if you saw/remember the Pacers game, he rolled down the middle a lot. But there was always Hibbert and/or a bunch of people waiting for him there, because Dwight is clogging the paint.
You people are living in 2009 dream land. Look at who the lakers have given up. Odom, Fisher, Bynum, etc. Once they leave Lakerland, they disappear. When was the last time an ex-laker actually performed? They know what they are doing when they get rid of a player and Gasol has shown all the warning signs.
shaq won a ring after leaving that being said, i abhor gasshole and don't want him anywhere near my rox...
Caron Butler for Kwame Brown. The Lakers make mistakes, but they can afford to make mistakes. By the way, no one in their right mind thought Derek Fisher was still good. They gave a pick to drop his salary and add Jordan Hill. That pick helped you get Harden.
That is correct and makes my point. They haven't let someone good go since 2003-2004. Since then they have traded Odom, Fisher, Bynum and Kwame Brown. Big names but not the same once they leave.
Im not sure how fair of an assessment that is. Yes you are correct that they have been lucky in the deals they made because of unforeseen factors that happened after, but its not like those players they traded had zero value, or that the other teams involved necessarily got bad value on their trade. Bynum was set to get a max contract next Summer from half the teams in the league before this latest unforeseen setback. Yes, the Lakers lucked out in trading Bynum right before he started having this latest set of issues with his knees, but it all came down to luck. Had the trade not went down, the Lakers would have been more than content sticking with Bynum moving forward. Its not like they knew something that nobody else knew about Bynum's knees. Hell, Bynum could come back sometime after the all-star break, and still get a max contract next summer. That book has yet to be written IMO. Right now, yes it looks like the Lakers got extremely lucky that things worked out the way they did. Fisher was well past his prime, and they did a salary dump and rewarded the Rockets for it. Nobody got duped by the Lakers here. Actually Houston benefited from it when they were able to keep a young player out of the Harden trade by having that pick to offer instead. Kwame actually improved after leaving LA. He was well regarded as one of the more disappointing players in the league when he was traded, but made himself into a serviceable backup center in the NBA eventually. So has a "good" player left the Lakers in some time... not necessarily, but that doesn't mean that the deals that have been made have always been bad for the receiving party.
I think the contract scenario makes it hard not to be sort of a dump in a way because there are so few teams with the cap space to take on that contract that the receiving party definitely has some negotiating power. I dont think the receiving team in the deal will really have to give up much in the way of assets or they shouldn't. Not sure if that constitutes as a salary dump, but the deal could look close to it except if Atlanta gives up Josh Smith then at least LA has something to spin to their fans & the media.
Caron Butler for Kwame Brown before the 05-06 season -- that's as bad a deal as it gets. Yes they had some great deals and signings --- and not just in recent years. In large part because everyone wants to go there, and in large part because they could always abuse poor small markets. Some of those deals look horrible, but in many cases there was hardly any question who won the deal at the time of the trade. I could've told you that Howard for Bynum is a great deal, or that Bynum had injury risks, and I'm not an NBA GM.
Let's just agree that the Lakers don't give away good players. They also they are in a short window which makes them even less likely to give away a good player. If he's on the market for anything, and I mean anything we have short of Harden, then we don't want him because dumping their 19 million dollar staring PF on a team that is trying very hard to compete should be your last warning flag.
i just don't agree with it on many levels. it's been said before, but Pau could cost ~$90 mil next year, including tax, and he's misused. Those seem like pretty good reasons to consider a trade. Do you think if they had someone like Monta Ellis on their team next to Kobe -- another bad fit -- they wouldn't look at trades unless Monta was done? i also don't think that Morey is an idiot who'd finalize a deal without thoroughly investigating any flags and doing a medical check. Of all people, I doubt Morey operates on a notion "Ugh, this Mitch Kupchak guy has done some decent deals lately, he's might be smarter than me, he might make me look bad, I better not deal with him". and i don't agree that Kupchak has been such a great judge of talent and a trade god. He's fine, but he's made some bad mistakes in the past. If he wasn't running the Lakers, he'd be far less successful. His major "winning" deals have been nobrainers that simply abused small markets. He signed some nice vets that wanted to take a discount to play for the Lakers. And for all their spending power, he still has a ton of crap on his bench. In the meantime, just in the past 2 years, he let go of Shannon Brown and Gerald Green, both decent role players and upgrades over what they have, and gave up several 1st round picks for guys who were either utter failures or are no longer with the team. It seems like Kupchak isn't that perfect.
Surprised nobody has mentioned Pau lately since his value has been plummeting further. Seems Patterson, Morris, and expirings may actually be overvaluing Pau at this point.
Like the research Morey did on Royce? Morey is good but he is far from perfect. Cook + Aldrich + Douglas + White + Smith + Morris or Patterson = Pau...Or a similar package. Do you think the lakers are in for that? And what real benefit would he bring us? Decimate the bench and lose the $ flexibility for future deals? Now that doesn't sound like Morey or Les. The lakers are looking to dump Pau and his recent play is making it harder and harder for them to find a taker. It won't be and shouldn't be the Rockets.
I thought this was a revelation over in the Royce White thread. Nobody in the Rockets organization wanted Royce but McHale. McHale pushed for White over the objections of others. Everyone else took a pass, including Morey. Seems unfair to hang a headcase like White on Morey given those facts.
there's not much to say, he clearly doesn't belong there, and I don't see how he could start playing better. He may have some games where he'll hit long shots better, but that's not sustainable. If anything, I think it's more likely that it gets worse from now on as he gets more and more frustrated. D'Antoni clearly doesn't know what to do with him and wants a Shawn Marion+shooting type (he basically said so himself).
