ESPN-What are Los Angeles Lakers thinking?

First bad move they have made in a while. Losing Odom is more significant than they think.

 

Dwight Howard.

 

They didn't really have a choice. He was disgruntled after the Hornets trade fell through and didn't show up to practice. He requested the trade. Granted they could have gotten a more tangible return for trading him, but it really depends on what they do with the trade exception which is pretty significant (8.9 million).

 

Horrible. Odom was a good asset.

 

lakers lost odom
we lost hayes
demps lost his mojo

all casualties of stern

 

This ^^^^^^^^

 

I have a hard time believing Lamar Friggen Kardashian would be difficult to console in this situation. He has two options, A. Stay in LA where people give a damn about you and your contributions, compete for a championship, etc. or B. Go to basketball hell and be forever labelled weak for requesting a trade after being in ONE proposed trade.

I mean, even Kobe wanted him to stay right? You don't think Kobe couldn't persuade him to stay?

Good grief.

 

The obvious answer is that they (management) didnt want him to stay. The same may be said of Pau.

Getting rid of both (in the right fashion) and getting Dwight I think would be their plan A.

 

The Lakers realize that their team, as it was constructed at the end of last season, will never win another championship and they are taking actions to try to get another superstar to L.A. They may fail but at least they have a plan.

 

good god man, go on a discount magazine subscription site, spend the $10 for an ESPN the Magazine subscription and you get insider for free

 

If it's any consolation to the Lakers, signing Josh McRoberts for the mini-midlevel exception is a pretty nice "get" for them. No joke. He'll be good for them.

 

QFT.

I'm OK with posting the occasional Insider article, but it seems as if every other day, you ask for an article post. If you enjoy them so much, why not spend a few bucks and support ESPN?

 

Looks to me like they're trading Pau and Bynum for Dwight and Hedo if Orlando is willing to do it. The Lakers, by the looks of it, are ready to do that deal, along with probably taking back Jameer or Redick with Lamar's TPE.

 

I would love to get in that deal and somehow get Gasol out of it.

 

I wouldn't do that if I were the Magic because of Pau's age and Bynum's knees. They need to convince DH about Chicago so they can get Noah, Deng, Asik, etc. If not that, go ahead and take the Nets' package and get it over with.

I totally agree with the earlier comment the Lakers know their roster is stale and the only way to break out of it is a blockbuster trade.

 

If The Lakers dont get Howard, they will look like idiots. Giving away Odom for McRoberts.

 

Spoiler

[rquoter]So … was this the beginning of the end?

I don't want to overstate things, because the Lakers will still be very good this year. And there is still time for them to make other transactions that get them back toward the front of the contender line.

But one has to wonder whether the baffling Lamar Odom deal is the first surrender in a backward creep away from the league's elite. The Lakers lost in four games in the second round of the playoffs a year ago and just traded the league's best sixth man to the team that beat them; at the moment, that leaves them with three good players and a bunch of mediocre-to-awful ones. Not one other player on the roster could plausibly claim to start for more than a few of the league's teams.

This might have been acceptable if, as first thought, the Odom deal was some kind of grand prelude to a deal for Dwight Howard, or a tactical move that set up some other jaw-dropping deal.

I wrote at the time that the Lakers had to be using the trade to go after Howard, because the only other alternative was that they were complete idiots.

Well, folks … time to consider that other alternative. There's been an ongoing low-level concern in L.A. that once he got control of the reins Jim Buss would turn into Chris Cohan South, and this isn't going to allay those fears one bit.

The Odom deal is shocking on a number of levels. For starters, this was a flat-out salary dump by the richest team in the league. There wasn't even some kind of maybe-he-works-out rookie flotsam coming back; all the Lakers got was a first-round pick that will be 21st or later in the draft. Some prize.

Oh, they also got a trade exception, and that may be helpful at some point … but it won't bring back a player nearly as good as Odom. Just look at the difficulty that teams like Cleveland and Toronto have had trying to use an even larger exception than L.A.'s. The Lakers, by the way, already had an exception nearly as large from trading Sasha Vujacic last spring, and have shown no inclination to use it.

