The infamous vetoed trade for Gasol would have led to a prime Nene signing with Houston. The outgoing pieces would have been Kevin Martin, Dragic, Scola and a NYK first round pick that ended up being 16th overall (Royce White). Later people talk about how this was a blessing in disguise, but wouldn't Lowry, Pau and Nene be a good foundation to build around while adding more pieces? Side note: After the veto, the Chris Paul Clips trade's center pieces were Eric Gordon and a 1st round pick that turned into Austin Rivers.
Problem with hindsight is that it's 20/20. I personally always liked Gasol. I thought he was a great player and everyone who has been hear long enough knew how I felt about Lowry. Nene I was a bit worried about in regards to his health. It also wasn't just them; Hayes was going to come back too.
No joke I think about this all the time. We probably wouldn't end up getting Harden, but if we end up taking parsons that year regardless in the second round, I think that's at least a WCF team. And if we are talking about hindsight, it would have been nice if we had resigned Dragic in the days before acquiring Harden. Incredible how we had both Dragic AND Lowry and barely came away with anything for what turned out to be two All-NBA players.
Dragic situation was definitely mishandled, especially since we later signed Lin at a comparable salary. That's really what made it hurt so much; Rockets fans were going we gave up Dragic for THIS GUY?!?
Martin, Scola, Dragic, 1st for Gasol? Nah. Needed Chris Paul in return. Pelicans, IIRC(could be wrong) didn't want Gasol(or Gasol didn't want to be there?) so Houston had to send all their assets. Spoiler Lakers: Chris Paul Rockets: Pau Gasol Pelicans: Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, Goran Dragic, Lamar Odom, 2012 1st (from HOU via NYK)
Whatever happened, it's hard to see the Gasol/Nene scenario being superior simply for the fact that it would have taken us out of the Harden sweepstakes. Blast the guy all you want, but he's missed two games in the four years he's been here--one for kicking Lebron in the balls, and the other a likely scheduled DNP vs a tanking team in a meaningless game in a meaningless city where he had a bunch of old buddies and was probably hungover as hell after a rowdy Saturday night--and we've been to the playoffs every year, made the WCF one year, and still have a puncher's chance at the championship this year. Finally, he should have won at least one MVP in those four years (if your standard is counting stats give him the 2015 MVP, if it's winning give him the 2017 one). Unless you were expecting Lebron to come here then it's hard to beat that.
Nene was a good player in Denver not great He never averaged more than 7.8 rebounds He is a big strong savvy scorer but he didn't play like this consistently
Not true, Morey is on record in an interview with Clanton on 790, claiming he still believed he could get that deal done, if the trade wasn't nixed.
Yep, we would have been very good and who knows, maybe we would have been able to add Durant or Horford. Harden would be unlikely in this scenario because we had to trade Lowry for the first rounder that got us Harden.
But Chris Paul would have been with the Lakers instead of the Clippers. And one heroic game in the playoffs got you to forget how many games the prime Nene had missed.
Whatever happened with Goran's bro Zoran? I'm thankful it turned out this way, but probably equally had we landed Pau, prime Nene, in Maury we trust!
I don't think Nene would have had the same impact with the coaching staff that we had in place at the time. I feel like Mike's system is a really good fit for Nene.
Nene may have had the best game of his career yesterday. I mean, he didn't create or anything. But 12-12 (tied record for most makes in playoff game without a miss), 28 points, 10 boards, +24. He would not have been like this on that team. And more than anything, it would have been a doubling down on a "big" strategy. Which might have made some sense then, but would have been on the wrong side of the trends and where things headed. Nene has been great. Good article after last nights game. His impact on James in the locker room should be noted as well. http://www.chron.com/sports/columni...cer-survivor-Nene-12-for-12-game-11093488.php
http://nba.nbcsports.com/2017/05/27...to-lakers-trade-until-mitch-kupchak-panicked/ http://www.silverscreenandroll.com/...d-stern-lamar-odom-mitch-kupchak-podcast-veto https://nunyodemasio.com/podcast/david-stern Let's talk about the infamous proposed trade. You finally commented on it recently but some might say you came across as a lawyer on OJ's dream team. You navigated in semantics. Can you explain what happened to the fan on the street? What trade are you talking about? The Lakers 3-team trade. Ohhhh. OK. The NBA owned New Orleans & I was running the team for the owners. There had been a promise made to Chris Paul that he would be traded. He had been a great player for New Orleans & a great community representative. But the trade was made without authorization of anyone who was in charge of supervising the team. At least the trade was shaped. It never became final because someone asked me as the owner's rep if we're going to do this trade and I said "No, we're not going to do it" so the trade was never made. But the GM wanted it to happen & was overruled. Yeah. There are lots of trades...there's no trade of a HOF player that isn't signed off by the owner. This owner's rep did not sign off on this trade. Why? Because we weren't getting enough in return. It was about ohhhh Luis Scola, Kevin Martin & Lamar Odom. In retrospect, 4 out of the 5 aren't in the league anymore. Just the guard in Miami. Dragic? Was he in that trade? OK. I don't remember. It was only based on what was & wasn't good for New Orleans. It had nothing to do with the Lakers at all. In fact, in the course of the weekend, we thought we could redo the deal. We really thought Houston would be ready to part with Kevin Lowry. We had a trade lined up for Odom that would have gotten us a good first round draft pick me. Not we but my basketball folks. Mitch Kupchak at the time panicked & moved Odom to Dallas so the piece wasn't even there for us to play with at the time. So that was it. Just about what was good for the then New Orleans Hornets. Seemed from afar, there was some miscommunication? The GM was empowered to make the trade. He wasn't. No he was not. Not empowered. Not that final trade but allowed to pursue a trade. Oh sure, that happens all the time. Wasn't he in constant communication with the league office? No he wasn't. In fact, the only time I learned about it was after we finished a board meeting where we approved a settlement of the CBA. We heard it released, it was on twitter or something like that. It was clear the GM & the GMs of the Lakers & Rockets were trying to make it seem like a fait accompli & figured they could put enormous pressure on me to let the trade go through. Would you agree there was an inherent conflict of interest with your role? Same as when Bud Selig was the owner rep for the Montreal Expos & when Gary Bettman was the owner rep for the Arizona Coyotes. I would agree but someone has to do the dirty work. It's a unique situation, probably will not happen again, ... I would not think so. ...even though Lakers fans won't forgive you anytime soon. I love them anyway. I find it ironic because you supposedly have favored big market teams for quite a while & on this one... Yeah, supposedly. Didn't favor anyone on this one. I just favored New Orleans. Contrarian take but I don't think the Lakers would have transformed into a super team. Next year, they had Kobe, Dwight & Pau and still struggled. I know too much. I can't discuss it. Jerry Buss was a good friend & I knew what was in his mind. He understood what I had to do in that circumstance.
thing about picks in these trades, you dunno what the other team would pick. you cant say they'd pick royce white
