The fact that we are having this convo is why people hate Laker fans. Go ask the 11 other fan bases that never won a chip if they would take our route. Those 6 seasons of being a laughing stock sucked. People taking shots at the Lakers left and right. Our downfall those years is what people had been waiting on. We weren’t even competitive. So yes it was worth it.
I used to be a Chargers fan before they stabbed a knife through the heart of my adopted hometown of San Diego.
They have NEVER won a Super Bowl and only made it to the game one time and got humiliated that day.
Much like the Clippers...oh wait, the Clippers have never sniffed The Finals, my bad.
To get a ring last season was absolutely glorious, particularly after somehow missing the playoffs the previous season even with LeBron on the roster.
Could some of the young player we traded or let go help us now? Absolutely.
Do I regret for one moment trading those players in exchange for one title and a much more respectable team? No, personally I think it was the right move. _________________ Love, Laker Lanny
That 2020 title will forever have the most meaning because it was done to honor Kobe. I’ll take that and be happy regardless of what Lonzo or BI become.
Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Posts: 22835 Location: La Jolla, San Diego
Posted: Wed May 05, 2021 5:34 pm Post subject:
Laker4lifer4real wrote:
That 2020 title will forever have the most meaning because it was done to honor Kobe. I’ll take that and be happy regardless of what Lonzo or BI become.
I agree, bit the losses were a lot greater, not just Zo and BI. There was Hart, the 4th pick, collateral damage such as Russell, Julius, Thomas Bryant, Etc. Russell was for Kyle and Brook, and we let Brook walk. Ultimately, we got that chip, but I've always maintained it wasn't the most efficient path taken in terms of asset management.
That 2020 title will forever have the most meaning because it was done to honor Kobe. I’ll take that and be happy regardless of what Lonzo or BI become.
I agree, bit the losses were a lot greater, not just Zo and BI. There was Hart, the 4th pick, collateral damage such as Russell, Julius, Thomas Bryant, Etc. Russell was for Kyle and Brook, and we let Brook walk. Ultimately, we got that chip, but I've always maintained it wasn't the most efficient path taken in terms of asset management.
I believe the Mozdeng saga probably cost the lakers some assets. We did get kuzma back with the nets pick for Russel. However, one thing is clear, none of the guys we traded is better than AD. None of them are on HOF path as of today.
That 2020 title will forever have the most meaning because it was done to honor Kobe. I’ll take that and be happy regardless of what Lonzo or BI become.
That’s a good point. I forgot about that. I wanted that team to win so badly for Kobe and they did. That was a year from hell for the Lakers and they were the last team standing at the end. _________________ From 2-10 to the Western Conference Finals
I was commenting earlier with another poster and was gone for a little bit and came back and wow this thread!
Ok don’t flame me for this but:
Maybe one if the reasons I’m a little more optimistic and ok with the general direction of the franchise then some here is because it’s actually not title or bust for me. If lebron goes to a different team or gets older and becomes a sixth man or retires or something it will be fun for me if the lakers were a competitive team fighting for the playoffs or having some playoff success for a few years or something. It’s ok with me! I would have a blast watching ad Schroeder kuz Caruso tht and kcp with some other guys or who knows maybe they trade half those guys and some other group whatever but I’d love to see some players do their best van exel Eddie Jones era lakers impression. But that’s just me. But always with the hopes of getting eventually to a championship level of course but tanking sucks for me and it saps my interest and makes me not want to watch cuz I don’t like to watch bad basketball.
It’s the tanking that’s “not worth iit” for me seriously that (bleep) sucked! Like damn all that tanking for one championship damn didn’t even get a fun playoff team in there cmon we gotta win another haha so that’s how I think.
So in a few years when lebron is not that guy or not with the team or whatever if we could manage to be a competitive team for a while then maybe start to reload like Miami is trying to do now that would be be really great to me. But hopefully a better team than that Miami team “treading water in the weak east after lebron left” as a previous poster aptly put it. The difference here though is that that Miami team that bron left was not good outside of the big 3 and was an old team, and of course, Bosh had to retire suddenly because of blood clots. So hopefully the lakers could have some more success than that team did in the years following lebrons departure. That would be cool. But who knows the future
I’m also high and I’m just relaxed and it’s all good some of those earlier posters damn y’all need to puff and chill out or just chill and quit stressing about the lakers
I think we would have felt a bit different if one of the YUTES survived all the trades.
