Lakerholics

I still feel like I’m dreaming and am waiting for confirmation that the Lakers are really going to move LeBron to the four and AD to the five. I mean it totally makes sense. At 36, we don’t want to have LeBron get all the wear and tear of bringing the ball up and running the offense and being the primary playmaker. Not at 36. Nor if we can get a legitimate point guard who can shoot the three, get shots for himself and teammates, take care of the ball, and defend both guard positions.

And I’ve been on the AD at the five train from the day we traded for him from the Pelicans. You know these rumors would not be out there unless the Lakers had talked to AD about playing the five and gotten his and LeBron’s approval for the changes. Finding a 3&D small forward is going to be a lot easire than finding a stretch center who can also defend the perimeter, which we don’t really need since we have Anthony Davis.

At any rate, I’m eagerly waiting for the other shoe to drop and can’t wait for the draft and free agency. If true, Stein’s report is the biggest BOMB to hit the Lakersverse this offseason. By repositioning LeBron and AD, the Lakers dramatically changed how the Lakers will play going forward and what they will be trying to do this summer via trade and free agency.

I don’t read this as “Lakers abandoning centers” but rather “AD willing to play center like he did prior to the shortened off-season”. As an old NBA beat reporter for the NYT and ESPN I’m sure Marc has his sources but he’s not NBA news ground zero, either. Ill be happy if we bolster the 5 with a defensive-minded center, keep Gasol and get AD to play 20-30% of his minutes at the 5 during the regular season. same for LeBron. We can go skilled for roughly a quarter-ish of an NBA game and Ill be satisified that were both preserving them for the playoffs but also letting that line up generate chemistry. One thing that really needs more attention for this to work is having plus-sized players at other positions. That means no Kemba or Lowry (and if one is hinest both are out of this summer’s price range). In short, I think this signals a willingness to repeat what worked in the banner run and not a whole new Laker world.

Here’s a question: What percentage of the game is workable for this to work, based on match ups of course? I would say that this would work for 30-40% of the game, at best. I’m not so much worried about AD (who picks up knick knack injuries no matter what) but LeBron whom has had injuries that devastated our playoff chances in 2 out of 3 seasons as a Laker. Do we really want LeBron hanging with players his size or is it preferable for him to bully guards and small forwards? This is where keeping Kuzma comes into play, you can’t play Kyle against centers, we saw how disasterously that went. But he can hang with a lot of the 4’s in the Association which makes trading him more of a concern since it’s unlikely we’d be bringing back a large player in the doing. Those are my larger concerns, more on the LBJ side than the AD one. I’ve come to a peaceful place in regards to AD getting hurt and sitting out a few games. Just need to avoid major injuries.

The more I look at the extremely limited minutes Anthony Davis played at the five this season, the more I’m convinced that the Lakers’ front office has talked itself into believing that Anthony Davis should play the four full time going forward with little time at the five. That’s what everything is telling me right now.

AD only played 10% of the time at the five during the last regular season and just 20% in the playoffs, dramatic reductions in minutes at the five compared to 40% and 60% during the Lakers championship season, although some of that was due to injuries.

Then there is the crazy fascination the Lakers have with Andre Drummond, promising him he would get starter role and minutes if he joined the Lakers. Obviously, Drummond was another move by the Lakers designed to accomodate AD’s prefernce to play the four. The rumblings about re-signing Drummond only confirm the Lakers’ position of not wanting Davis to have to play the five anytime.

Frankly, if you look at how dominant the Lakers were in the bubble and how good Anthony Davis was playing small ball five in the playoffs, it’s lunacy that the Lakers have bought into the idea that their best path forward is for AD to play the four and not the five even though it’s his and the team’s best option.

Before they make any big offseason moves, the Lakers need to get their own priorities straightened out. Davis is willing to play the five and the Lakers need to sit down and work out a way he can do that without getting worn out or injured because of the physicality. That’s a problem that can and should be be solved this offseason. It’s the big decision the Lakers need to make.

