in my opinion Rockets are now the favorites out west. Lebron, Davis & Kuzma, ???, ??? Harden, Paul, Capela, Gordon, Tucker I think we end up with the 1st seed this season. listen to Woj on the Lakers also the Jazz trying to trade for Mike Conley
How many stars did the Raptors have? The Bucks? If the Lakers can fill out around Lebron, AD, Kuzma with 2 or 3 really solid pieces, that's a really good team, assuming health. They gave up a crap-ton, but also are solidly positioned right now.
Lakers will look really attractive to the late season buyout candidates. Value wise, those are the best pick ups in the league. Brook Lopez was huge for Milwaukee and Faried and Rivers weren't horrible for the minimum. Kanter was huge as well.
If the Lakers only have $23m in cap left and can’t add a max player.....I wonder if trading for CP3 becomes their next best option to get a star player. Not sure if they have the salaries to make it work but they don’t have to give comparable back if they have $23m in space.
i'm not entirely sure b/c lebron is definitely showing his age now and can't carry a team anymore. davis has never carried a team b/c he's always hurt. and NOLA had quite a good roster the past couple seasons and still went nowhere. silver's zebras will definitely help out where they can though
The Lakers shouldn't get a 3rd star. They only have 24M in cap space, they lost most of their role players, LeBron is going to be managed like crazy even if he doesnt get hurt, and AD is probably going to get managed as well. They need that money to try to build out the rest of the team.
It’s actually better for them to add a few role players as opposed to a 3rd Star. They have the best duo in the league. If they round it out with quality role players they’ll win the West.
Your premise is true. But the Raptors and Bucks had been building those rosters for years. The Lakers are rebuilding from scratch now basically.
I’m in real estate and when there’s a hot property here in Toronto, it usually is sold way above asking in a blind bidding war scenario. The way I see this Lakers trade is they won the bidding war but ended up paying 200k more than the second highest bid. You got the house that you wanted, and could afford to do so, which is great, but really didn’t have to go that high. No team was going to offer anywhere near what L.A. did.
Approx salaries (19/20) LeBron $37.4M AD $27.1M Deng $5M (stretch prov) Wagner $2.1M Kuzma $2.0M Bonga $1.42M ____________________ ...........75.02M team salary When salary cap rises to expected $109M........then it becomes $33.98M in cap space. Enough to add 3rd star. Right now the salary cap is currently at approx $101.869M.......probably can’t add 3rd star (right now) https://en.hispanosnba.com/salaries/los-angeles-lakers
CP is a borderline star right now, he isn't a legitimate one. Ego and Capela are right there in the regular season. So you would actually add the 2nd legit star.
It doesn’t matter if the Lakers only add role players here on out. I can’t imagine James Harden beating LeBron James in the playoffs. I just can’t.
Both Bucks and Raptors also had very good depth. That depth allowed them to continue to win despite some injury setbacks. Their stars were well rested come playoffs
Yet there will be no less than 10 threads over the next couple of weeks suggesting we trade Paul to them .
I was saying this to my friends, they gutted that team for Davis. Like, how huge would it have been to keep any of the 3 young players? NOLA is primed for a star level player too. What if Kawhi signs there and the starting 5 is Ball/Hart, Holiday, Ingram, Kawhi, Zion (as a small ball 5 with epic dunking ability)..??? LA with 35 year old LeBron trying to hang on with god knows how much “supplemental help” and AD, who seemingly always has injuries...with who as point, grumpy Rondo?
Trade for not add. My coworker told me horford is coming for capela. Celtics think he is not a right player for Tatum and brown. 3rd team involve.
Brook Lopez signed with the Bucks as a free agent before last season. They added Pau Gasol as a mid-season buyout from the Spurs.