Oh wait, that's Kuz. And we have THT who is only 20 but is showing a lot of promising signs.
Let's be patient. LBJ/AD are 1/1 for so far in terms of rings so it's WAY too soon to be asking "was it worth it" when we are in the midst of the run. _________________ From 2-10 to the Western Conference Finals
I think we would have felt a bit different if one of the YUTES survived all the trades.
Oh wait, that's Kuz. And we have THT who is only 20 but is showing a lot of promising signs.
Let's be patient. LBJ/AD are 1/1 for so far in terms of rings so it's WAY too soon to be asking "was it worth it" when we are in the midst of the run.
I've been one of the biggest detractors of the go all in now approach and even I admitted that if we won two or three titles that objectively I would have to admit I was wrong to want to keep more assets and either wait a year to sign AD or sign someone else. I don't like the mercenary approach to winning... I prefer the organic approach of keeping your own players while signing a few great players... but if we won even two titles... then it would be hard to argue that they could have done the same with the kids.
I already conceded this point at the beginning of this thread.
Others claimed that winning one title was already enough to justify getting rid of almost everyone and all I did was point out that the Lakers had won 10 titles in the last 40 years, so regressing to one title per decade wasn't exactly definitive proof by the Lakers' own standards.
Would the Yankees consider it a success that they've won one title in 21 years?
Do the people look down at the Yankees because they haven't won since 2009? Nope they are the Yankees. I still think of them as the greatest franchise in baseball.
Meanwhile since 2001 the Lakers have won six titles while the Yankees have only won once... and I hear people's justification for completely gutting the team... is that we had no choice... we were trash and we had to do something. Baseball is a different animal than basketball, but do you see the Yankees selling their soul to one player and completely dismantling their farm system to win one title? Nope the Yankees just keep patiently acquiring new players and eventually people know they will win again.
I keep seeing people say that it was a good trade because AD is better than every single player we lost. BI, Randle, DLO, Lonzo, Clarkson, Hart, Larry, Thomas Bryant, Zubac, Bonga, Svi, Mo... #4 whoever that would have been Garland or Hunter... 2022 first round, 2023 first round, 2024 first round. But the problem here is that no one ever said AD wasn't better than any of these players... what I said is that the combination of losing all these assets to clear space and sign two elites was not worth it.
We should have kept more than just a 27th pick (Kuzma) a 46th pick (THT) and a G League pick up (Caruso)
Hunter is already exceeding Kuzma's production in his second year.
Garland at 21 is already scoring more efficiently than Schroder and shooting 39% from three.
Who knows who we would have drafted, but my point remains is that way too many assets were squandered simply to sign and appease LBJ and Klutch. I'm not a LBJ hater... I was happy when we signed him... but because our front office is so weak and dysfunctional... we essentially handed the keys to the franchise over to them without any system of checks and balances to stop them from doing as they please.
Sure in some ways it's a mutually beneficial arrangement... we won a title... we are in title contention... but this all ends when LBJ declines and no matter how great he is as a player... his team building skills without him in the equation leave much to be desired.
If Klutch didn't control everything... maybe we could have signed Jimmy Butler... and then we'd have most of our youth... LBJ, Jimmy Buckets, and all of our draft picks. Is Butler as good as AD? Nope... but we'd have had just a good a chance as winning a title with LBJ, Butler and all the kids as we would have had with LBJ and AD, Kuzma, AC, and THT. And when LBJ and Jimmy got old... we'd have a better foundation to add new players.
Will we recover with AD, Kuzma, AC, THT and Schroder? Sure... even though I've been negative... I still think we are the Lakers and we will bounce back from any setback.
But in my opinion, we would have been way better off waiting a year for AD... or signing Jimmy Butler and keeping the youth and picks. You can say this is all theoretical pipe dreams on my part... but I think if we weren't ruled by Klutch that many other scenarios were possible.
Any of the youths outside of BI is replacable and we have replace them with last year/current players, who else is irreplacable that is better than #17?