There you go, Tom. Great analysis. A bruising power forward who can stretch the floor coupled with AD at the five will do the job. However, the task before us now is to gauge the availability of such power forwards. Forwards like Randle will be hard to pry from their teams. I will let Rob work his magic on those things. Also, the problem I sense with AD is both psychological and physical. Psychologically he may be affected by rash of injuries he had to deal with in the past and that may take away an edge from him. Physically, his frame will not handle the rigors of banging down low. That is why having a bruising power forward will help ease that burden.

Here’s the flip side: it’s likely, highly likely, that they have an agreement with both AD and his reps that they will carry a center on the roster for the regular season. Davis, dealing with a serious calf/Achilles injury, will not be re-thinking his declaration of wanting to be a power forward anytime soon. Prior to the injuries we were rolling with the team last season: one of the top records in the Association, top ten offense and defense. So, if the goal is to prevent injuries, the notion he should switch and bang with players like Ayton, Lopez, Howard, The Joker, etc. is flawed. At least, and this is the other major counter point, during the regular season.

I get the logic behind this and it’s the same on the Bucks when you see Giannis at the 5: they go from slow to lethal. Suddenly the entire floor opens up for Giannis to drive to the hole and dish to shooters, the defense needs to be better on the rebounding front because, well, lotta little dudes out there.

AD at the 5 is a playoff weapon, at least for the duration of this contract. I just don’t see a world where he amends that stance unless we’re in danger of missing the playoffs entirely. The man heroed through his injury this season and should not have. He obviously has a strong desire to win and, like many-many-many pro athletes, is determined to do it “his way”. I respect that, mainly because he’s willing to adapt in the playoffs when called upon to do so. The annual “LakerTom calling for AD to man the 5” article changes none of that.

I sometimes wonder why I keep trying when people comment but don’t even read the article in its entirety and then back claiming I want Davis to “switch and bang with players like Ayton, Lopez, Howard, The Joker.” Frankly, that’s pretty insulting.

What I suggested is that we have a backup defensive center like Nerlens Noel or a power forward like PJ Tucker to defend Embiid, Jokic, and Ayton or trap or double him to force the ball out of his hands and prevent him from abusing Davis. Two thirds of the center matchups around the league aren’t any huge burden for AD to guard the center.

You say the Lakers want Davis just to play the five in the playoffs but that’s not what we saw in the playoffs. We saw Davis hardly play any minutes at the five. While he was injured, we saw the same pattern as we saw all regular season, which was Gasol, Harrell, or Drummond played 90% of the minutes compared to just 60% of the minutes by McGee and Howard. That sounds more like a coach and team that doesn’t want to play AD at the five at all. Why else all the talk about re-signing Drummond. All this despite Davis stated over and over he has no problem playing the five when needed.

Frankly, I’m not sure where all the push is coming from. Maybe your glasss half empty crystal ball. Davis continually says he has no problem playing the five but you now claim inside info that it is his camp that it’s “highly likely, that they have an agreement with both AD and his reps that they will carry a center on the roster for the regular season.” That’s breaking new that even Woj and Shams haven’t gotten yet. Thanks for sharing.

Lakers need to wake up because AD should be playing the center. It’s his best position.
AD at the five is the Lakers best lineup. And the Lakers can make roster and matchup moves to prevent playing the five being a higher risk of injury than playing the four. Right now, the Lakers aren’t saying or doing things that tell us they’re going to play AD at the five at all, whether regular season or playoffs. That’s the reality they’re heading into this offseason with which is going to lead to more mistakes trying to find a center so AD can hide at the five.

Good write up although not particularly revelatory. Everybody knows what it SHOULD be, but like in every other aspect of life..it ain’t necessarily what’s gonna happen. Dude simply doesn’t wanna spend alotta time playing center, especially during the regular season. So that’s the baseline the Lakers FO has to start from.

The crazy part to me is that his recent spate of injuries hasn’t been the result of banging with the big boys. Seems like it’s always from him being on the move driving, slicing, cutting, etc. Hell..he got hurt shooting a fallaway 3 and bumping into the damn scoring table.

Bigger picture is what’s gonna happen when LeBron is gone and AD is thust into the leadership role. No matter where AD plays now, LBJ is gonna make it work because he’s just that kinda force of nature. Without that all time great catalyst on board, I really wonder what we do to avoid turning into the AD-era Pelicans.