Which reminds us that this isn't the Lakers' first dip in the salary-dumping pool. They've made a trade like this each of the past four years: Chris Mihm, Vladimir Radmanovic, Sasha Vujacic and now Odom.

You see stories leaking out trying to sell the idea that this wasn't insane -- Odom didn't stay in great shape, his TV stuff was a distraction, he's 31 -- and I would add to that the statistical observation that he's a Fluke Rule player and has virtually no chance of shooting as well next season.

With all that said …

They sent their fourth-best player to the team that knocked them out of the playoffs in four games and is the defending champion, and got virtually nothing in return. Several other teams were under the cap or had large trade exceptions and could have taken Odom; none has given any indication that the Lakers ever called them. That, combined with the hurried nature of the deal, leaves the impression that the Lakers' "shopping" of Odom consisted of Buss having one phone call with Mark Cuban and calling it good.

So what, exactly, are they doing?

We'd all like to think this is part of some larger plan to lure Howard, but the Odom trade makes no sense as part of such a plan. If you buy the premise that getting Howard required that the Lakers had to trade two of their three bigs (Andrew Bynum and either Odom or Pau Gasol) and leave the other one as a starter alongside Howard, then this trade is a head-scratcher.

And if you're thinking the trade exception from Dallas will help them swallow Hedo Turkoglu's contract, it doesn't. The Lakers get an exception for $8.9 million; Hedo makes $10.6 million. Lakers fans keep asking me whether the Odom exception can be combined with the earlier exception from dealing Vujacic; it can't. So the best the Lakers can do, as far as helping Orlando's cap situation, is receive Jameer Nelson or J.J. Redick with the Odom exception and then swallow Chris Duhon with the Vujacic exception.

(Somewhat related side note: There were reports that Turkoglu had a trade kicker in his deal that would change his cap number, but that bugger already kicked in when he went from Toronto to Phoenix. He's on the books at $10.6 million in any trade).

What we're left with is two possibilities. First, that the Lakers intend to trade Bynum and Pau for Howard, with other contracts included on both sides to make it cap-kosher, and they figure just about any cheap power forward will work for them as long as they have Kobe and Dwight as the centerpieces.

Second, that the Lakers think they can get Howard for Bynum straight up. Personally I find this daffy, especially since the Lakers have no free-agent leverage. It's one thing for Carmelo Anthony to strong-arm his way to New York when the Nuggets know he can sign with the Knicks after the season, but that possibility doesn't exist for Howard -- the Lakers won't have cap room until 2014-15. (Well, unless they plan on using their amnesty exception on Kobe Bryant. I'm thinking that's a long shot).

In the meantime, are the Lakers content to just be Kobe, Pau, Bynum and a bunch of flotsam? They already dumped Odom for pennies for the dollar, but there's plenty more evidence that they're in cost-cutting mode. The Lakers let Shannon Brown walk with hardly a whimper and, perhaps more amazingly, have shown no inclination to use their midlevel or biannual exceptions.

Even the nixed Chris Paul trade was a stealth salary dump: The Lakers were sending out nearly $27 million in contracts and only taking back $16 million. It was puzzling then that the Lakers were so willing to include Odom rather than just trading Pau for CP3 straight up, but now we know why: Even while making a glitzy move, they were slashing costs.

Needless to say, this is beyond bizarre. I know it's still money, and the Lakers remain $12 million over the luxury-tax threshold -- a number that will likely go up once they add a veteran or two. I'm sure they want to get their financial house in order before the more draconian tax levels hit in 2013-14, and that they need to begin thinking about a post-Kobe future.

Nonetheless, we're talking about a franchise that's getting a gazillion dollars in television rights and has a loudly ticking clock on its contender status in the form of Bryant's knees.

Yes, they're older now, and also not nearly as deep. Nonetheless, a week ago their championship window remained open. I don't understand why they're in such a rush to slam it shut.[/rquoter]

 

Lakers could trade Bynum and Gasol to the Lakers for Dwight, Hedo, Duhon, QRich, and one of either Jameer or J.J. This would clear Orlando's salaries, get them underneath the lux tax, for a quick rebuild and allow them to trade one of either Bynum or Pau for young talent and draft picks and even go after guys on the amnesty wire if they wanted to.