I mean, I'm glad to see the young ex-Lakers putting up numbers, I do keep an eye on them and enjoy seeing them do well, but none of them are factors in the championship competition. That's the way the league is, there are plenty of good players who put up numbers, but ultimately, only the best of the best really matter when it comes to winning titles.
Joined: 04 May 2017 Posts: 3078 Location: The Left Coast
Posted: Thu May 06, 2021 11:52 am Post subject:
When you sign a player like LeBron who is considered "old" in NBA standards, but can still play at an MVP level, you have to maximize on that. Can't wait for the YUTES to make a jump, hence AD trade.
The counter argument by most would be, "Why sign LeBron then?" Because we're the Lakers and we get big names. No one else was coming. How foolish would we look if reports were leaked about how the Lakers passed on signing LeBron because we wanted to develop the YUTES _________________ “You can't be held captive by the fear of failure or the fear of what people may say.” - Kobe Bryant
Joined: 24 Dec 2007 Posts: 35811 Location: Santa Clarita, CA (Hell) ->>>>>Ithaca, NY -≥≥≥≥≥Berkeley, CA
Posted: Thu May 06, 2021 1:56 pm Post subject:
Mamba Mentality wrote:
When you sign a player like LeBron who is considered "old" in NBA standards, but can still play at an MVP level, you have to maximize on that. Can't wait for the YUTES to make a jump, hence AD trade.
The counter argument by most would be, "Why sign LeBron then?" Because we're the Lakers and we get big names. No one else was coming. How foolish would we look if reports were leaked about how the Lakers passed on signing LeBron because we wanted to develop the YUTES
What’s odd is that other than LeBron, the Lakers haven’t signed any star free agents (not even superstars) since Shaq. We couldn’t even get Paul George, DeRozan, Aldridge, DeAndre Jordan, or Whiteside. Giannis chose to sign an extension rather than come here.
Most prominent signings have been Malone, Payton, Artest, and Drummond. _________________ Damian Lillard shatters Dwight Coward's championship dreams:
Joined: 04 May 2017 Posts: 3078 Location: The Left Coast
Posted: Thu May 06, 2021 2:33 pm Post subject:
CandyCanes wrote:
Mamba Mentality wrote:
When you sign a player like LeBron who is considered "old" in NBA standards, but can still play at an MVP level, you have to maximize on that. Can't wait for the YUTES to make a jump, hence AD trade.
The counter argument by most would be, "Why sign LeBron then?" Because we're the Lakers and we get big names. No one else was coming. How foolish would we look if reports were leaked about how the Lakers passed on signing LeBron because we wanted to develop the YUTES
What’s odd is that other than LeBron, the Lakers haven’t signed any star free agents (not even superstars) since Shaq. We couldn’t even get Paul George, DeRozan, Aldridge, DeAndre Jordan, or Whiteside. Giannis chose to sign an extension rather than come here.
Most prominent signings have been Malone, Payton, Artest, and Drummond.
Yeah you can almost throw away the narrative of "no one wanted to play with Kobe." FAs aren't dying to come here. We're in a different era where money can be made on any team in every market because the game has grown so much. I will, 11/10 times, get a proven star over waiting to develop youth when we've been missing the playoffs for years. I'm not against young players, but I prefer it in the capacity of how THT is being brought along currently.
Either way, people have to be happy when they see our FO not trading for CP3 or getting older guys on Bron's timeline. Pelinka has made it clear that he wants to pair AD up down the line with players his age. He even skipped on the Lowry trade, so developing youth isn't completely ignored. _________________ “You can't be held captive by the fear of failure or the fear of what people may say.” - Kobe Bryant
I think we would have felt a bit different if one of the YUTES survived all the trades.
Oh wait, that's Kuz. And we have THT who is only 20 but is showing a lot of promising signs.
Let's be patient. LBJ/AD are 1/1 for so far in terms of rings so it's WAY too soon to be asking "was it worth it" when we are in the midst of the run.
I've been one of the biggest detractors of the go all in now approach and even I admitted that if we won two or three titles that objectively I would have to admit I was wrong to want to keep more assets and either wait a year to sign AD or sign someone else. I don't like the mercenary approach to winning... I prefer the organic approach of keeping your own players while signing a few great players... but if we won even two titles... then it would be hard to argue that they could have done the same with the kids.
I already conceded this point at the beginning of this thread.
