[OFFICIAL] Russell Westbrook as a Los Angeles Laker thread

I thought the Brooklyn chaos was the greater, but the Lakers internal issues may be even more explosive.

Seems to me like every time a player gains access to also running the team, bad things start to happen.

In this case, that player is 37 and decline after this year is likely. Ditto for the following years. Which team will be the first to say no to Lebron? Determine for themselves Lebron's future is too short to continue to bow to his wishes? Run the Lakers even deeper into luxury tax territory and further deplete what few tradable assets they have left? No question teams make concessions when that guy is 27.

I dunno how this will turn out, but I dont see a way everyone ends up happy. So maybe the question is, who will be the most unhappy when this thing runs its course?

1) LeBron? AD?
2) Lakers ownership?
3) Lakers Brass? (Gm, staff)
4) Laker Fans?

 

Bad things start to happen

Like winning a title lmao

 

Westbrook experiment not working. Even with AD injured. You think Lebrun and Westbrook would be enough to win games

 

LOL

Spoiler

 

Russ continues to torpedo his organizations

 

https://theathletic.com/3144921/202...kers-draw-the-line?source=user-shared-article

 

Evil Rich Paul is poised to invading Lakerland. Cold War II incoming!

No wonder gas and grocery prices are skyrocketing!

 

I am a Lebron fan, but even I can say he has gotten drunk with power, and it's going to ruin his legacy.

 

No one in LA should be surprised by any of this. Once LeBron picked to live in LA and play for the Lakers he had that organization wrapped around his finger. It only magnified after they won the Mickey Mouse championship. Jeanie Buss and the Lakers were so desperate to get the team back into elite status that they basically sold their proverbial soul to LeBron and his agency. Cleveland is fortunate enough that their rebuild looks to have only taken 3 years (LeBron left in 2018) and Miami had strong enough leadership in Riley/Spolestra to prevent that team from bottoming out. The Lakers don't have draft 1st round picks to use for the next few years, they have a hobbling All-Star in AD that should have been traded this year, and they don't have any young talent they can have hope to lead the franchise.

 

This is seriously what LeBron has done throughout his career. He forced Cleveland to go out and get the players that he wanted, then bailed to Miami when it started falling apart. He did the same to Miami and the same to Cleveland again.
He's a good player, but man I think he is so overrated. He holds the entire league hostage to get players that he wants, forces ways to only ever play with other great players, is a malcontent when his team starts struggling and then leaves it as a mess to do the same thing all over again on another team by holding another group hostage.
The argument against that is going to be "yeah but.. ringzzz". Which I get. But he has cherry picked his pick of teammates for over a decade now which, to me, drastically limits how impressive his overall achievements have been

 

LeBron is not overrated in terms of his basketball talent.

He is the king of the new breed of NBA "empowered" superstars. If the league doesn't do anything to curb this "empowerment" of players and agents, it will only get worse.

 

Sometimes I wonder if Silver actually sees all this drama as good for business in terms of keeping our morbid attention.

 

There's actually nothing they can really do. This is just the reality of the modern era of the league.

 

Or it could be that the league, the CBA, and society have changed a lot in fifteen years?

 

Laker "fans" turning on LeBron while also making Kobe seem like some kind of saint is hilarious.

 

The Lakers choose Kobe over Shaq, which in hindsight was the correct move. Kobe did demand to be traded unless the team improved, but he didn't use his agent to orchestrate specific player moves. He let the Lakers's front office shop for the grocerie, so to speak. So, yeah you're right, but LeBron is at a level of meddling that no player has ever reached nor will ever reach.

What I find funny is how Kobe has risen in all-time rankings since his death. IMO, he might be top 20, but he's now top 10 in lists.

 

IIRC the Lakers insistence on keeping him a Laker (especially after the Howard/Nash failure) at a max contract also torpedoed the team's ability to create cap room to retool the roster. Sure plenty of teams have paid their franchise star even past their prime (e.g. Dirk) but keeping Kobe in a Laker uniform--cost by damned--eventually led them to where they're at right now.

 

I thought of that, too. I figure Kobe might have been more worth it had he not torn his achilles.

 

The Mickey Mouse ring might have been a gift and a curse for the organization tbh. On one side it gave them another championship; on the other it basically extended LeBron's timeline with this organization because I don't think he'd still be a Laker if they didn't win that championship.