lack of building an analytics department and being the last team in the league to do so, it's got to make you think that things are not going in a positive direction.

And personally I like this team a lot more than I did. The draft picks and trades that Magic and Rob have made have turned us into a serious team that strives to compete. That party atmosphere we had going on here was a complete joke. It made us worse than the Clippers back when they sucked. It was unbearable. Our culture had gone to hell. Losing by 20 and the guys were joking around on camera and obviously couldn't care less. All that is gone and out of here. While I liked some of the guys, our current guys are better people and harder working players.


I remember from Mitch's interview that - if I recall correctly - only him, Jim and Odom knew what really happened in the interview. I can't recall whether Dr Buss was still alive but if he was, then he was the 4th person to know about it. Mitch gave all indications that what happened with Odom went beyond basketball and it was agreed to by all involved in that meeting that what transpired would never be public knowledge to anyone else. I am pretty sure Jeanie does not know the full extent of what went down.

I don't think Stern is a liar, I do think Stern treats people as things and I have seen ample evidence of that kind of behaviour throughout his entire tenure as commissioner. Stern's response to the trade is a perfect example of it, he just sees it as a series of salary figures and draft picks, the effect on actual people be darn. He is thinking of the mechanics of a new trade without stopping to reflect upon the human cost of it, especially with respect to Odom.

Also with respect to a simple tweak, it was a 3 team trade, any small tweak would have affected the other team and we know from talk about it from several GMs in the past how difficult it is to reach an agreement with respect to those trades. It is already difficult enough to balance salaries with 2 teams, with 3 teams any small change would probably have to result in changes with respect to the 3rd team as well. I guess my difference in opinion is that it would not have been easy to agree to a new NO trade and even if - on hindsight - it was, I don't fault Mitch for being conservative in this case and moving on, when Odom clearly wasn't stable.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:25 am    Post subject:

Stern has been a duplicitous weasel his entire career and was totally dishonest about his handling of the New Orleans franchise (putting in a supposed guy in charge in sparking but running the team behind the scenes), while Mitch is such a legendarily unflappable guy, but Stern is truthful and Mitch is panicky. Mmkay.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:32 am    Post subject:

CandyCanes wrote:
venturalakersfan wrote:
To say that the Lakers screwed up by not trading Dwight is one of the sillier things said here. They wanted to re-sign him, remember the FA courting and STAY billboards? Saying that they should have traded a guy they wanted to re-sign fails the logic test.


Well, they wanted to re-sign Pau too.


Yes, which makes your point all the more silly.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:40 am    Post subject:

Wino wrote:
I wonder, if what Stern said after this whole deal went down did not convince Jeannie that Mitch was part of the problem.

Remember that Stern said Mitch pulled the plug too soon and all he was trying to get them to do was sweeten the pot a little. People forget this. Mitch got too emotionally involved with all his players being bummed out and rushed to finalize deals.

In retrospect, and assuming Stern was telling the truth, Mitch made a MAJOR mistake there. He read the situation all wrong and made a knee jerk reaction, especially with the Odom trade. Surely we would have been better off to sweeten that pot, rather than what happened instead?

I hated Stern, and not sure what I actually believe here, but I suspect that Jeannie did talk with him about all this and knew what Stern's position was. If she believed what he was saying, I think that is enough to think it was time to move on from Mitch. Throw his lack of analytics on top of it and it was doubly time to move on.


If Jeanie is taking advice from Stern then she is worse equipped to run this franchise than I originally thought.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:40 am    Post subject:

The idea that the Lakers were going to move what they did to get Howard and then trade him mid season, when he was starting to come around and when there was really no one willing to trade anything for him is silly. Fwiw, the biggest mistake of that whole period was not trading Pau the minute they acquired Howard (those two were never going to work together as Jerry West rightly predicted) followed by interviewing and then not hiring Phil.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:46 am    Post subject:

I agreed at the time that Pau should have been moved. And we can’t forget that the FO was given assurances from Dwight’s agent that he would re-sign. Something to keep in mind this offseason, prior statements might not remain valid.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 11:01 am    Post subject:

Mitch to me was always in a crisis of one form or another. The first was Jerry bailing during his feud with buss and Phil, leaving Mitch in that triangle along with Kobe and Shaq. Who can forget the need to sign and draft triangle fits.

Then there was the rebuild while Kobe talked of playing on Pluto. And then the reload/decline of Kobe and doc years (people forget he was having to dump picks to save money), and finally, the tank and kft conundrum, where fans wanted him to simultaneously sign free agents and tank for picks, and oh yeah, get Kobe some help, but don’t play hardball with Kobe.

That he did what he did in that absolute snake pit of personalities is pretty amazing.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 11:53 am    Post subject:

venturalakersfan wrote:
I agreed at the time that Pau should have been moved. And we can’t forget that the FO was given assurances from Dwight’s agent that he would re-sign. Something to keep in mind this offseason, prior statements might not remain valid.


This gives me flashbacks of the deandre jordan mess. I don't know whether that week where teams can talk to free agents but can't sign them is a blessing or a curse. It's going to be nerve-wreaking, especially if we send draft picks to move Deng with the expectation of the max 2 + randle signing. One of the 2 breaks their promise, the other max might then also choose to reverse course so and we're out of multiple draft picks with nothing to show for it but a resigned Randle. The very definition of screwed.
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slavavov
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:11 pm    Post subject:

Omar Little wrote:
The idea that the Lakers were going to move what they did to get Howard and then trade him mid season, when he was starting to come around and when there was really no one willing to trade anything for him is silly. Fwiw, the biggest mistake of that whole period was not trading Pau the minute they acquired Howard (those two were never going to work together as Jerry West rightly predicted) followed by interviewing and then not hiring Phil.

I know it's easy to say this in retrospect, but maybe they shouldn't have even traded for Howard in the first place, knowing he could've been a one year rental and that he was coming off of back surgery. Just move Pau to center, and use Bynum as an asset to make the team more of an up-tempo squad to get with the times. Or even better, don't even trade for CP3 knowing that Stern was the acting owner of that team.

I'll give Mitch credit for trying to keep that team fresh, but it should've been done a different way. Not sure if Mitch or Jim Buss was to blame for those miscues.
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