Others claimed that winning one title was already enough to justify getting rid of almost everyone and all I did was point out that the Lakers had won 10 titles in the last 40 years, so regressing to one title per decade wasn't exactly definitive proof by the Lakers' own standards.
Would the Yankees consider it a success that they've won one title in 21 years?
Do the people look down at the Yankees because they haven't won since 2009? Nope they are the Yankees. I still think of them as the greatest franchise in baseball.
Meanwhile since 2001 the Lakers have won six titles while the Yankees have only won once... and I hear people's justification for completely gutting the team... is that we had no choice... we were trash and we had to do something. Baseball is a different animal than basketball, but do you see the Yankees selling their soul to one player and completely dismantling their farm system to win one title? Nope the Yankees just keep patiently acquiring new players and eventually people know they will win again.
I keep seeing people say that it was a good trade because AD is better than every single player we lost. BI, Randle, DLO, Lonzo, Clarkson, Hart, Larry, Thomas Bryant, Zubac, Bonga, Svi, Mo... #4 whoever that would have been Garland or Hunter... 2022 first round, 2023 first round, 2024 first round. But the problem here is that no one ever said AD wasn't better than any of these players... what I said is that the combination of losing all these assets to clear space and sign two elites was not worth it.
We should have kept more than just a 27th pick (Kuzma) a 46th pick (THT) and a G League pick up (Caruso)
Hunter is already exceeding Kuzma's production in his second year.
Garland at 21 is already scoring more efficiently than Schroder and shooting 39% from three.
Who knows who we would have drafted, but my point remains is that way too many assets were squandered simply to sign and appease LBJ and Klutch. I'm not a LBJ hater... I was happy when we signed him... but because our front office is so weak and dysfunctional... we essentially handed the keys to the franchise over to them without any system of checks and balances to stop them from doing as they please.
Sure in some ways it's a mutually beneficial arrangement... we won a title... we are in title contention... but this all ends when LBJ declines and no matter how great he is as a player... his team building skills without him in the equation leave much to be desired.
If Klutch didn't control everything... maybe we could have signed Jimmy Butler... and then we'd have most of our youth... LBJ, Jimmy Buckets, and all of our draft picks. Is Butler as good as AD? Nope... but we'd have had just a good a chance as winning a title with LBJ, Butler and all the kids as we would have had with LBJ and AD, Kuzma, AC, and THT. And when LBJ and Jimmy got old... we'd have a better foundation to add new players.
Will we recover with AD, Kuzma, AC, THT and Schroder? Sure... even though I've been negative... I still think we are the Lakers and we will bounce back from any setback.
But in my opinion, we would have been way better off waiting a year for AD... or signing Jimmy Butler and keeping the youth and picks. You can say this is all theoretical pipe dreams on my part... but I think if we weren't ruled by Klutch that many other scenarios were possible.
I don't have any problem with your opinion myself. The issue is that your opinion is built on a foundation of a whole bunch of guesses of what might have happened. How much of it would have come true? How much of it wouldn't? Hell if I know.
But I do know with 100% certainty that the actual course the Lakers took resulted in a ring.
And that's a reality that's pretty hard to trump with just a bunch of woulda shouldda could guesses that can never be tested
Joined: 13 Jan 2002 Posts: 7919 Location: Lake Forest
Posted: Thu May 06, 2021 4:56 pm Post subject:
activeverb wrote:
BILBJH wrote:
yinoma2001 wrote:
I think we would have felt a bit different if one of the YUTES survived all the trades.
Oh wait, that's Kuz. And we have THT who is only 20 but is showing a lot of promising signs.
Let's be patient. LBJ/AD are 1/1 for so far in terms of rings so it's WAY too soon to be asking "was it worth it" when we are in the midst of the run.
I've been one of the biggest detractors of the go all in now approach and even I admitted that if we won two or three titles that objectively I would have to admit I was wrong to want to keep more assets and either wait a year to sign AD or sign someone else. I don't like the mercenary approach to winning... I prefer the organic approach of keeping your own players while signing a few great players... but if we won even two titles... then it would be hard to argue that they could have done the same with the kids.
I already conceded this point at the beginning of this thread.