I think he should play home games only during the regular season as the small ball 5, sitting out all road games and back-to-backs, with a minutes limit around 35, preferably less. Outside of two healthy seasons in New Orleans, the guys been made of glass. Treat him like Kawhi. Act accordingly.

Thought provoking article, Tom! I enjoyed reading it. I agree with you on the desirability of AD playing 5. But the rub is he doesn’t seem to agree, at least not fully, and not during the regular season.
But I think a happy medium is possible. Convince AD to play 5 half the time 4 the other half. We need to get someone like Dwight Howard to take some pressure off of AD during the regular season. During the playoffs I’d play AD at the 5 80 percent of the time.
Mark Stein is right, in that AD is best at 5 and Bron is best at 4. So the most important task of us this free agency is to get an agile playmaker, like Lonzo. That will certainly unlock a lot of potential. We should be willing to give the Pels anyone but AD & Bron to get Lonzo, who’s a restricted FA. ‘d like us to get Lonzo (even at 22 M), Dwight (on vet min) and a pair of shooters on vet min (like Reddick, Svi).

With all the talk of the Lakers possibly looking to sign-and-trade for various star free agents like Kyle Lowry or Chris Paul, I took a close look at what their salary cap situation would be if they signed-and-traded for Kyle Lowry vs. trading for Terry Rozier and Buddy Hield, who are not free agents and wouldn’t hard cap the team at $143 million for the season. The results are extrememly interesting.

First, the hard cap situation. If the Lakers were to give Lowry a 3-year contract starting at $22 million per year, they would be able to bring back THT and Caruso with raises to $10 and $5 million respectively, guarantee McKinnie’s $1.9 million, sign their first round draft pick, and have amost all of their $9.5 million MLE to sign lower priced free agents while remaining under $143 million. Luxury taxes would only be $42,000.

Were the Lakers to target a more expensive free agent like Chris Paul who makes $44 million, they would not be able to re-sign THT or Caruso, guarantee McKinnie, keep their first round pick, or use any of their MLE. They would basically have to fill out their roster with vet minimum deals and might only be able to afford 13 or 14 roster players.

The better solution by far would be to avoid sign-and-trades for other team’s free agents, bring back their key free agents, and trade for a new starting backcourt like Rozier and Hield. In that case, the Lakers would have a salary cap of $157 million and a luxury tax bill of $33 million for a grand total payroll of $190 million, almost $50 million higher than if they were hardcapped.

Would the Lakers be willing to pay $50 million more for a better and deeper roster? If we believe Jeanie Buss and the Lakers understand that LeBron’s championship window is rapidly shrinking, the answer has to be yes. It’s not as bad as the tax situation is for the Warriors or Nets but it will be a strong third on the list of teams paying luxury taxes but the Lakers are clearly in a win now mode so bring it on.

Been saying from the get-go we should avoid hard capping ourselves unless it is for an elite talent. Not many players fit that and/or will be available this summer. The best thing about re-signing most of our guys and not hard capping ourselves is that we can trade any of our players after the calendar year turns over. All contracts will be movable by mid to late December. I can’t see a scenario where being hard capped is an advantage.

I look at the 4 teams paying the luxury tax this season..GSW, Nets, Clippers, Bucks. All 4 are top contenders for the ring (GSW if Klay is healthy). It’s not overspending when it makes you better. I would hate to see Jeanie intentionally handicap us for a player like Kyle Lowry and also lose good, cost-friendly role players in the process. Uninformed Laker fans will probably give her a pass because the narrative will be “Hey, we spent all we could and reached the cap” but we know it isn’t the truth.

It’s really starting to feel like this vast Lakers warchest is at least overstated. Despite the big TV deal, there’s all this infighting among the siblings grinding things down in the background. They also don’t have the multi-billion empires outside the association. I think they don’t spend money on stuff sometimes because it doesn’t make sense to them.

KYLE LOWRY TRADE

With Lowry, Schroder, and Horton-Tucker now free agents, there’s no way to resurrect the trade the Lakers and Raptors almost made at the trade deadline. Frankly, both teams probably regretted not making the trade in retrospect.

