Shelburne: Lakers Now Worried Ball/Kuzma Immaturity May Scare Off LBJ/PG

He doesn't want Lavar nonsense thats for sure, but if Lonzo is on the team its going to happen anyways all season long 24/7, its a guarantee. I think another underrated part of the Lakers organization right now is Magic Johnson who I think is a bona-fide idiot. He's made many questionable comments in the past about player talents, he was fined TWICE this past year for tampering and he was completely classless when he was celebrating on twitter after D'Antoni was fired. I think everyone still thinks of Magic the player even though he has no credible track record as an executive. The Lakers organization is turning into the Knicks IMO. I guess thats what happens with 2nd generation owners. I'm honestly afraid of the same with the Ferttita family, I don't trust anything after Tilman and we still have yet to know what Tilman can really do himself.

 

lol holy hell this dude sounds like a hater. You spewing a lot of nonsense.

 

I don’t know. A lot of people are so down on Lonzo I find it ridiculous. The off court drama for sure is a red flag but as far as his play goes I still think he has the potential to be a very good point guard. I’m not a Lakers fan. I respect that you disagree with the value of the Lakers players but if you’re going to claim that an Eric Gordon package is better than the Lakers young guys then you should look into what homerism means.

 

Have you talked to any Lakers fans recently? Just go read their sub-reddit, most of them believe they are what the Rockets were this past year. They believe it'll be just them and GS.

 

They're clueless.

 

Of course, they're an entitled fan base that is still resting on the laurels of their history before the present NBA. I find it funny how people never recognize what an advantage franchises like the Lakers and Yankees had in the infancy of their respective leagues, advantages that have nearly been destroyed as their leagues have modernized. There's a reason the Lakers and Knicks haven't signed any top-tier FA in over a decade or more. All of these players make plenty of money to live where they want in the off-season and the other part of the year is spent traveling to other cities for games or practicing in a gym.

 

i was mostly making the point that if say the spurs were looking to trade kawhi, then the celtics can offer a significantly better package (especially considering that they made an offer to the spurs back in february). the fact that kawhi doesn't have a no trade clause means he can't really choose his team, and i'm fairly sure the celtics would welcome the potential flight risk of kawhi by exposing him to their winning culture, tradition, and also having one of the best coaches in the league.
if the lakers were to do a sign and trade for either paul george or kawhi, they would have to match salary (assuming they sign lebron)... only way they can match salary with those rookie contracts would be to include deng.. and deng + lakers filler (even if okc or san antonio were somewhat high on lonzo, and kuzma - which they are not) can be argued that its a worse package than eric gordon + 2 future firsts, especially since okc and san antonio are still in contention, given okc's financial commitment to westbrook, and popovich saying he will coach only for a few more years.

 

lonzo shooting 35% from the field, and 45% from the ft line isn't hating. if he had a dribble drive game like de'aron fox then maybe you could see some potential... but lonzo doesn't even have that. he has great vision and instincts, i'll give him that. but that just makes him a poor-man's rubio.

putting up stats on a bottom-feeder squad like what the lakers were last year means you probably shouldn't look too deep into the counting stats.
hell, zhou qi could probably avg 10 ppg with 7 rebounds and 2 blocks if he as getting the same amount of run as lonzo and kuzma on that lakers team.
a lot of nba players can put up decent stats on losing/going-nowhere teams. same reason why westbrook's triple doubles don't really amount to much in the long run other than he put up a triple double.

 

they must be on that lavar ball. heard its one helluva drug. makes people hallucinate more than any other drug out there

 

You guys are crazy if you don’t think they could become an elite team basically instantly. Lebron, george plus a few minimum guys, trade Lonzo, etc.

 

That tweet was done BEFORE he was "hired" by the Lakers. If that was bad for the "company", why would they want to get him in the first place? Wouldn't that make the "company" look real stupid?

 

Agree, Kuzma is a modern player with skills. Would do well with LeBron.

 

Whoa, I was with you until this. Might want to slow your roll a bit. But yeah, Magic has proven to be a scrub, as executives go.

 

I’ve never really understood the hate on Lonzo for what his dad says.... and to be honest there are a million lavars out there, he’s just the one the media entertains.

Anyway the lakers will be top 3/4 in the west if they add George/Bron.... easily. I still don’t think they’ll be better than us

 

They could be. We have two great players, one good player in capela and then the rest are mediocre.

The lakers could easily fill in their roster and be a top 2 team, especially because lebron is the best player. It really depends entirely on what else they did. They could do the same type of deal where they pay a team to take Deng, combine that with ball and they can probably absorb a significant player.

 

when the smoke is going down

 

5:45 Tuesday

 

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...ked-los-angeles-lakers-tone-social-media-jabs

 

"Yeah, kids... we're trying to acquire big talent." Now we can only hope LaVar screws things up (and he's already spouting his opinion about what Lebron should do for his legacy : https://sports.yahoo.com/lavar-ball-lebron-james-los-angeles-lakers-know-going-happen-181530777.html). From that article, and in case it wasn't posted already :