Others claimed that winning one title was already enough to justify getting rid of almost everyone and all I did was point out that the Lakers had won 10 titles in the last 40 years, so regressing to one title per decade wasn't exactly definitive proof by the Lakers' own standards.
Would the Yankees consider it a success that they've won one title in 21 years?
Do the people look down at the Yankees because they haven't won since 2009? Nope they are the Yankees. I still think of them as the greatest franchise in baseball.
Meanwhile since 2001 the Lakers have won six titles while the Yankees have only won once... and I hear people's justification for completely gutting the team... is that we had no choice... we were trash and we had to do something. Baseball is a different animal than basketball, but do you see the Yankees selling their soul to one player and completely dismantling their farm system to win one title? Nope the Yankees just keep patiently acquiring new players and eventually people know they will win again.
I keep seeing people say that it was a good trade because AD is better than every single player we lost. BI, Randle, DLO, Lonzo, Clarkson, Hart, Larry, Thomas Bryant, Zubac, Bonga, Svi, Mo... #4 whoever that would have been Garland or Hunter... 2022 first round, 2023 first round, 2024 first round. But the problem here is that no one ever said AD wasn't better than any of these players... what I said is that the combination of losing all these assets to clear space and sign two elites was not worth it.
We should have kept more than just a 27th pick (Kuzma) a 46th pick (THT) and a G League pick up (Caruso)
Hunter is already exceeding Kuzma's production in his second year.
Garland at 21 is already scoring more efficiently than Schroder and shooting 39% from three.
Who knows who we would have drafted, but my point remains is that way too many assets were squandered simply to sign and appease LBJ and Klutch. I'm not a LBJ hater... I was happy when we signed him... but because our front office is so weak and dysfunctional... we essentially handed the keys to the franchise over to them without any system of checks and balances to stop them from doing as they please.
Sure in some ways it's a mutually beneficial arrangement... we won a title... we are in title contention... but this all ends when LBJ declines and no matter how great he is as a player... his team building skills without him in the equation leave much to be desired.
If Klutch didn't control everything... maybe we could have signed Jimmy Butler... and then we'd have most of our youth... LBJ, Jimmy Buckets, and all of our draft picks. Is Butler as good as AD? Nope... but we'd have had just a good a chance as winning a title with LBJ, Butler and all the kids as we would have had with LBJ and AD, Kuzma, AC, and THT. And when LBJ and Jimmy got old... we'd have a better foundation to add new players.
Will we recover with AD, Kuzma, AC, THT and Schroder? Sure... even though I've been negative... I still think we are the Lakers and we will bounce back from any setback.
But in my opinion, we would have been way better off waiting a year for AD... or signing Jimmy Butler and keeping the youth and picks. You can say this is all theoretical pipe dreams on my part... but I think if we weren't ruled by Klutch that many other scenarios were possible.
I don't have any problem with your opinion myself. The issue is that your opinion is built on a foundation of a whole bunch of guesses of what might have happened. How much of it would have come true? How much of it wouldn't? Hell if I know.
But I do know with 100% certainty that the actual course the Lakers took resulted in a ring.
And that's a reality that's pretty hard to trump with just a bunch of woulda shouldda could guesses that can never be tested
It also assumes the Lakers have peaked and can't make any notable moves before the Yutes exit their prime with however many rings they hypothetically get.
Ya at the end of the day the health is what matters most which is one reason why luck is so important in winning a championship. But with Lebrons age and ad’s injury history its the biggest factor
Yep, you have people here who have completely written off the team.
For all I know, the team will have more success from this point forward then they would have if they had kept the young players.
It's all just guesses.
Yes, it is all a guess. That is the point
That’s the beauty about inventing alternate realities, no one can prove you wrong. You can just say the youth would have all somehow maximized their abilities here sharing one ball and all would have signed team friendly deals and they all would have made the leap miraculously to a ring team, even though nba history is littered with examples of promising young players never, ever doing that even if they made the leap to good/great players.
In the real world, we won behind Lebron and AD. Lebron still hasn’t shown signs of falling off (I don’t count situations where a scrub dives into his leg) and as bad as AD has looked this season, he’s still in his prime and there is every expectation that even if we don’t get his best this season due to injuries/rust/being out of shape/whatever reason why he’s looked so down, he will come back and be the same guy he’s been the rest of his career: a top five nba talent.
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