A straight double S&T of Schroder for Lowry, however, might be an excellent deal for both teams. Lowry and Schroder would obviously both have to agree to be sign-and-traded. The Raptors want to help Kyle go where he wants out of loyalty and would be happy to get a young point guard like Schroder to replace Lowry. The win-now Lakers would be happy to get a proven winner like Lowry. Both teams would be glad not to lose a star point guard for nothing.

BUDDY HIELD TRADE

This is a trade that really makes sense for both the Lakers and the Kings and should be at the top of the list for both teams. Kuzma enjoyed his best season playing for Luke Walton and should be a perfect fit starting at power forward for the Kings. Harrelll would also be a great fit for Sacramento backing up Richaun Holmes, assuming they re-sign him.

For the Lakers, Buddy is the high volume, high percentage 3-point shooter they need to upgrade shooting guard and hlep modernize the Lakers 3-point attack. With Halliburton’s ascent, Hield is too expensive to come off the bench for the Kings.

RUSSELL WESTBROOK TRADE

Call me crazy but if there is a legitimate superstars out there for whom the Lakers could actually trade, it might be Russell Westbrook. Like CP3, pundits had written off Russ last year as being an albatross contract and a player who couldn’t win.

While I’m not a fan of Russ’ 3-point shooting and often question his shot selection and ball security, there’s no denying that he still has a lot in the tank and the idea of adding a triple-double machine like Westbrook to James and Davis is intoxicating.

The move would hard cap the Lakers and cause them to rely on vet minimum players for the rest of the roster but it would also give them a legitimate Superstar Big Three to challenge the Brooklyn Nets. The team that wins the championship next season will be a team with three genuine superstars.

GRAHAM AND MONK TRADE

This is another trade that makes a lot of sense for both teams. The Hornets have a surplus of guards and need forwards and centers. They showed interest in both Kuzma and Harrell last season.

While Charlotte has cap space, they will be looking to sign a center to replace Cody Zeller. Meanwhile, with the emergence of LaMelo Ball, they can move Terry Rozier to shooting guard and thus can trade both Devonte Graham and Malik Monk.

Graham would be the perfect point guard for a Lakers team with LeBron James. Devonte hiet 3.3 of 8.7 threes per game at 37.5% and Malik hit 2.0 of 5.1 for 40.1%. That’s exactly the kind of high volume, high percentage 3-point shooting the Lakers need.

One of the fascinating things that could easily happen this summer is a lot of teams hanging onto their trading chips waiting to see if Dame or Beal or Kawhi will really become available. There may be a chance for the Lakers to pull off a surprise deal for a second tier star like Lowry, Hield, Porzingis, Rozier, ior Walker because competing teams may not want to wait for bigger fish. That could benefit the Lakers if they push hard for a couple of deals.

Rob could certainly call up Masai and see if he were uinterested in a Schdoder-Lowry Double S&T? Or Sqcramento about a Kuzma for Buddy Trade, Washington about a Westbrook trade, or Charlotte about a Graham and Monk trade? The teams the Lakers will be competing with for these players are likely to be teams targeting bigger fish. This is why it doesn’t matter that other teams could make better offers for these players. The Lakers just have to have best offer made.

Soooo can we do 2 separate S&T’s? We can if we bring back a player under contract in at least one, I believe…

Before the last two years, sign-and-trades were rare transactions because teams didn’t want to get hardcapped, players who were free agents didn’t want to the team they were going to lose assets, and matching salaries can be difficult due to base year compensation rules for sign-and-trades. In fact, from 2015 to 2019, there were only four cases of sign-and-trades.

That all changed the last two years when there has been a renaissance in sign-and-trades with over a dozen happening the last two years, including several with superstars as NBA teams have been on trading binges looking to add superstars and build superteams. Win-Now approach has revived sign-and-trades.

The increased competition between big market teams looking to win has resulted in a race to sign big time stars that’s seen more superstars and all-star players traded than any time in the league’s history. Trades, including sign-and-trades, have essentiaslly replaced free agency as the favored method for acquiring elite players in the NBA.

A side effect of the competition for stars has been teams wanting to use the non-taxpayer version of the MLE, the BAE, and sign-and-trades to acquire players. All three of these moves automatically hard cap a team. In fact, over half of the teams in the NBA last season were hard capped.

One of the unsung benefits of being hard capped is that you can’t overspend on your own players. While hard cap used to be what everybody avoided, the economic losses due to Covid-19 have made being hard capped as a form of fiscal restraint adoped by teams to force them to be financially sound.

While Jeanie Buss has said the Lakers will do what they have to, you only have to look at the Warriors, who are so far over the cap that adding a $10M per year player would cost them $50M in luxury taxes. In fact, there luxury tax bill will be between $50M and $100M. That’s not a sustainable situation even for a team with great revenues like the Warriors.

Bottom line, the Lakers need to take advantage of both outbound and inbound sign-and-trades to upgrade their starting roster. Otherwise, there is no way they can dramatically improve their roster. This years contenders were much better than last year’s and the competition will only get even better next season. Lakers need to go big, even if it costs them to be hard capped.

How the NBA Fell in Love With Sign-And-Trades, and Why They’re Not Going Anywhere by Chris Howson-Jan https://t.co/tjC4BXj8pc

— LakerTom (@LakerTom) June 29, 2021

It’s a solid tool and one that shouldn’t be wholly ignored. In our case it has to be used judiciously and wisely.

One would think that, in regards to the Lakers current capped out situation and based on the level of talent we could likely S&T for that an argument could be made to simply sign our own free agents and sit tight until December when the contracts become tradeable with zero repercussions. It’s not like the team was struggling pre-injuries, we were rolling.

If we S&T it has to be to bring in an elite player which feels nigh impossible based on our tradable assets (can’t trade Trezz if he doesn’t opt in and agree, which, based on his social media feels unlikely), Schroder would have to be making a mint and might be choosy about where he plays knowing he has a ton of leverage.

At any rate, I hope we use that tool as intelligently as possible. I’m not wholly against running it back with a few tweaks but would be more in favor of S&Ting Schroder into the Knicks cap or something like that as it would create a trade exception we could use at any point in the season. Convincing a small market team to HC themselves isn’t outside the realm of possibility, not sure another mass media market team wants to put the restraints on right when they are ascending again, same as us.

Like we’ve been saying for awhile there are areas that we cannot hard cap ourselves in: training staff, assistant coaches, etc. We need to be an elite team in those areas to be more attractive to guys who we may be asking to take a pay cut to stay.

Lakers trading chips in no outbound sign-and-trades:

KCP – $13.0M
Kyle Kuzma – $13.0M
Marc Gasol – 2.7M

Assuming Harrell declines player option.

Lakers additional trading chip with outbound sign-and-trades:

Dennis Schroder – $23.0M
Montrezl Harrell – $15.0M
THT – $10.0M
Alex Caruso – $6.0M

…………………..

Lakers targets if no inbound sign-and-trades:

Myles Turner
Buddy Hield
Malik Beasley
Kemba Walker

Lakers targets with inbound sign-and-trades:

Kyle Lowry
Chris Paul
Lonzo Ball
Tim Hardaway, Jr.
John Collins
Jarrett Allen
Nerlens Noel
Norman Powell
Spencer Dinwiddie
Victor Oladipo
Derrick Rose
Richaun Holmes
Kendrick Nunn
Lauri Markkanen
Bobby Portis
TJ McCollum
Reggie Jackson
Terance Mann
Evan Fournier
Kelly Oubre, Jr.

I don’t think we necessarily need the shackles of the hard cap to restrain us from going too far into the luxury tax. Despite being one of the most valuable franchises in all of sports, we often pinch pennies..many times needlessly and as a detriment to the team. Jeanie ain’t going too deep into the tax.

Here’s my biggest issue with all these trade scenarios…Kuz, KCP, Dennis, Caruso..they’ve all pretty much hit their ceiling. Teams don’t wanna trade premium assets for that. All those dudes we traded for AD were still on the come-up (and Rich Paul left NO No choice..lol). That’s why teams keep insisting on THT, still has potential. And Trez ain’t opting in to do us any favors. Probably our 3rd best player last year & we jacked him around at the end. Somebody gonna pay him.